Virtual Credit Card Terminal

A credit card "virtual terminal" for payment processing makes PCI certification inexpensive and easy. AND brings advantages to your business.

A virtual credit card terminal is a big deal.
It can eliminate the need for expensive PCI credit card compliance, organize your billling and invoicing, make your office more secure, and hardly cost anything.

With the PCI standard creating some expensive challenges for many credit card merchants, they may be the future for a lot of credit card merchants. They can save a ton of money over other types of terminals and over the cost of alternative ways to PCI compliance and certification.

They can also improve your business process.

Why is it important?

Credit Card Payment Processing Got Risker.

And then the PCI standard was required.

This all happened when we hooked it up to computers and stopped doing it all on paper. White collar computer theft got started. The mafia got interested. Thieves found that viruses could find the data and send it to them., giving them an automated, invisible robot for harvesting the valuable numbers.

The PCI standard is the response of the credit card companies to the increasing effectiveness of this organized crime. It really is only asking us to use sound and basic IT security and ocesses.

Definition: What is a virtual credit card terminal for payment card processing?

A "Virtual Secure Terminal" is a way to process credit cards so that the processing of the transaction does not occur in your office, but occures at another location, allowing you to benefit from the security and features available through the other location.

It works as a service that you pay for monthly, and you reach it through a web browser (i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, etc.).

It looks just like going to a web site, and you log in to use it. Depending on which one it is, it might also run without you being logged in, for example by running a regular monthly charge by itself, or creating invoices automatically at a time of the month, week, or year that you specify.

It is not considered a web site, however. It is considered an "application", just like Microsoft Word, Quickbooks, or Adobe Acrobat. What you don't see is the extensive security that such a site can offer. The features usually are not bad either.

The advantages of using a virtual terminal are:

PCI compliance becomes much easier when your credit card transactions are all in a virtual terminal, especially if you are entering card numbers on a keyboard in any way.
You have easy control of your customer credit card numbers without having the actual numbers inside your network, like in your POS system. Having the numbers inside your network is very expensive when you look at becoming PCI certified,
Recurring charges can usually be easily handled.
Automatic invoicing can save a ton of time and may look better than what you do now.
Easy to access records of previous billing statements and services provided.
Automatic emails to clients that a credit card is soon to expire, or did not go through.
Clients can log in to their account to change credit card numbers or make other changes
Affordable: Some are. Others are more expensive. Find an inexpensive one that does well everything you need it to do. They may exist
Other advantages depend on which virtual terminal you may use, and what is useful for your business.

The disadvantages of using a virtual terminal are:

It is not usually a POS, and doesn't try to be. You would continue using your POS as before, and just processing transactions inside the virtual terminal. For many, this is actually an advantage.
You need to adapt your business to using it. Perhaps you would need to use both a POS to track client records, and would use the virtual terminal just to run the charge and keep those records. This part is usually not too difficult.
You have to enter client information. Some, like Billing Orchard, have an import tool that make this simple.
Learning time. Some are quick and easy to learn, others are more complicated. Those that combine with a POS tend to be the more complicated.
Transaction speed. Not usually a big problem, but you have to wait for the transaction to happen across the Internet. This is not usually longer than using a swiper, however you need to log in unless the transaction is already entered to be run at a later time.
Some are not PCI compliant. Others say they are but are not. For example, it is possible for a company to be compliant for themselves to charge credit cards and hold the numbers in their network, but they still might not be compliant to hold your data. Look for a clear statement on their web site that they are PCI certified and take responsibility for the security of your data.
Make sure you get good support in case you have questions, Often it is available only by email. (Zirius can provide support for those that it recommends, and bills this quarter hourly.)
Cost. This is usually only an issue if you want it to be a POS as well as a virtual terminal, and then it can still be a very good deal for you. See what the options are from your current POS vendor.

The small business PCI advantage

To a small business, it can be scary and overwhelming. It can also be difficult for a business without its own I.T. staff to be confident it has taken the correct steps, since a large part of the certification process involves the business testifying that it has taken "appropriate" measures to provide specific protections, monitoring and review. This challenge increases because the requirements are written in the language of big company information technology. For most small companies and many IT consultants, it is pretty thick stuff to wade through.

Using a virtual terminal can eliminate a lot of the
PCI compliance issues.

The PCI requirements are designed to move businesses away from keeping cardholder data inside their local networks, unless they are willing to spend to make those networks very, very secure.

Virtual terminals put that burden on other businesses. We recommend that you consider them if you are small and enter credit card info on a keyboard.

If you want help in navigating this decision, we are available as consultants at 877-270-5557 Option 2.

Zirius recommends a particular virtual terminal Billing Orchard for many of our clilents, and we have used it ourselves for several years. It is simple but has many features, and gets you to the easiest PCI Level "A" quickly, and it is

simple to use,
inexpensive,
totally secure and private,
handles recurring or one-time credit card charges easily,
gives you a professional look to your clients, and
Immediately makes your credit card transactions PCI compliant

See user comments about this virtual credit card terminal.

Zirius provides live support for Billing Orchard on the phone and with live computer tech support on the phone and with remote connections.