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Payment Portals, Gateways & Merchant Accounts

website solutions

f you are going to collect money online for your goods or services you will hear terms that can confusing to say the least. We will try to offer a simplified version of what can be a complicted process. First, some simple defintions:

  • Payment Portal - This is your online store or website
  • Payment Gateway - A payment gateway is an e-commerce service which facilitates the transfer of information between a payment portal and a bank (merchant account).  It is the equivalent of a traditional credit card swipe machine which you find in most retail outlets.
  • Merchant Account - A type of bank account that will allow your business to accept payments by debit or credit cards.

So, how does it all work, anyway?

  1. A customer place an order on your website and inpuits their credit card information.
  2. The Payment Gateway and the order stays on your site then the web browser encrypts the information to be sent between the browser and your webserver.  This is done via SSL (Secure Socket Layer).
  3. The transaction details are then forwarded to the payment gateway.
  4. After a number of steps are taken to validate the payment, the payment gateway connects to the merchant account to finalize the transaction.
  5. You get the results and decide whether or not to fulfill the order.

What about PayPal?

  • PayPal offers an integrated solution which some of our clients select where they can receive funds via PayPal or major credit card. The transaction occurs on the PayPal site which eliminates some of the security requirements if the transcatoin stays on your site.
  • PayPal does offer their own gateways to connect with major payment processors.  They are called Payflow Link and Payflow Pro.

What is Authorize.net?

Authorize.net is used by many of our clients as their Payment Gateway as they generally integrated very well with the shopping carts that we typically use.

Although this can be a very confusing process, at MTS we will work with you to help set up all of the necessary pieces to ensure both a smooth checkout experience for your customers as well as making the set-up simple and trouble-free.