Resources - E-Commerce
Last Modified 1/04/2005
Online Payment Processing with FileMaker Pro
SUMMARY: Accepting credit cards and processing payments with FileMaker Pro is easy thanks to the CCAuthorize plugin.
A Filemaker database is a good start to developing a system to handle e-Commerce transactions since there are third party plug-ins that authorize credit cards. My current recommendation for a FileMaker Plugin to authorize credit cards is Acme Technologie's CCAuthorize. CCAuthorize works seamlessly with at least 20 different Internet payment gateways such as Authorize.net, Verisign, LinkPoint and DataCash. These Internet payment gateways
allow you to authorize credit card transactions over the Internet instead of dialing out with a modem and phone line.
This is an especially ideal solution since many people have access to one phone line and one Internet connection.
The CCAuthorize plugin was first developed back in 1999. Several FileMaker Solution developers have incorporated it into their products to handle credit card, eCheck and ACH transaction processing including OptiGold ISP, the leading ISP Billing and Customer Management product from DigitalPoint Solutions, Inc..
Before you can process electronic payments, you'll need to obtain a credit card merchant account. You can discuss this with your current bank, search for offers on the Internet, or apply for an account through Acme Technologies' Merchant Bank Partners and get an Authorize.net account at the same time.CCAuthorize.
This past summer I helped one of my clients integrate CCAuthorize into the Filemaker system I developed for them, and here's what I learned from that process. The following elements are involved:
- FileMaker and CCAuthorize.
- A merchant account for accepting credit cards.
- And a payment gateway account such as LinkPoint, Authorize.net, or any other of the 20+ gateways which CCAuthorize supports.
My client already had a merchant account, so we only had to sign up for a secure payment gateway. The payment gateway company configures the account with them to settle funds into your merchant account (and the merchant account settles to your business banking account). You receive a login ID and password for the payment gateway, and that, combined with the name of the gateway you're using, all gets passed from FileMaker to the CCAuthorize plugin.
That's all there is to configuring all the various components. From there you just have to transmit the details of a transaction to CCAuthorize. The folks at Acme Technologies were very helpful during the time I was incorporating the CCAuthorize plugin into my client's solution, and they told me they frequently handle the entire integration process for customers when needed.
On a final note, if you're starting from scratch and do not presently accept credit cards, you can take an a la carte approach to obtaining the accounts you need by getting the merchant account from your bank, or any other supplier, then find a payment gateway separately. These days it seems many of the larger banks offering merchant accounts can also set you up with a secure payment gateway account. In the case of Card Services International mentioned above, they offer all types of terminal equipment (card swipe machines, manual entry, etc.) or you can get their LinkPoint Internet Gateway service when you apply for the merchant account.
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