It’s about a year and a half since I first posted this entry, but in light of the recent postal service disruption I think its well worth revisiting the topic.
UPDATE September 2011: Now we can offer Interac Online payments through your website as well, allowing clients to pay online directly from their bank account!
We are frequently asked by our clients – “How can we allow customers to make payments through our web site?”
Secure online payments can be set up with minimal effort and budget, and offers great benefits that include:Clients have an additional method to make payment, which is secure, convenient, and fast; The service is available 24/7, allowing customers to make payment by credit card whether someone is in the office or not (it’s always nice to check your email in the morning to find several payment receipts!); Just like offline credit card transactions, once the payment has been made online, it is final (it’s not “in the mail” and won’t bounce).To discuss how we can easily get this up and running on your web site, please contact us.
Here’s a video that demonstrates the process in action.
How does it work?
We have online payments on our own web site at seethroughweb.com, providing a page where a client enters an invoice number and amount, confirms, and then is transferred to the “hosted payment page” of InternetSecure (our “payment gateway”). Once on this secure page, the client then enters their full credit details and makes the actual transaction (see demonstration video below).
Most payment gateways offer the “hosted payment page” service; the advantage of using this service is that the gateway handles the technical and security requirements to perform the transaction, greatly reducing the cost and effort that might otherwise be required to set up online payments.
When the payment is complete, the customer receives a receipt by email, and we receive a “successful transaction” email that is very similar to their receipt. They are then transferred back to a “thank you” page on our website (or a “there was a problem” page if the transaction didn’t go through).
Payment processors we’ve worked with include: InternetSecure, Moneris, Beanstream, PSiGate, and Desjardins; and we can likely connect with most others as well. Paypal can also be used and is actually quite flexible, allowing customers the option of paying with their credit card or with their Paypal account if they have one.