When getting prepared to apply with a bank or ISO, there are a few things you will first want to estimate your average order size, and the average amount that you expect will run through the account each month. You may be tempted to round up in order to impress the bank and improve your chances: don’t do it. Most of the time you will be required to keep either a percentage of that monthly figure, or even one full month’s worth, in the account in order to safeguard against fraud. If you’ve given an inflated number, you will have more of your capital tied up in the account than you needed to. Don’t worry if you’re monthly credit card receipts go beyond your estimates. If there is a problem, the institution will contact you to work it out.
Order forms
In order to accept orders online and have your customers pay using Visa, MasterCard, or any other credit card, you will need an order form. Order forms are usually build using HTML (HyperText Markup Language, the programming language used by the World Wide Web community.) The order for should be encrypted in order to safeguard your customer’s account information, and engender trust in your business. Encryption is often done using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which is a protocol developed by Netscape to transmit private documents via the Web. If you notice that a website you log onto has an URL that starts with https rather than http, that site uses SSL.
Where do I get SSL?
Don’t know how to use SSL? Your hosting company can set up SSL service for you (for a fee), as can your ISP (Internet Service Provider.) You will also need a SSL Certificate, purchased from a company like VeriSign. This quote from their website explains Certificates very well:
“An SSL Certificate consists of a public key and a private key. The public key is used to encrypt information and the private key is used to decipher it. When a browser points to a secured domain, a secure sockets layer handshake authenticates the server and the client and establishes an encryption method and a unique session key. They can begin a secure session that guarantees message privacy and message integrity.”