Whether your business is running in a Retail, MOTO, eCommerce or Wireless environment USA ePay has multiple payment solutions which can help any type of business process transactions quickly, safely and securely.
Since 1998 USA ePay has been helping merchants process their online transactions safely and securely. A GorCorp Inc. company, who continue to stand by their motto to provide the best service possible.
USA ePay is proud to be one of the very first PCI Compliant gateways to become PCI Level 1 compliant. PCI compliance is the standard of security in the credit card processing industry and validates our commitment to the security of our customers. (Learn more.)
Learn more from the sections below to fully understand the power of USA ePay and what it can do for your business.
To understand the steps in processing a transaction, we use the simple diagram below. Please note that USA ePay is just one of the many entities involved in the process. A merchant is still responsible for their own merchant account.
Step 1: Consumer Gives Payment to Merchant
The first step involved in a transaction is the acceptance of credit card information by a merchant as a means of payment for products or services. The merchant can receive this payment through such methods as an Online Store, ePayment Form, Wireless Retail via Mobile Phone, Retail via Software, Retail via IP Terminal or Mail/Telephone Order via Virtual Terminal.
Step 2: Merchant Requests Authorization of Card
Once the merchant receives the credit card, an authorization must be given for the funds to be properly held for the merchant. This authorization request is performed by the USA ePay gateway which takes the card information securely and requests an authorization from the issuing bank of the credit card.
Step 3: Issuing Bank Gives Authorization of Card
If the card is approved, the credit card's issuing bank generates an authorization code and sends it back to the USA ePay gateway. This authorization, along with other security verification such as address verification (AVS) and card id verification (CVV), are then given back to the merchant.
Step 4: Merchant Ships/Gives Consumer Goods Purchased
Once the credit card has been authorized and the merchant has received the approval from USA ePay with an authorization code, it is up to the merchant to provide the consumer with the goods and services they have purchased.
Step 5: Settlement of the Transaction
Upon completion of the transaction and transfer of goods or services, the merchant must settle the transaction in order to complete the sale and initiate the transfer the funds from the consumer's credit card account to the merchant's account.
Step 6: Transfer of Funds from Issuing Bank to Merchant Bank
Typically 1-2 work days after a transaction is settled the issuing bank will transfer the authorized funds to the merchant's Merchant Service Bank.
Step 7: Deposit of Funds from Merchant Bank to Merchant
When the Merchant Service Bank receives the transaction from the credit card's issuing bank, it will then transfer those funds (minus fees) into the bank account on file for the merchant. This is the final step in the processing of a credit card transaction.
Secure ePayment forms are just a click away with
USA ePay. Every merchant can create an unlimited number of forms for their website and each form is automatically secure and follows the standards of PCI DSS compliance.
Safe, Reliable and Secure
Since every single payment form is hosted on the USA ePay secure servers, each one is automatically secured by the SSL certificates on these servers. The form also supports another layer of security with an MD5 encrypted hash that prevents vandals from misusing your merchant's form on a different website.
Along with the basic site encryption, the forms collect all the credit card data; not the merchant. Since the USA ePay forms collect the data, and they are hosted on the USA ePay servers, they automatically fall under USA ePay's PCI DSS compliance. The servers are also reliable in up-time so merchants don't have to worry about their payment form ever being down and unavailable.
Customize It Your Way
The ePayment form can be fully customized by the merchant to look just like their website. The form can be edited through an easy user interface that allows the merchant to choose things like colors, wording and simple functionality, or the form can be edited through an advanced HTML editor allowing the merchant to edit ANY part of the form professionally.
The form can also be told to react differently in different transaction scenarios. It can be told to post data to a database when the transaction is complete or it can send the merchant to a simple Thank You or Decline page. The ePayment form can do so many things and can be programmed and customized in so many ways that we at USA ePay consider it its own API.
Below is an example of how the payment form can be customized slightly. To the left is the original payment form as it appears without any customizations and to the right is a customized payment form with color change, table changes, background modifications and more. These were done to the form so it looks like the site that it links from.
Left: Original Form. Right: Customized Form.
Multi-Use Form
There are many types of merchants and different types of cases that the Payment form can be used for. In addition to the general form to collect simple online payments, the following merchant needs can be met with this form:
• Auction Payments
• Hosting Customer Sign-Up [with recurring billing]
• Donation Forms
• 1-item Product Websites
• Home Owner Association Payments
• Utility Company Payments
• Shopping Cart Checkout Page [PCI DSS compliant]
• and more...
Split Payments
The transaction API and ePayment form can process multiple payments to multiple merchants or source keys in a single call. This is useful in cases where a base sale is processed by the merchant and a separate handling fee is processed by another merchant. For example, a concert where the ticket price is $25 dollars, collected by the concert venue, plus a $2 handling fee that is collected by the servicing company. The venue and the servicing company have two separate merchant accounts and two separate source keys. Documentation for split payments can be found in the Transaction API.
Documentation
All the documentation and example-code for the ePayment form is readily available online for free to all merchants and developers. Our online Wiki-Knowledge Base has it fully documented here.
The Customer Billing Database allows merchants to
store their customer's billing data safely and securely on the USA ePay gateway. Merchants can edit, delete or setup charges for customers with an easy-to-use interface or through the API.
Multiple Payment Methods
Customers these days usually carry multiple payment methods they use to pay for products and bills; this is why the Customer Billing Database allows the merchant to have multiple payment methods on file for every customer. The database will allow multiple cards as well as checking accounts to be stored for a single customer and lets the merchant setup a "default" payment method as well as "automatic backup" in case the default is declined or results in an error.
By storing multiple payment methods, the Customer Billing Database allows merchants to feel safe and secure in the knowledge that they will always being able to get their payments on time without having to hassle their customers or repeatedly enter billing information.
We Store It, We Secure It
USA ePay is proud to be a Level-1 PCI compliant gateway and with that certification we can securely store sensitive information - such as credit card numbers. The Customer Billing Database also falls under our PCI compliance since it is built into the gateway interface.
Many merchants may still be using older software to store customer's credit card data locally on their machine or in non-secure databases. The Customer Billing Database system provided by USA ePay allows merchants to easily upload their existing customers into our secure system without having to worry about paying high PCI dues for staying with older, out-of-date software or systems. Since the data is stored on the gateway, the merchant can also rest assured that our redundant systems will never lose their data and that it can be accessed through any computer with an internet connection.
Easy to Use & Advanced Interface
The Customer Billing Database has one of the most friendly and easy-to-use user interfaces but also kicks it up by having some advanced features available to merchants.
Left: List View with Customization Window. Right: Business Card View.
Features of the Interface
There are many features to the Customer Billing Database and from the smallest to the largest, they all make up the easy-to-use yet advanced interface:
• Multiple Payment Methods for Customers
• Customizable Views with "Save Your Own" Views
• Easy Search & Sort
• Customer Categories
• Calendar with Billing Reminders
• Detailed Billing History
• Bulk Edit or Import Customers
• and more...
API Accessible
USA ePay understands that not every company is looking to use our console to control their customer's billing information, and this is why all the functions of the Customer Billing Database can be accessed from the API. Merchants can still store their customers and their customers' sensitive billing information in the database, but can edit, delete, charge or add customers into the database from outside the USA ePay console and perform all of these functions in their own program or interface.
