What You Need to Know About Virtual Terminal Payments

Virtual Terminal Payments
Whether you’re an online retailer, an ecommerce website or a MOTO (mail order/telephone order) business that takes payments over the phone, virtual terminals can help streamline your processing workflow. They let you manually key in credit card transactions, which can be used for in-person sales, or for remote customers who prefer to give their payment details over the phone.

Once you’ve entered a customer’s card details into a virtual terminal, the payment gateway will verify that information with the credit card network and the card’s issuing bank to make sure it’s legitimate. The process usually takes a few seconds, and you’ll see an approval notification in your virtual terminal. The transaction is then settled within the merchant account, and funds are immediately deposited into your business’s bank account, improving your cash flow.

The best virtual terminals should also offer a range of advanced features. These can include ACH processing, which lets you skip the credit and debit processing rails to debit funds directly from your customer’s bank accounts. This can reduce your processing fees significantly, especially for high-ticket items like gym memberships and recurring service subscriptions. You should also look for a provider with cutting-edge encryption and tokenization to help protect your customers’ card data. This ensures the token used to represent the card number is kept off your system and in transit, and that only the correct token is charged. This provides additional security and helps meet PCI compliance requirements. virtual terminal payments