Getting Started with Your Merchant Account

If you're a card-present retailer, once you have your account and equipment you will be technically ready to begin handling credit cards. However, you’ll need to do a little training first just to get an understanding of the processes involved. For example, you should read up on batch processing: at the end of the day you “close out” your credit card terminal by sending the day’s transactions to the acquiring bank, at which point your money is transferred from your merchant account to your checking account. That has to be the best part of the day — it will be good to know how it works.

For online retailers, however, at the point where you've gotten your merchant account you still have a bit of work ahead. Now you need to incorporate the ability to transact within your site. This means installing your shopping software and hooking it to your payment gateway.

If you have technical expertise or work with someone who does, then find someone in the ISO’s tech support that talks geekspeak so you can integrate this quickly and directly. If you're not as tech-savvy, you've probably opted for an integrated e-commerce package and don't have a lot of complex setup to handle at this stage.

Whether you're an online business, a card-present company or something in between, the most important next step is to study the process. You should get plenty of documentation. This will be your key to understanding how your new merchant account works, as well as the other steps of the transaction cycle.

In no time, you’ll be ready to accept all the riches your happy customers have to offer. Now the rest is up to you.