There is a wealth of information out there that will tell you how to accept online payments, but for your convenience, we have managed to summarise most of it here in this brief article. If you run a website and you need to take payments you can either get your customers to send you a cheque or postal order, or you can go to a payment processing company and get yourself set up for online payments.

The future really has to be payment acceptance online simply because methods such as the cheque are now very old, time consuming, and since the withdrawal of cheque guarantee cards, very risky. No-one wants to wait for their goods or services these days and now that there are online payment methods out there, there is no longer any need.

So how does it work?

When you accept online payments you simply need to sign up with a payment processor that can handle them for you. It really is as simple as it sounds. You will need to use something called a payment gateway, but your processor should be able to sort this out for you. This means that basically every payment you take on your website from your customer’s shopping basket will be diverted to a separate page where their financial information will be taken in much the same way as it would be in a card terminal; only the customer isn’t present at the point of sale to enter PIN numbers etc.

Is it secure?

Modern payment acceptance online utilises SSL connections, and these are the safest and most secure way to send payment information over the internet. They send your customers’ information in an encrypted form between the relevant parties to ensure privacy and security at all times. There are various other systems that provide extra security too, but these are usually linked to the individual card providers; like verified by visa for example.

How long does it take to set up?

You can get yourself a merchant account with an independent payment processor, set up and running in less than a week. Accepting payments online may be different. How long it takes to set you up with a payment gateway will be entirely dependent on the individual payment processor. The best way to find this out would be to contact them directly. Many payment processors won’t have their own systems and will more than likely outsource to payment gateway providers, in much the same way as they do with card terminals.

The next step?

The next step, if you have a business you want to take online, is to contact your independent payment processor (if you have one) and ask them how they can help you with this. If you don’t already have a payment provider, or you can’t get them to help you with accepting payments online, it’s very easy to switch to a provider that does. Give some of them a call and get a quote.

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