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Tipalti
Tipalti
Tipalti is the world's leading finance automation solution for managing accounts payable, procurement, expenses, card, and global payments. Eliminating 80% of manual work and accelerating financial close by 25%. Tipalti allows yo...Read more about Tipalti
Stax
Stax
Stax is a cloud-based accounting solution suitable for businesses of all sizes across industries such as e-commerce, healthcare and retail. Key features of the solution include point of sale integration, mobile processing, online ...Read more about Stax
LetUs
LetUs
LetUs is a cloud-based software solution that empowers the property management industry to take control of their finances and business processes. LetUs makes it easy for communities to collect rent, pay vendors, manage residents ...Read more about LetUs
PEX
PEX
PEX is an expense management solution that helps organizations across a range of industries control staff spending, reconcile books, and transfer funds on a centralized platform. It enables employees to capture receipt images, cat...Read more about PEX
Melio
Melio
Melio is an accounts payable solution that helps small businesses manage online payments via bank transfers and debit or credit cards. Key features include payment scheduling, automated data synchronization, reporting, invoicing, ...Read more about Melio
Whistle Payments
Whistle Payments
Whistle Payments is a complete payment stack built for developers, designed for businesses. Use the Whistle platform to improve employee loyalty, build inclusivity and empower teams with culture budgets. Empower front line manag...Read more about Whistle Payments
HoneyBook
HoneyBook
FrontRunners 2023
HoneyBook is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) solution designed for small businesses. The solution helps users manage business processes from inquiry through to invoicing. HoneyBook lets users manage projects, ...Read more about HoneyBook
Zoho Subscriptions
Zoho Subscriptions
Zoho Subscriptions is a cloud-based accounting solution catering to small and medium-sized businesses across various industries such as SaaS startups, gyms, wine clubs and daycare facilities. The solution offers a native mobile ap...Read more about Zoho Subscriptions
Stripe
Stripe
FrontRunners 2023
Stripe is a cloud-based solution that offers a varied set of unified APIs and tools that enable businesses to manage and accept payments online. Stripe handles key payment functions, such as subscriptions, storing cards and d...Read more about Stripe
MoonClerk
MoonClerk
MoonClerk is a cloud-based online payment processing solution designed for small and midsize businesses. It offers invoicing, mobile payments, online payments and recurring billing within a suite. MoonClerk supports different...Read more about MoonClerk
Everyware
Everyware
If you’re a business that uses Quick Books, Clover, or Ingenico as your Point of Sale System (POS) then you’ll definitely want to add Everyware to the mix to accelerate receivables and increase customer engagement. Everyware eas...Read more about Everyware
Metaprise
Metaprise
Fast and easy global B2B payment solutions for freelancers, sellers, SMB/SMEs, and enterprise-level businesses. Metaprise enables you to quickly pay and get paid in multiple methods around the world, all in one platform....Read more about Metaprise
RentPayment
RentPayment
Today, RentPayment is the largest electronic payments processor in the multifamily industry, serving thousands of property management companies representing over 3 million apartment units. Residential property managers can colle...Read more about RentPayment
SoftCoPay
SoftCoPay
SoftCoPay is a unified payment management software that helps businesses automate their purchase invoice process and make smarter procurement decisions. With AI-driven automated insights, real-time reporting, and a single view of ...Read more about SoftCoPay
Paystand
Paystand
PayStand is a payments platform for businesses that to accept credit cards, Check, and ACH payments through their website, invoices and billing systems, as well as from mobile devices. With support for all popular payment methods ...Read more about Paystand
AvidXchange
AvidXchange
AvidXchange offers accounts payable software solutions and dedicated service teams that help automate your AP and payment process, replacing manual AP with a digital application suite that provides you with 24/7 on-demand, remote ...Read more about AvidXchange
Stax Bill
Stax Bill
Stax Bill provides businesses with a cloud-based solution to recurring billing and invoicing, simplifying financial and accounting processes, and providing financial reporting solutions. The system is suitable for businesses seek...Read more about Stax Bill
CM.com Payments Platform
CM.com Payments Platform
The Payments Platform of CM.com is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform for worldwide payments. Users can choose from a wide range of payment methods and offer customers a seamless payment experience, anywhere, anytime, and on...Read more about CM.com Payments Platform
CellPoint Digital
CellPoint Digital
CellPoint Digital offers payment orchestration, payment gateway and digital commerce solution to help business owners transform the traditional payment experience into a simple seamless one. With a sophisticated but easy-to-use pl...Read more about CellPoint Digital
Chargebee
Chargebee
Chargebee is a cloud-based accounting solution for businesses of all sizes across various industries such as telecommunication and media, e-commerce and IoT. The solution is PCI Level 1 certified and offers features such as subscr...Read more about Chargebee
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Buyers Guide
Last Updated: March 16, 2023Any business that accepts payment via credit or debit card, i.e., nearly every business, requires payment processing software. Those that have an online presence* in addition to a brick-and-mortar store require online payment processing.
The right online payment processor for your business will largely depend on the payment methods your customers typically use. With recent technology advances, including mobile payments and digital wallets, there are several factors you need to consider when selecting online payment software.
Whether you're looking to invest in an online payment processing system for the first time or looking to upgrade your current software, this guide can help you make a more informed purchase decision.
Here's what we'll cover:
What is Online Payment Software?
Common Features of Payment Processing Software
*If you aren't set up for ecommerce, you should be. Head over to this article detailing why every store should have an online component and read our tips for how to get started.
What Is Online Payment Software?
To understand the role that online payment software plays in payment processing, you need to first understand the payment processing value chain, and second need to know how payment processing works.
There are several parties involved with the payment processing value chain:
Issuer: Bank that provides the cardholder with a credit/debit card. The bank approves/denies any transactions, bills the customer and collects the owed funds.
Cardholder: Consumer who initiates a sale at a business with their bank-issued card
Merchant: Business owner who submits transaction authorization request to an independent sales organization (ISO)/acquirer
Acquirer: Or, merchant service provider (MSP). Owns the merchant account enabling the merchant to process transactions, i.e., payment gateway
Card associations: E.g., Visa, MasterCard and Discover. Govern bank cards, monitor processing, manage clearing and settlement/funding of transactions.
Payment processor: Organization/vendor that partners with acquirer to open merchant accounts. Provide technology and support and oversees payment processing for acquirers.
Source: Fidelity Payments
There are four key stages in how online payments are processed when businesses use a traditional merchant account:
Authorization: Customer initiates the sale; merchant requests authorization from customer's issuing bank via payment processor. This request route is known as the payments value chain (see above).
Batching: Merchant compiles daily sales and submits transactions in a batch to the acquiring bank for payment. Batching is important to allow time to manually review orders to check for fraud.
Clearing: Acquirer/MSP accepts batched transactions from the payment processor, forwards them to the card networks, who then distribute payment to the corresponding issuer. The issuer then debits the funds from the cardholder's bank account, routing the funds back to the acquirer through the card network.
Funding: The acquirer/MSP deposits the funds into the merchant's account.
Fees accrued during this process are subtracted from the funds the merchant receives: The issuer collects an interchange fee; the card network collects an assessment fee; and, the payment processor collects a processing fee.
Online payment processing software plays a pivotal role in this process, helping to pass authorization from the merchant to the issuing bank, payment through the card network from the issuing bank and settlement between the merchant site and the MSP.
Common Features of Payment Processing Software
While features will vary from system to system, online payment software should contain some or all of the following capabilities:
Common Capabilities of Payment Processing Software
Online payments | Payment pages, merchant accounts and payment gateways allow merchants to accept payments for ecommerce, membership drives, event registration and more. |
Market your business, showcase and sell your goods or services online. Link online shopping cart to inventory, report on sales and manage customers. Mobile store (m-commerce) enables customers to access an ecommerce website from a mobile browser or app. | |
POS transactions | Allows sales staff to process transactions for customers and ensures pricing is correct, inventory is adjusted and receipts are printed/emailed. Ability to accept multiple payment types, e.g., cash, check, electronic funds transfer, credit/debit cards (swipe and chip/EMV cards and both card present and card not present) and mobile payment apps. |
Gift card management | Merchants can purchase gift cards through their POS vendor, or through a third-party supplier, depending on the POS provider. Merchants have several options for setting up a retail gift card program, from using them in brand marketing or in a loyalty program (read more about that here). |
Collect customer information including contact information, billing and shipping information, purchase history and recent searches. Use key dates like birthdays and anniversaries to target marketing efforts and tailor deals and loyalty programs to customers. Encourage customers to create and maintain user accounts. | |
Recurring billing | Set up customers on subscription plans for products or services, save payment information and bill them on a recurring basis, e.g., weekly or monthly. |
Reporting and analytics | Track business performance and sales. Manage cash flow, automate invoicing and gain customer insights. |
What Type of Buyer Are You?
Traditional business (with an online store): The ecommerce payment process referenced above will be the norm for most businesses with an online component. Customers can shop in the brick-and-mortar or visit their online marketplace, and inventory will be the same across both. Business owners require online payment processing to handle online purchases/returns.
Ecommerce business: A fully ecommerce business will follow this payment process as well. E-businesses will require online payment software to connect them to a merchant account and payment gateway and to process transactions, and won't require an in-store POS to handle card-present POS transactions.
Subscription economy business: Subscription economy businesses are relatively new. Examples include Blue Apron and Netflix. This business model is based on membership and recurring subscription fees. Most will be E-businesses without a brick-and-mortar. The focus is on marketing the brand, improving the customer experience and retention.
Key Purchase Considerations
Implementing POS software: If you're considering opening a retail shop, you'll need to implement a POS system to help you manage sales, inventory, accounting and customer management. Download our POS implementation checklist to help you as you get started.
Setting up an online business: Once you have your retail store set up and your POS system in place, you need an online presence. It's important to align your ecommerce strategy with your POS platform. Jordan Brannon, president at Coalition Technologies (a leading provider of online marketing services to small and midsize ecommerce retailers) says that if either the POS or ecommerce platform lacks an API, or pre-built integration, business owners should walk away.
Retail technology disrupters: On-demand services and support, i.e., subscription-based businesses such as Uber, Instacart and Stitch Fix, are considered to be the number one technology disrupter in the retail industry. This business model reflects how consumer expectations have changed regarding their retail experience. This includes a heavier focus on building relationships, creating memorable experiences and emphasizing personalized services.