A new fully integrated credit card option is now available for Advanced Accounting. This new update replaces the previous interface that has long existed in the software and involves a new company that we have partnered with that we believe will, in addition to providing more competitive discounts rate and fees, also provide better sales and end user support.
Background:
We first added a credit card interface to Advanced Accounting 5.1 in the year 2000. That interface worked with an off the shelf credit card processing package called PCAuthorize, and for its era, worked well. As additional regulations and changes in technology evolved, however, the generic card authorizing packages such as PCAuthorize, ICVerify, PC Charge and others began to vanish. These products were either acquired (PCAuthorize was purchased by the maker of ICVerify) and/or have since had end of life cycle announcements and have been discontinued.
By mid-2006, we had developed a replacement for our PCAuthorize interface, integrating with X-Charge. That interface was initially available for Advanced Accounting 6.1, but there was also a version for Advanced Accounting 5.1 and another legacy program. Since 2006, the X-Charge interface has remained actively in use. An equivalent interface was also made available for Advanced Accounting 7i.
Because of a continuous change in corporate ownership of the X-Charge product and other changes including the fact that the X-Charge product is nearing obsolescence, we have over the past several years been analyzing various alternatives. X-Charge will still be supported for Advanced Accounting 7i users who are currently using it, but new users of Advanced Accounting 7i (and for future releases and updates in the Advanced Accounting series) will instead want to use the new interface that we have now developed working with ChargeItPro and which is now available.
Unlike the early 5.1 interface that relied on an external call to an executable (one that we developed in another language), neither the X-Charge interface nor now the ChargeItPro interfaces rely on having to call any executable files which tend to be blocked and in general can create processing delays. The ChargeItPro interface, largely developed last month, makes completely internally native calls written in the same underlying language upon which the accounting software runs, and using newer techniques that we have developed over the past year.
Advantages of the new interface:
In addition to providing more responsive sales and support and better rates and fees, the new interface supports a wealth of external devices for those users who are swiping cards including support for EMV, and for processing debit cards (without having to process them as credit cards; debit cards in that respect were not supported in the prior interface). And, as a result of making a tighter integration, we are also now providing a new integrated card/non-check return option which previously did not exist (and which can even be used by users in future releases who aren't necessarily using the integrated interface). The new interface also records every transaction in a new transaction database in part so that the same card can be used again (in a completely PCI compliant way; the new interface is fully PCI DSS compliant). Every transaction is also saved in the ChargeItPro web portal.
But I'm already processing credit cards on a standalone basis through another provider. Why use an integrated approach?
The benefits of an integrated approach are huge and involve savings of time and expense that can be overlooked in making a full analysis. An integrated approach leads to fewer errors, faster processing and overall better workflow. It eliminates the double entries that have to be made when cards are processed "outside" of the accounting system. And processing cards outside of the accounting system leads to not only extra work but also security concerns. In short, to best meet PCI compliance responsibilities as well as to implement "best practices" in terms of financial and internal accounting controls, integrated credit card processing represents the optimal solution.
More information is available (with more to be added soon) at:
http://www.addsuminc.com/advcreditcard.html
Feel free to contact us at any time for more information by calling us at 800-648-6258, by sending us an e-mail, or by chatting with us on our web site.
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