Merchant Accounts

April 26, 2010

Store owners frequently email in to ask just how they go about receiving money from their customers.  Here’s the skinny:

PAYPAL/WORLDPAY/2CHECKOUT/GOOGLE CHECKOUT

Many online stores start out with a service like PayPal or Google Checkout to receive payments. With those services it’s relatively easy to set up an account for your business and start receiving money.  These services have the advantage of being quick to set up, with no long-term contracts and minimal (if any) sign up fees or monthly fees.  When using any of these third-party processing services, the customer is forced to leave your website to complete a payment – you lose control over the purchasing process and can’t always troubleshoot if something goes wrong.  Occasionally communication between the processor and your shopping cart software can be delayed or fail completely, meaning orders are not processed in a timely manner.  While I see the use for these services for a new business or one that does not process a large volume of credit cards, as a business grows they should upgrade.

STEPPING UP

So where do you go? It’s time to get your own merchant account. If you live in a state with open records you’ll get inundated with sales calls and letters as soon as you register your business. Most (but not all) of these will be absurdly expensive. Do your research and find the one that fits your business. What fits one business won’t necessarily fit another.  Ask other business owners for recommendations of who to use and who to avoid.  Consider a local provider or the bank that holds your checking account, but compare prices carefully!

HOW IT WORKS

With PayPal, all received payments are sent to your PayPal account where you must manually go do something with the money (send to your bank account, pay someone else, etc). Transaction fees are deducted when the transaction is processed.  Google Checkout can automatically transfer the money to your bank account, but again the fees are all taken out before the transfer is made.

Using a standard merchant account, all of the day’s transactions are combined in a batch. When the batch is run (normally each night) the total amount is sent directly to your bank account. The EFT system can take a few days and could be slowed down by weekends or holidays, but in general deposits hit my bank account in 2-3 business days. At the end of the month your total fees are deducted from your checking account.  This difference seems very minor but can greatly streamline your accounting processes.

FEES

Processing credit cards can be expensive. You may not really think about it with PayPal since the fees come out of each transaction. However, add it all up at the end of the month – it’s not cheap. With a merchant account you can expect to pay a variety of fees:

1. Monthly statement/service fee – it doesn’t really cost that much to print and mail a statement, so many companies now call this a “service fee.” Expect to pay between $5 and $10. This is the biggest MONETARY difference between PayPal/WorldPay/2CheckOut and a merchant account.
2. Annual fees – watch out for providers who charge an annual fee on top of the monthly fee. One or the other is to be expected, but some providers do not mention the annual fee until it comes out of your checking account. Read that contract carefully!
3. Gateway fees – a monthly charge for using a gateway such as authorize.net (for online businesses only)
4. Equipment purchase/rental – your credit card machine. If your business is all online you don’t need one (use a gateway instead). Be careful of those leases, you could end up paying far too much for that machine. Don’t buy a machine from your merchant account provider. You’ll find much better prices elsewhere (try eBay).
5. Discount rate – a percentage of each transaction. Currently hovering between 2 and 2.4% for online or otherwise “high risk” businesses, much lower for physical stores.
6. Per-transaction fees – a small fee charged on every transaction. Expect between 10c and 35c.
7. Monthly Minimums – a minimum amount that your fees must reach each month. Many processors require this, they can run from $15 to $25. If you find a processor without one your other fees will likely be very high. This is not the amount that your SALES must reach – a $25 sale will count less than $1 toward that minimum. Calculating your break-even point requires some math to consider your average ticket size, average monthly volume and the various fees being charged.
8. Other fees – watch out! I’ve been charged $25 for switching the bank account where my deposits were sent. Beware the annual fee! Find out what makes a transaction non-qualified and how much the non-qualified fees are (some go as high as 5% discount rate). Consider the fraud screens.

Normally your per-transaction fees and discount rates will be lower than PayPal’s rates, but you do have to pay a monthly charge. These rates vary widely from one provider to the next! Some will charge you a high monthly fee, but a low discount rate. Some barely mark up the discount but have a large statement fee or an annual fee. Many charge you an arm for one and a leg for the other. This is where you need to do some math if you want to really get the lowest price. Figure up your average ticket size and the number of sales you have in an average month. If you’re serious about the comparing, set yourself up a spreadsheet and put in all of the different offers you receive to find what suits you best.

CONTRACTS

To the best of my knowledge, it’s a requirement of Visa that everyone have a contract. I’ve never seen one for less than 2 years, 3 years is the most common.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

Here at Blue Note we’ve dealt with several different credit card processors for our various clients – some great and some absolutely terrible.  Make sure you read your contract, and make sure the statements come in correctly! If you call a company on the phone and they sound like slimeballs, go with your gut and take your business elsewhere. Saving $5 on your monthly statement fee doesn’t help if you have to spend an hour on the phone making them correct it.

THE TECHNICAL SIDE
Since this is written for my clients with online stores, a short technical discussion is in order.

If you run a website, you need to use a gateway. Yes, it’s possible to simply capture someone’s card number and manually enter it into a machine. However, consider the benefits of a gateway:

1. Fraud screens – many gateways have extra checks that a terminal won’t.
2. Time – save time processing cards. When you use a gateway, the transaction is processed in real time. If the card is declined for whatever reason (address verification, typo in the card number, bad card) the customer finds out immediately and has a chance to fix it. The order is not placed until the card goes through. If you capture the card number and the card is declined you have to contact the customer, get a new card number and try it again. Time is money! It won’t take long to spend $10 in time calling customers for bad credit cards.
3. Security – don’t store card numbers in your website! It’s a huge risk. If someone finds those numbers you could be held liable for all kinds of mayhem. With a gateway nobody sees the card number except the customer and the computer.
4. Convenience – No need to file credit card slips and batch reports from your machine. No need to have a machine in the first place unless you also see customers face-to-face. All of the documentation comes in your email and you can look up transactions on the gateway’s website.

I think very highly of letting the gateway do the work. There are many out there to choose from, but I highly recommend authorize.net. I use them in my business and have set up many clients to use them. Integrating authorize.net with your website is easy, their interface is simple to use, and the price is right. I’ve worked with nearly every gateway for one client or another and none of them stack up.

BACKUPS

I’m sure you all know to keep backups of your data, but you need a backup for the gateway. All computer systems experience downtime, it’s a fact of life. Occasionally the gateways must go down for maintenance. Some have been hit with DOS attacks that took them completely offline. I highly recommend that anyone using a gateway have a backup system in place, even if it’s just as simple as capturing the card numbers and putting them in manually when the system is back up and running.

BLATANT ADVERTISING

Should you want to set up your website to accept credit cards using authorize.net, any other gateway or even manual processing, you can contact the good people at Blue Note Web Services and they’ll get you set up.

I have to write this information for two or three different clients each month, so here it is all in one place. I chose to put it on my blog so that others can write comments if they have anything useful to say.

PayPal is a pain in the neck. It’s difficult to integrate into a website and have everything work properly. I’ve spent many hours with one of my recent clients trying to get PayPal to function and charge the proper sales tax, I think the heartburn from that has convinced her to upgrade. On top of the technical difficulties, a site that accepts ONLY PayPal just screams “AMATEUR!”

So where do you go? It’s time to get your own merchant account. If you live in a state with open records (I think that’s all of them) you’ll get inundated with sales calls and letters as soon as you register your business. I’ve filed several DBAs and each of them resulted in a flood of mail. Most (but not all) of these will be absurdly expensive. Do your research and find the one that fits your business. What fits MY business won’t necessarily fit yours as we’ll soon see.

HOW IT WORKS

With PayPal, all received payments are sent to your PayPal account where you must manually go do something with the money (send to your bank account, pay someone else, etc). Transaction fees are deducted when the transaction is processed.

Compare that to a merchant account. All of the day’s transactions are combined in a batch. When the batch is run (normally each night) the total amount is sent directly to your bank account. The EFT system can take a few days and could be slowed down by weekends or holidays, but in general deposits hit my bank account in 2-3 business days. At the end of the month your total fees are deducted from your checking account.

FEES
Processing credit cards can be expensive. You may not really think about it with PayPal since the fees come out of each transaction. However, add it all up at the end of the month – it’s not cheap. With a merchant account you can expect to pay a variety of fees:

  1. Monthly statement/service fee – it doesn’t really cost that much to print and mail a statement, so many companies now call this a “service fee.” Expect to pay between $5 and $10. This is the biggest MONETARY difference between PayPal/WorldPay/2CheckOut and a merchant account.
  2. Annual fees – watch out for providers who charge an annual fee on top of the monthly fee. One or the other is to be expected, but some providers do not mention the annual fee until it comes out of your checking account. Read that contract carefully!
  3. Gateway fees – a monthly charge for using a gateway such as authorize.net (for online businesses only)
  4. Equipment purchase/rental – your credit card machine. If your business is all online you don’t need one (use a gateway instead). Be careful of those leases, you could end up paying far too much for that machine. Don’t buy a machine from your merchant account provider. You’ll find much better prices elsewhere (try eBay).
  5. Discount rate – a percentage of each transaction. Currently hovering between 2 and 2.4% for online or otherwise “high risk” businesses, much lower for physical stores.
  6. Per-transaction fees – a small fee charged on every transaction. Expect between 10c and 35c.
  7. Monthly Minimums – a minimum amount that your fees must reach each month. Many processors require this, they can run from $15 to $25. If you find a processor without one your other fees will likely be very high. This is not the amount that your SALES must reach – a $25 sale will count less than $1 toward that minimum. The last time I did the math it was going to take between $500 and $600 to make the minimum in fees. If you’re worried about making this, be sure to ask if that per-transaction fee counts as part of the minimum.
  8. Other fees – watch out! I’ve been charged $25 for switching the bank account where my deposits were sent. Beware the annual fee! Find out what makes a transaction non-qualified and how much the non-qualified fees are (some go as high as 5% discount rate). Consider the fraud screens.

Normally your per-transaction fees and discount rates will be lower than PayPal’s rates, but you do have to pay a monthly charge. These rates vary widely from one provider to the next! Some will charge you a high monthly fee, but a low discount rate. Some barely mark up the discount but have a large statement fee or an annual fee. Many charge you an arm for one and a leg for the other. This is where you need to do some math if you want to really get the lowest price. Figure up your average ticket size and the number of sales you have in an average month. If you’re serious about the comparing, set yourself up a spreadsheet and put in all of the different offers you receive to find what suits you best.

CONTRACTS

To the best of my knowledge, it’s a requirement of Visa that everyone have a contract. I’ve never seen one for less than 2 years, 3 years is the most common.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

I’ve dealt with some great credit card processors. I’ve also dealt with some real stinkers. I’m currently under contract with two different processors who have both caused me a great deal of grief. I did my research and I got a good deal on credit card processing – but for the first few months I was on the phone every time the statement came in making them compare my contract with the amounts I was being charged. Make sure you read your contract, and make sure the statements come in correctly! If you call a company on the phone and they sound like slimeballs, go with your gut and take your business elsewhere. When my contracts are up I’ll be doing the research again, and I’ll gladly pay an extra $5/month on that statement if I don’t have to make the monthly phone call to correct the problem.

THE TECHNICAL SIDE
Since this is written for my clients with online stores, a short technical discussion is in order.

If you run a website, you need to use a gateway. Yes, it’s possible to simply capture someone’s card number and manually enter it into a machine. However, consider the benefits of a gateway:

  1. Fraud screens – many gateways have extra checks that a terminal won’t.
  2. Time – save time processing cards. When you use a gateway, the transaction is processed in real time. If the card is declined for whatever reason (address verification, typo in the card number, bad card) the customer finds out immediately and has a chance to fix it. The order is not placed until the card goes through. If you capture the card number and the card is declined you have to get ahold of the customer, get a new card number and try it again. Time is money! It won’t take long to spend $10 in time calling customers for bad credit cards.
  3. Security – don’t store card numbers in your website! It’s a huge risk. If someone gets hold of those numbers you could be held liable for all kinds of mayhem. With a gateway nobody sees the card number except the customer and the computer.
  4. Convenience – No need to file credit card slips and batch reports from your machine. No need to have a machine in the first place unless you also see customers face-to-face. All of the documentation comes in your email and you can look up transactions on the gateway’s website.

I think very highly of letting the gateway do the work. There are many out there to choose from, but I highly recommend authorize.net. I use them in my business and have set up many clients to use them. Integrating authorize.net with your website is easy, their interface is simple to use, and the price is right. I’ve worked with nearly every gateway for one client or another and none of them stack up.

BACKUPS

I’m sure you all know to keep backups of your data, but you need a backup for the gateway. All computer systems experience downtime, it’s a fact of life. Occasionally the gateways must go down for maintenance. Some have been hit with DOS attacks that took them completely offline. I highly recommend that anyone using a gateway have a backup system in place, even if it’s just as simple as capturing the card numbers and putting them in manually when the system is back up and running.

BLATANT ADVERTISING

Should you want to set up your website to accept credit cards using authorize.net, any other gateway or even manual processing, you can contact the good people at Blue Note Web Services and they’ll get you set up.

Code Audit

April 23, 2010

Frequently we receive requests from store owners asking about the security of their site. Whether from untrustworthy programmers, hackers, out-of-date software or any other reason, Blue Note is here to help!

Depending on the circumstance, a code audit can be a quick process or an extensive task. Stores with customized code are much more difficult to examine. If your store has been hacked, we suggest also reviewing any available log files to find the attack vector and changing all passwords to prevent future attacks.

Our basic code audit service is $100 and covers the first 2 hours of work on your site. We’ll review your code for potential problems and make recommendations on any necessary updates or repairs to your site to prevent future attacks (billed separately). Highly customized stores may be billed at a higher rate.

Contact us today to schedule your audit! When you’re ready to begin, click the button below to make your down payment.

Sign up for USPS web tools

December 6, 2009

USPS makes the registration process very simple. Click this link:
www.uspsprioritymail.com/et_regcert.html

They keep moving the button, but somewhere on that page is a button that says “sign up.” Click it. Give them the information they need. You should receive via email a username and password, which you will need to enable the USPS module.

The next step is to install and configure the module. If you don’t want to do it yourself, just forward the email you receive from USPS to Blue Note and we’ll take care of it for you.

ENABLE DOWNLOADS

First we need to do some configuration. Log in to your store admin, click to the “Configuration” box and then click “Download.”

configuration example screenshot

Explanation of these settings:

  • Enable download – do you want to offer downloadable products
  • Download by redirect – leave this to true for now, you may need to change it later based on your server’s setup
  • Expiry delay (days) – this many days after purchase, the customer can no longer download the product. This is a default setting that can be changed on a per-product basis.
  • Maximum number of downloads – after this many tries, the customer can no longer download the product. This can also be set per product.

UPLOAD YOUR PRODUCTS

If you have Blue Note’s “upload your downloads” package installed, you may be able to skip this step.

Your downloadable files must be put into the “downloads” directory inside of your catalog directory. Upload them using the FTP client of your choice. If you have Blue Note’s “upload your downloads” package, you can upload your products through the admin screen in the same way that you upload images. It is recommended that you keep the filenames to only letters, numbers and underscores. For example:
This is a good song!.mp3 – that filename will cause problems. It has spaces and a special character.
This_is_a_good_song.mp3 – much better. Spaces are replaced with underscores and the exclamation point removed.

ASSIGN DOWNLOADS TO PRODUCTS

If you have Blue Note’s “upload your downloads” package, this is already done for you – when you upload your file through the admin screen all of the attributes are automatically created. If your file is too big to upload through admin, you can upload the file via FTP and it will automatically be loaded into the dropdown menu.

Without that feature, you have to set up product attributes. Click to the “catalog” box, then click “Products Attributes.”

The first step, if you have not done so already, is to create options. Options are general categories such as “size” or “color.” For this purpose, we will create an option for “delivery” – the name is not important, call it what you want. Fill in the name you choose (in each language, if necessary) and click the “insert” button.

Once you have an option, you can have an option value. An option value is a specific selection like “blue” or “large.” Here we will use two options, “ship this product” and “download this product.” You are not required to use both option values for all products. If you have products that can only be downloaded, you will not use the “ship this product” option on that product. Again, the name does not matter – call it what you want.

Now you’re ready to assign options to products.

From the “product name” dropdown, select the product you’re dealing with. Choose the option for “delivery” and the option value for “download.” If you want to adjust the price of the product up or down, enter a + or a – and an amount in the next two boxes. In the “filename” box, enter the name of the downloadable file. This name must match EXACTLY – including capitalization and punctuation. Note – with Blue Note’s “download dropdown” package, you will see a dropdown of all available files in the download directory – ensuring that the filename will be correct. The expiry days and download count are filled in based on the options you set earlier, you can change them here and it will affect only this product. When everything is set, click “insert.”

If you want to also offer this product as a physical shipped item, you can add another attribute to the product. Choose “delivery” and “ship this product.” You can also adjust the price here (ie, add $2 for the cost of the CD).

WHAT DOES ALL THIS DO?

You’ve just finished assigning options to products. Now when your customers view your product they will see a dropdown where they can choose how they want the product delivered.

IMPORTANT!

osCommerce only knows that a product is a download if you assign a filename. It does not matter if your option value is called “download,” “delivery” or “moocow.” If there is a filename, the product will be treated as a download. If there is NOT filename, the product will NOT be treated as a download.

WHAT ABOUT SHIPPING?

osCommerce is pretty smart about shipping. If everything is set correctly, a customer who only orders downloads will not be charged shipping. A customer who orders a mix of downloads and physical products will be charged shipping only on the physical products.

PLEASE NOTE, HOWEVER – if a product has a weight of 0, osCommerce will assume that the product is a virtual product and will not charge shipping (or allow the customer to provide a shipping address).  Please ensure that ALL of your physical products have at least SOME weight – even .01 is enough.

QUESTIONS?

If you need further help or information, please contact Blue Note Web Services.

How to create a UPS account and obtain API keys

To use the UPS XML module for osCommerce you need to obtain some information from UPS. You will need:
-XML access key
-UPS shipping account number
-MyUPS account

The following instructions are current as of the time of this writing. UPS may change the layout of their site, in which case some links or other information may become outdated. If you find that these instructions do not match the UPS site please let us know.

Before you can obtain an XML key you will need to open a MyUPS account. Start here:
http://www.ups.com/

If you already have a username and password, sign in to your existing account. If not, click the “register” button to create a new account. You will need to provide some contact information and agree to some terms and conditions.

Once you are logged in to MyUPS, click on the “Business Solutions” tab. On the page that comes up, click on “OnLine Tools” then “Get OnLine Tools.” The tool you need for osCommerce is Rates and Services, click the link to get that tool. You will need to confirm or fill in some information, including your UPS account number.

If you do not have a UPS account you will need to open one now. NOTE: Depending on what options you select, UPS may suggest that you bill charges to a credit card rather than opening an account – but to use the online tool you must have a UPS account number. Even if you are not personally shipping packages (ie, you use a drop-shipping service or a separate shipping warehouse) you must have an account number to obtain the necessary keys and passwords. Later in the process, you will have the option to use a credit card as the payment method for your account if you prefer. You must, however, get a UPS account number for the shipping module to work properly.

When you complete the form for a developer’s key it will be sent to your registered email address. Make a note of your developer’s key, as you will need it to obtain your access key. Make sure you obtain an XML developer’s key for the Rates and Services tool.

Once you have all of the necessary information, send it on to your website administrator. The checklist of information is:
-UPS account number
-MyUPS username and password
-XML Access Key for Rates and Services

Change your osCommerce admin password

One of the most common email requests I receive is changing an osCommerce admin password.  Unfortunately there have been several different versions of osCommerce with different admin panel protection schemes, as well as a few different add-ons from other coders, each with a different method of maintaining passwords.  This post will cover the most common.

What sort of password prompt do you see when logging in to your admin screen?  The most common would look something like this:

Password prompt

99% of the time, this password prompt is being generated by the server.  You will need to contact your server administrator or web host to find out how to change it.  There is a contribution available for older versions of osCommerce that uses PHP to generate the same sort of password prompt.  If you have this contribution installed, your password is hard-coded in the file admin/includes/configure.php.  Be careful editing this file!  If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can break your entire admin panel!

Newer versions of osCommerce have PHP-based password protection in place.  The standard password prompt looks something like this:

password prompt

If you have this sort of password prompt, changing your password is very easy!  Log in to osCommerce using any current admin username and password.  Once you’re logged in, click the “Configuration” box in the left-hand column, then click “Administrators.”  Select the admin user you want to change and click “edit.”  Enter the new password, new username if you choose, save and you’re done!

screen3

Next question – what to do if you’ve LOST your username or password?

Resetting an .htaccess password is accomplished through your web host.  If your site uses the newer osCommerce PHP-based authentication and you’ve lost your password, resetting it requires editing the values in the database – which is outside of the scope of this post.

If you’re not comfortable handling a password reset on your own, Blue Note offers password reset services for $25.  This service requires that you have your hosting control panel password – if you don’t, contact your host and have it reset.  Contact Blue Note Web Services for more information.

Using osCommerce product attributes

The product attribute system is getting a complete re-writing for osCommerce 3.0. This how-to applies to MS2 and some earlier versions.

When should attributes be used?

Product attributes are used when you have a product that has options – ie, t-shirts might come in different sizes and colors. With the standard osCommerce attribute system you can adjust the price up or down with various attributes.

When should attributes NOT be used?

The biggest shortcoming is a lack of stock keeping – the 2.2 attributes system does not keep track of how many large shirts were ordered or how many blue, only how many shirts were ordered. If you need to track stock levels of the various different options, product attributes are not for you.

The product attribute system also cannot handle a situation where not all combinations are permissible. For example, if ‘large’ shirts are available in white and blue, but ‘extra large’ are only available in blue, there is nothing in place that would prevent a customer from ordering an extra large white shirt.

If either of these poses a problem for your product line we have a variety of solutions available to you. Please contact us for options!

How does all this work?

Product attributes can be set up through your osCommerce admin screen. Before moving forward we need to define some terms:
Product Option – an option is a category of choices to be made – size, color, etc
Option Value - a specific choice – red, blue, small, large
Product Attribute – a combination of a product, an option and a value

In your admin screen, click on “Catalog” then ‘Products Attributes.” This will take you to a screen like this:

Create your product options first, then your option values. When those are ready move to the “Products Attributes” section. Select a product, an option name and an option value from the dropdowns. If this particular choice will change the price, put a number in the “value price” field. In the “prefix” put a “+” if this choice increases the price or a “-” if this choice decreases the price.

This interface is also used to set up downloadable products. For more information on downloadable products please see the downloadable products how-to.

If you have many products with attributes, this interface can quickly get tiring and out of hand. Here at Blue Note our specialty is making things easier for you, the store admin. We have put together several packages to help you set up attributes quickly and easily when editing your products without any need to work with this attribute interface. For more information on this or any of the services we offer please use the contact form or call us at 940-239-5225.

Working with hosts files

December 5, 2009

If you’ve recently registered a new domain or changed, you may be in limbo until your DNS settings propagate across the internet. If you want to view your site as it exists on a new server before the DNS change has completed, you have to tell your computer where to find your site. The easiest way to do this is to use the “hosts” file on your computer. You will need to know the IP address of your new server that will host your website – contact your new host if you don’t know it.

WINDOWS

Use ONLY Notepad to edit your hosts file!  DO NOT use Word, Wordpad, Works or another word processing program to edit this file!

If you use Windows Vista or Windows 7, you must right-click the Notepad icon and choose to “run as administrator.”

Your hosts file can be found at:

Windows 95/98/ME – C:\windows\hosts
Windows NT/2000/XP Professional – C:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Windows XP Home or Corporate, Vista, or 7 – C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Once you have the file open in Notepad, add two new lines that look like this:

123.456.78.9 yoursite.com

123.456.78.9 www.yoursite.com

Use your new IP address (that you got from your host) and your domain name. You may need to reboot your computer to register the changes. Once that’s done you can open yoursite.com in a web browser and you will be looking at your site on your new server.  To undo this change, remove those lines from your hosts file and reboot your computer.

LINUX OR MAC OSX

On a Linux or Macintosh machine, the hosts file is /etc/hosts. You will need root access to change this file. Your hosts entry should look like this:

yoursite.com 123.456.78.9

Use your new IP and your domain name. You do not need to reboot your computer, but you may need to restart your web browser.

Creating a transaction key in authorize.net

Blue Note Web Services uses and recommends authorize.net as a credit card gateway.  We have found this gateway to be reliable, affordable and easy to work with.

Most current payment modules for osCommerce and other software require the use of a transaction key.  This is much more secure than the old method of using your administrative username and password.

Step 1 – Log in to authorize.net with the username and password supplied by your merchant account provider.

Step 2 – In the left-hand navigation column, click on “settings and profile.”

Step 3 – Under the heading “security,” clik the link that says “obtain transaction key.”

Step 4 – Answer the secret question.  You provided this information to authorize.net in the signup process.  If you have any sites that are currently using this authorize.net account, DO NOT check the box for “disable current transaction key.”  The current transaction key will be disabled in 24 hours, so you will need to update the other sites with the new key.  If you check the box the current key will be disabled immediately.  Click the submit button.

Step 5 – Your transaction key will be displayed on the screen, copy and and save in a safe place.

Welcome to the new site!

December 4, 2009

Hey!  It’s different!

We’ve switched bluenoteweb.com to WordPress – a much more stable, easy to use platform than our old site.  Most of the content has moved over, but some links may be broken – we apologize!  If you find something we’ve missed, please don’t hesitate to let us know using the contact form.