Why do I need a Merchant Account or Payment Gateway?
A merchant account is a type of bank account that allows businesses to accept payment by debit or credit cards. A payment gateway facilitates the secure transfer of information between you and your merchant account. These work together to process automated transactions, such as by credit card, and transfer the appropriate funds to your merchant account. Advanced Billing manages and automates this process for your business via our integrations with many payment gateways.
What payment gateways does Advanced Billing support?
Advanced Billing currently supports a number of Payment Gateways in various countries. Please check our Payment Gateway List.
Does Advanced Billing store my customers data and credit cards?
Advanced Billing does not store your customers credit card information. That information is stored in your payment gateway’s secure “vault” in a secure, PCI compliant location. We work with your gateway so you don’t have to worry about managing this sensitive information. Advanced Billing is officially Level 1 PCI compliant, the highest level of compliance for any business. Additionally, our services are hosted in a special facility that focuses on financial transaction security and integrity.
What does it mean to be PCI compliant?
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of requirements designed to ensure that companies that process, store or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment. Cardholder data is any personally identifiable data associated with a cardholder. This could be an account number, expiration date, name, address, social security number, etc. All personally identifiable information associated with the cardholder that is stored, processed, or transmitted is also considered cardholder data.
How is credit card information transmitted securely with Advanced Billing?
Using Advanced Billing Public Pages
If you use Advanced Billing hosted Public Signup or Self-Service Pages to collect credit card data from your customers, then we take care of security for you. The pages are secured using our SSL certificate.
Using Your Own Secure Pages with the Advanced Billing API
If you use our API and create your own pages to collect and display credit card numbers, then you need to be sure the data is always encrypted 1) on its way from your customer’s browser to your servers, and 2) from your servers to Advanced Billing.
For any pages you host that collect or display credit card numbers, you must use an SSL certificate. These pages must only be accessed by your customers via https (not http). Advanced Billing API calls are secured with Advanced Billing’s SSL certificate. You do not have to do anything extra to make this work.
Does Advanced Billing support collecting foreign currencies?
Depending on the Payment Gateway you’ve chosen, Advanced Billing supports different currencies. For a current list, please see our documentation on Currency selection.
Do you support Payment Gateways outside the USA?
Yes, we support a number of payment gateways for our merchants in various countries.
Please check our Payment Gateway List.
Can I use Advanced Billing in another country or currency?
Yes, Advanced Billing supports the ability to collect payment in multiple countries and currencies. Currency and geography are payment gateway specific. If your current payment gateway does not support a currency or geography, you can use an additional gateway which does and our multi-gateway functionality.
My customer’s card is expired. How did they still get charged?
Sometimes even if a customer’s card is expired, they will still be charged for their subscription. Advanced Billing attempts to charge the card at renewal time regardless of the expiration date. We’ve found that many card issuers and payment processors will continue to honor a card when it has been used for recurring or frequent transactions with a merchant.
Additionally, some gateways have a card updater service that receives information about new expiration dates for a cards on file, and the new date is not always displayed in the Advanced Billing system.
Do I need the “Customer Information Manager” (“CIM”) or “Payment Profile” or “Data Vault” or “TransArmor” feature?
No, if you use Maxio Payments, combined with Chargify.JS and our Billing API or hosted payment pages.
Yes, if you choose not to use Maxio's optional tools. In order to securely store your customer credit card data in a 100% PCI-compliant environment, Advanced Billing utilizes the gateway’s “customer information manager” or “payment profile” or “data vault” feature.
When signing up for a gateway, please be sure to ask for this to be enabled on your account. (For Authorize.net, ask for “CIM”. For First Data, ask for “TransArmor”.) In most cases, this feature will have an additional cost but will provide you with the peace of mind that your customer data is stored securely.
In addition to security, these services give you total ownership of your customer credit card data. Instead of being stored on the Advanced Billing servers, you can communicate directly with your gateway to update, delete, or transfer card data at any time.
Please note that it may take a day or two for the vault to become active after it is enabled.
Do I need Recurring Billing (called “ARB” at Authorize.net) enabled on my account?
No. Advanced Billing replaces the need for recurring solutions, such as “ARB”, at the gateway level. We calculate the recurring schedules and perform the transactions without the use of a gateway’s recurring features. We provide many features that ARB cannot, such as metered-usage billing, discount coupon codes, reaching out to customers when cards are declined, etc.
Can I run test transactions before I have a gateway account?
Yes. Choose ‘Test Gateway’ from Site Settings. This allows you to test your system using the following dummy credit card numbers instead of full 16-digit numbers:
“1” (to generate a successful outcome, as if the card was charged successfully) “2” (to generate an unsuccessful outcome, as if the card was declined for the charge).
Can I run test transactions against my gateway?
Yes. To do so, ask your gateway provider for a test account. In the case of Authorize.net, be sure to get a “developer account”. You can sign up online.. Enter the test credentials you are provided into your Advanced Billing “test site” settings. Do not use these credentials for an Advanced Billing production site.
What will I need to run transactions in Production?
You will need a “live” gateway to integrate with your Advanced Billing production site. These credentials differ from your test credentials.
Please note that some gateways will not provide an error if you use production credentials on a test site within Advanced Billing; be sure the appropriate credentials are entered into your site settings.
** Authorize.net “live” accounts have a ‘test mode’ feature. It is strongly recommended that you do not use ‘test mode.’ Please register for a developer test account instead.
Does Advanced Billing support Level 2/3 transaction data?
Advanced Billing does currently support sending Level 2 or Level 3 data for credit card transactions processed through Maxio Payments. Advanced Billing does not currently support sending Level 2 or Level 3 data for any other gateway credit card transactions processed through any other of our 3rd party gateway integrations.