[ic] Merchant ACcount

Cameron interchange-users@icdevgroup.org
Tue May 20 18:17:01 2003


> I got a question about merchant accounts..
>
> IS there any restrictions on what merchant accounts would work with IC ?
>
> Andre
>

at the risk of not sounding very helpful, "the only restriction is what you
can be bothered to code for yourself".

There are basically two types of gateways, synchronous and asynchronous.
Synchronous ones are the best, they generally involve you calling a
java/c/whatever program that passes the details along and then returns a yea
or nay value, which interchange has hooks to deal with in a nice, clean
manner. examples are, as has been mentioned, Authorize.net, signio, etc, and
there are already pre-written IC modules to work with these gateways.

Asynchronous gateways are the work of the devil - these are the ones where
you have to redirect the client off to their site in order to process the
transaction. interchange (infact, almost all ecommerce packages) doesn't
deal well with this, insofar as that you potentially lose session - which
causes the order's status to end up in limbo. There are ways around this, as
always, but it's generally a pain in the behind.

if you choose one of the non-supported gateways, prepare to get your hands
dirty - otherwise, implementation is pretty simple. it's not HARD to write
new modules, or to hack an asynchronous gateway on to the end of your order
process, but you'll have to spend some time getting to know IC. kevin's
site, http://www.interchange.rtfm.info/ has a lot of info on this sort of
thing.