Sage Payment Processing – Authorization and Settlement Outages – 10/30/12 RESOLVED

October 30, 2012 by Wayne Schulz

According to reports from customers who have integrated their Sage 100 ERP with Sage Payments for credit card processing – the link to Sage may be down as of 10/30/12.

UPDATE 10/30/12 4pm – Sage indicates that this issue has been resolved and systems are back functioning as normal.

Here is Sage’s suggested workaround until their connection is functioning:

We first took reports early this morning in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. The symptom that two customers reported was a blank “OK” button when attempting to process credit cards.

Sage Payments Status Page

Is Pocket Soap still required to be loaded for Sage Payments integrated to Sage 100?

September 18, 2012 by Wayne Schulz

Versions of Sage 100 prior to 4.4 required a separate Pocket Soap program download to complete the integration with Sage 100.

Pocket SOAP is the open source Clint communication components for the windows family. It supports for SOAP 1.1 and soap 1.2. It supports attachment via Both DIME and SOAP.

As of version 4.4 this download is no longer required.

Resolution:

No separate download is required.

Versions prior to 4.4 which need Pocketsoap should reference this link

http://www.pocketsoap.com/pocketsoap/#dl

Save $200 on Sage Maintenance Renewal: Enroll In Sage Payment Solution

July 27, 2012 by Wayne Schulz

Save $200 when you are a first time customer who enrolls in Sage Payments for your credit card processing.

Sage’s credit card service also integrates seamlessly to your Sage 100 ERP allowing for credit card payments to be accepted in cash receipts and order entry.

For more information view the notice

Sage Credit Card Solutions Detailed

July 5, 2012 by Wayne Schulz

In 2011 Sage Payment Solutions processed 135,775,501 transactions totaling $12,553,846,720 for 83,182 companies and organizations.

Soon, while using Sage Exchange integration to Sage 100 ERP, you will be able to securely store credit card data off-site in the Sage vault and also have the option to process credit card transactions remotely.

For a general overview of payment processing options available see – Sage – Credit Card Processing Is A Complete Payment Processing Solution.

3 Tips For Saving Money On Your Sage Payments Account

June 13, 2012 by Wayne Schulz

Here are some ways existing users may be able to reduce (or eliminate) some recurring Sage Payment Standard Fees:

PCI Compliance – $25/mo recurring – can be waived if you test yourself at https://pci.trustwave.com/action.php though there is a $75 annual fee for a Trustwave scan which is now billed in June per Sage Payments posting here

http://www.sagepayments.com/Compliance/~/media/Category/Payment%20Solutions/Assets/Documents/PDFs/Payment_Card_Industry_Changes.pdf

New Chargeback Assistance Program – $3.95/mo – web site leads you to believe it’s optional (and some at Sage say that it’s an opt-in program) though a call to Sage Payments by one of our 90 Minds members led to a response from someone at SPS saying that it’s mandatory. They were able to get the fee reduced to $1.50/mo after complaining (this was reported by only one of our members – so your mileage may vary in convincing Sage to reduce your fees or Sage may come back eventually and reply to us that the SPS representative was mistaken – we have an inquiry into Sage Payments about this matter).

http://na.sage.com/sage-payment-solutions/support-resources/sage-chargeback-assistance-program

Rate review – Sage Payments doesn’t come out and tell you this but you can ask them to review your rates at any time. Since credit card processing is a highly competitive area – it’s probably not a bad idea to shop this every 6 months if you are doing a fair volume of monthly charges.

Other items worth noting:

Sage Moving Sage 100 ERP To Sage Exchange – Expected V5.0 – read the latest FAQ about Sage Exchange and credit card processing.

Beginning with Sage 100 ERP 5.0 Sage will use Sage Exchange technology and PC Charge will not be supported (Sage will only support the ERP side – though this has been our experience for at least the last two years as Sage has forwarded all PC Charger users’ processing related tech calls to the PC Charge support lines)

http://na.sage.com/sage-payment-solutions/products-services/sage-exchange

With Sage Exchange credit card data formerly stored inside Sage 100 ERP will now be stored in your “Sage Vault”. Once payment data is out of Sage 100 ERP then reportedly Sage will no longer be required to undergo expensive PCI compliance audits with each software release.

This foregoing of compliance audits is a touchy subject with Sage since technically it means the Sage 100 ERP software hasn’t undergone any PCI compliant audits to which Sage have responded that with the use of Sage Exchange (ie – storing all payment data outside the software) they are not required to be compliant or undergo a PCI compliance audit.

All of the above is likely true (Sage is a big company and I’m sure they’ve checked and double checked this with their legal eagles).

Recommendations

Without PCI audits (performed at the direction of Sage- due to stop with v5.0 aka Sage 100 ERP 2013) you can’t store any credit card info within Sage 100 and be considered PCI compliant (Note: Yes I know you can – and people do – create UDF fields and some customers demand it – good luck avoiding legal liability in the event of data breach either internal or external).

Do not store any credit card data within modified Sage 100 ERP fields – memos, UDF, etc. To do so may put your company at risk in the case of a data breach.

We recommend Sage Payments coupled with a frequent review (as you would for any credit card merchant) of your statements to insure that you receive the lowest possible processing fees. The integration to Sage 100 ERP is slick, easy to setup (and upgrade) and seldom prevents any type of errors (which was most definitely not our experience with other third party credit card integrations).

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