Overview

Version 1.0

A ‘Virtual Terminal’ is an online equivalent of a physical payment terminal that enables you to process customer-not-present Mail Order Telephone Order (MOTO) transactions through a back-office servicing tool.

Smartpay Fuse provides a Virtual Terminal within the Enterprise Business Centre (EBC) as standard feature of the platform. This means that you can process MOTO transactions straight away, rather than needing to build a separate integration to handle payments taken over the phone or via mail.

Access to the Virtual Terminal is available to any EBC user who has a role with permissions to view, configure, and use a Virtual Terminal.

Please refer to the user role documentation for further information on creating bespoke roles and ensure that any users you create who require access to the Virtual Terminal include the following permissions:

  • Virtual Terminal Transaction
  • Payment Authorisation
  • Payment Capture/Settlement/Debit


If a Virtual Terminal sounds like the right option for you to start taking payments, then please keep reading to discover more about the feature and how it compares to other options.

Key information

  • Zero integration overhead
  • Fully hosted – no card data on your servers or network
  • Accept a wide range of card types such as Visa, Mastercard, American Express
  • Customise virtual terminal capability according to the rules and constraints of your back office team

Virtual terminal is one of the options available for you to take a payment. Each option offers a subtly different range of capabilities and it is important to ensure that the option you select provides the right features for your business needs. The table below compares and contrasts the key features of Smartpay Fuse and how these are supported by the different integration options.

 Features  Virtual Terminal (in EBC *1)  Plugins (eCommerce platforms)   Hosted Payment Page   Direct API Integration (REST API Only)   Hosted Fields (Flex Microform + REST API) 
 PCI overhead SAQ C-VT Mixed *2 SAQ A SAQ D SAQ A *3
 Transaction Types  
  • Auth only
yes yes (all plugins) yes yes yes *7
  • Auth and capture
yes yes (all plugins) yes yes yes *7
  • Tokenise card (Credentials on file) 
yes yes yes *4 yes yes *7

 CIT (initial/subsequent)

yes yes yes *4 yes yes *7

MIT (continuous authority)

no some *6 no yes yes *7
  • Refund (standalone)
yes *8 some *6 via REST API & EBC*1 yes yes *7
  • Refund (existing transaction)
yes yes (all plugins) via REST API & EBC*1 yes yes *7
  • Reversal
yes yes (all plugins) via REST API & EBC*1 yes yes *7
  • Capture of standalone auth
no yes (all plugins) via REST API & EBC*1 yes yes *7
 3D Secure Payer Authentication (v2)  n/a yes (all plugins) yes yes yes *7
 Account validation / verification n/a some *6 yes yes yes *7
 Basic fraud check rules *5 yes yes (all plugins) yes yes yes *7
 Low value exemptions n/a no yes yes yes *7
 AVS/CSC auto reversal/blocking yes *8 yes *6 *8 yes *8 yes *8 yes *7*8
 Digital wallets / APMs  
  • Apple Pay
n/a some *6 no yes no *7
  • Google Pay
n/a some *6 no yes no *7
 Card types supported  
  • Visa
yes yes yes yes yes
  • Mastercard
yes yes yes yes yes
  • Amex
yes *8 yes *8 yes *8 yes *8 yes *8
 Channels  
  • eCommerce
no yes yes yes yes *7
  • Moto
yes some *6 yes *8 yes yes *7

If the capability you need is not supported by the Virtual Terminal, you should consider one of the alternates integration options.

For more information on each of the options please see the following Quick Start guides:

If you are unsure of the right integration approach for your needs, please get in contact.

Notes:
*1 - EBC is our back-office servicing portal; the Enterprise Business Center.
*2 - Different plugins use different integration methods. Please see te Hosted Payment Page, Hosted Fields (Flex Microform) and REST API guides for more details on the PCI implications of those integration approaches. If you are in any doubt about PCI, please get in contact.
*3 - SAQ A when using Flex Microforms to tokenize from web-applications.
*4 - Secure Acceptance Hosted Checkout can create tokenise from initial CIT transactions that can be used for subsequent CIT transactions.
*5 - Basic velocity rules via Decision Manager only available to SME clients; advanced fraud check and TRA on a case by case base.
*6 - Only available on some of our plugins, please see individual plugin solution pages.
*7 - Flex Microform simply allows card numbers to be tokenised in a PCI safe way; using the resulting transient token to process or manage the transaction is done with the direct integration REST API.
*8 - These features are not enabled out of the box and need further configuration by support teams, please contact support.

Using a Virtual Terminal to take payments can be considered a no-code integration option. All the capability you need to perform a transaction is readily available through our back-office servicing solution, the Enterprise Business Centre. Taking a payment using the EBC is as simple as logging on, navigating to the correct payment operations screen, and following the on-screen instructions.

The payment flow is fully browser based and controlled by your customer servicing teams, as follows:

There is no integration for clients using this approach, all payments are taken through the back-office servicing portal “EBC”, which is fully hosted within the Smartpay Fuse service.

This integration option attracts a PCI SAQ C-VT level of compliance1.

This SAQ option is intended to apply only to merchants who manually enter a single transaction at a time via a keyboard into an Internet-based virtual terminal solution. SAQ C-VT merchants may be brick-and mortar (card-present) or mail/telephone-order (card-not-present) merchants.

[1] - https://listings.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/PCI-DSS-v3_2-SAQ-C_VT-rev1_1.pdf

Getting started

Further information

For further details log in to EBC and select the Help Centre. You can also view the EBC Quick Start guide here.