A merchant account gives your company the ability to accept credit cards and is an important tool that may lead to increased sales and profitability. With online sales, there are three components that enable the customer to purchase products over the internet. To accept credit cards a business needs a checking account, a merchant account, and payment gateway software.

Checking Account
A checking account is required for receiving transaction deposits.

Merchant Account
The merchant account provides the ability to accept your choice of VISA, MASTERCARD, American Express, and other credit cards.

Payment Gateway Software
To process transactions on the Internet, payment gateway software, such as one provided by Pay Pal Pro or Authorize. net can request a credit card authorization online and process the results, in a specific format, in a safe and secure environment. It works like this:

While there are numerous providers, DirectHME only works with Pay Pal and their Pay Pal Pro product and Authorize. net as the payment gateway. Pay Pal Pro will provide you with the ability to accept MasterCard, VISA, American Express, Discover, e-checks and Pay Pal as payment options. This is by far the most simple and best available service in that it provides you everything you need to accept online payments. Your bank or other service provider can provide the merchant account services. If you Google merchant account you will find many providers.  Just make sure they work with Authorize.net.  There are other payment gateways available as well but there will be additional charges from Direct to work with them. DirectHME receives no compensation from any of these providers. We are just familiar with them and found their service to be excellent.

For more information on either product you can visit their web site:
Pay Pal Pro
Authorize.net