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The
Advisor
MERCHANT CARD ACCOUNT SOFTWARE REVIEW
Review of PC Authorize and ICVerify
There is a rather new regulation being mandated by Visa/Mastercard for all mail order and non-swipe merchants called AVS or Address Verifications System. In order to cut down on so-called fraud, Visa/MC (but not AMEX yet) is requiring merchants who sell via mail or on-line to supply the street address and the zip code of the buyer using electronic draft capture software on a PC or Macintosh. Visa/MC will compare the street and zip against their files and return to the merchant a code saying that it matches or it doesn't. They will not deny an address mismatch and are leaving it up to the discretion of the merchant to accept the card or not. Merchants who do not comply with the address verification requirement and who wish to remain on their current keypad terminals (Verifone, Envoy, etc.) will be hit with much higher discount rates. We are a small publishing company that sells many of our titles via mail order. In addition, I am a 20 year veteran of the computer consulting wars, thus I was asked by the company to evaluate the software options available for us. After an extensive search (aided by our bankers) I decided to test two products, ICVerify and PC Authorize, on our Windows 95 platform. Both of these products are brand new for the Win95 market. And they are both about the same price, in the area of $350. In addition, they both do the same function: capture data, transmit it to whatever network you are on, and return and display the result. However, there is a big difference between them when it comes to the user interface, as well as features. FEATURES ICVerify is far more full-featured than its rival. It has modules for many different types of businesses such as hotels, gas stations, retail stores, etc. However, since the majority of new buyers of this type of software will be general mail order merchants, I did not find the existence of all these features to be a real benefit to us. However, if you are going to accept both swiped cards as well as non-retail transactions, and you are a "special" type of business, some of these whistles and bells may be of interest to you. PC Authorize does not have modules for every business under the sun and adopts a one-size fits all approach. While they do have special modules they call "plug-ins" for different networks (we are on MAPP) they do not have any special add-ons for specialized business types. One feature that both have is a "demo" or "training" mode where you can play with the product or train a user but no calls are placed through the modem. ICVerify has more combinations of reports. PC Authorize actually has only one report. INSTALLATION Both programs install rather easily. ICVerify came to me on 4 disks, as they sent me what is called a "developers kit," while PC Authorize was on two disks. Both programs create folders of their own and install themselves in a few minutes. One quirk I did not like with PC Authorize is that the company says that a password is required and that one is supposed to come in the package. There was none in the package I received and I installed the product without the password and it worked fine. I called the support number later on and told them about this and they were puzzled about why I didn't get a password and why the program worked. I don't think they have thought this concept through too carefully. DOCUMENTATION Both products come with a short and easy to read manual. This is pretty simple software and the buyer will not need to refer to the manuals too often. I thought that the PC Authorize manual was better written and had easier to follow instructions for configuration. However, I often saw the words "MAC Authorize" when they meant to say "PC Authorize." SETUP While configuring each program with the merchant number, phone number to dial, and terminal ID was easy for both programs, I thought it was more straightforward with the PC Authorize program, probably due to the better manual and the instruction sheet they provided with instructions for my bank's particular network. INTERFACE This is were the biggest difference between the two products is. ICVerify has a poorly designed, ugly, and clumsy user interface. What they did was to take their DOS product and port it over to Win95 using a minimum of Win95 Graphical User Interface (GUI) standards. And it shows. When I spoke on the phone with the VP of Marketing, he admitted that the GUI was pretty ugly and that they were working as fast as they can on an upgrade. He said that they had to get a Win95 product to market for competitive reasons and did some "quick and dirty" programming on their legacy product. ICVerify is one small step better than a DOS product that would run in the DOS window of Win95. The interface is absolutely terrible. PC Authorize, on the other hand, took their Macintosh product and ported it over to Win95. While they obviously do not confirm to all of the Win95 standards, the interface is still quite elegant, as you would expect from a Macintosh conversion. The PC Authorize product is a joy to use and look at. FUNCTIONALITY Both programs do the same thing. They collect data input in the form of individual transactions and put them in a batch. Transactions are authorized by modem, either one at a time or all at once (by batch.) The settlement process for each is the same for each product. Both products have adequate safeguards to make sure you don't try to settle a batch that has transactions without verifications. Because the PC Authorize interface is so well thought out, it was much more "pleasurable" to use than the ICVerify. However, bottom line, they both get you where you want to go. EXTERNALS Here is were PC Authorize really shines. It employs a very simple and easy to understand set-up screen in order to either import or export data. We had to export the necessary data (card number, expire date, address, etc.) from our invoice system into the PC Authorize program. It was simple to export the data to a text file and then import this text file into PC Authorize. It took hardly any time at all for us to set this up on both ends. We decided to input the invoice data first and then export to the credit card system. However, we could have done it the other way if we wanted. PC Authorize makes it easy. In addition they support Microsoft DDE standards and provide the customer with an example Access database as well as documentation. Since we plan to switch from the PC version of Claris Filemaker (we used to be on Macintosh machines) to MS Access, we like the idea that we can easily (well, maybe not so easily) integrate the two products such that we won't have to do the export from the invoice and the import into the credit card software. If there is a way to import and export data from ICVerify, I never found it. They sent me a developers kit, but no documentation to go along with it. RECOMMENDATION For the general mail order merchant, PC Authorize wins hands down. While there are several changes I would make to the program and while I think it needs some additional reporting, this product is far and away better than ICVerify in terms of ease of use, overall functionality, and integration abilities. If you need some special features for a special class of business, ICVerify might be a better choice, but for the average mail order business or service provider (consultant, plumber, repairperson, etc.) PC Authorize is the program you want to get. While ICVerify will be coming out with a new Win95 product "real soon now", since they were six months late in bringing out their current Win95 version (promised in April, delivered in September) I would not hold my breath waiting. We purchased the PC Authorize program and had it running in production after about 8 hours of work in integrating it with our current system. We had it up and running stand-alone in 30 minutes. (Alan Blake is the author of ComputerMoney: Making It in High-Tech Consulting and The Silver Pen: Starting a Profitable Writing Business From a Lifetime of Experience --- A Guide for Older People, both of which are available in libraries, bookstores, and the publisher, Adams-Blake. Call 1 800 368 ADAM for credit card orders.) |