Orbital Virtual Terminal Review

Virtual terminals are the payment acceptance option of choice for many different business types, including mail and phone order businesses, call centers, and anyone that doesn’t need special processing equipment. 

What You’ll Need

The Orbital virtual terminal is proprietary, meaning you need a merchant account with Chase Paymentech in order to use it. The virtual terminal works with any computer that has an internet connection and web browser; no special equipment is required. Note that unlike some other virtual terminals, the Orbital terminal is limited to card-not-present transations only. Card swipers cannot be connected to the Orbital virtual terminal. In some cases, Orbital virtual terminals may be able to offer check processing. Check processing is only available to customers located in North America. 

Virtual Terminal Functions and Features

With the Orbital virtual terminal, you can key in credit card payments, void transactions, and issue refunds securely. The Orbital terminal supports Level III transactions, allowing you to accept government and corporate cards. You can choose to print, email, or text receipts to your customers. Additional features include reporting, automatic log outs, and more.

Chase Paymentech offers an explanatory video about the Orbital virtual terminal, which can be viewed below:

Reporting

The Orbital virtual terminal includes a range of reporting and management options, including shipment splitting, transaction settlement, batch settlement, and order history viewing.

Recurring Billing

The Orbital virtual terminal also supports recurring billing, ideal if you want to limit the amount of time spent entering payments for goods or services that are charged on a regular basis. Recurring billing is specifically designed for memberships, subscription boxes and other subscription-style companies, and more.

Level III Data

The Orbital Virtual Terminal provides support for Level III transactions. Level III payments require more stringent authorization information, and generally apply to commercial and government transactions. The Orbital terminal allows for secure acceptance of such purchasing cards.

Automatic Settlement

You can choose to have transactions settled automatically at the end of the business day for convenience. Settling transactions within 24 hours is often a requirement to qualify for lower interchange categories, so it’s usually in your best interest to make sure that transactions are batched at least once a day.

Multiple User Logins

For businesses with multiple users, the Orbital Virtual Terminal provides a unique login for each user. Each user’s permissions and access to specific features can be set and controlled by the administrator, ensuring that users only have access to the features they are authorized to use. For example, you could set permissions for sales staff that allow sales but not refunds, requiring an administrator or manager to process the refund and ensure its validity. Reports are available for individual user logins, allowing owners to easily track sales and activity by particular staff members.

Automatic Time-Out

The Orbital Virtual Terminal is available 24 hours a day. To prevent potential misuse or unauthorized use, the terminal boasts an automatic time-out that will log the user out after 20 minutes of inactivity. To resume work, your or your staff can simply log in again.

Security

The Orbital virtual terminal protects data transmission with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocols and 128 bit encryption. Card information and sensitive data is stored away from your machine, helping you comply with PCI requirements. Additionally, Orbital offers several fraud detection services for added security, including Address Verification Service (AVS), Card Verification Values (CVV, CVV2, CID) and Account Verification.

AVS

With Address Verification Service, you can enter a customer’s address to compare to the billing address on file with the customer’s credit card company. This service helps detect stolen cards by highlighting transactions where customers are attempting to have goods sent to an address not on file with the credit card being used. There are multiple different components you can verify (including street number, street address, and zip code) and you can choose whether to automatically decline transactions that fail authentication. 

CVV and CVV2

CVV and CVV2 verification processes use a code printed on the back of a credit card to verify that the card is actually in the possession of the purchaser. This code is used for additional security to authorize transactions when the card is not present. Most cards have a 3-digit code on the back of the credit card. 

CID

CID is a verification process exclusive to American Express. Similar to CVV and CVV2, CID uses a four-digit code printed on the front of an American Express card which is used to authorize the payment for a card-not-present transaction.

Account Verification

Account Verification is a security option that allows you to verify a cardholder’s account without having an effect on the customer’s available credit. In addition to verifying the customer’s account number, Account Verification can complete Address Verification at the same time.

Accessories

Chase Paymentech doesn’t currently offer peripherals for the Orbital virtual terminal. This is due to the fact that the terminal is designed for manually keyed transactions and doesn’t currently support card-present or swiped transactions. Swiping cards with a computer terminal can be done, but requires the use of Chase Paymentech’s iTerminal option.