Is Actinic Payments ready to use?

[software4ed]

This may seem an obvious question but from reading a few fault reports I cannot get a clear picture of the operational state of Actinic Payments.

I am about to choose a PSP and Actinic Payments, if working well, seems the obvious choice for many reasons.

Could I please have your opinions on how well it is working or your recommendations that I should go elsewhere.

I have used Actinic for many years and I am not averse to making some changes to get it from 80% to 100% (which is more often than not a requirement).

At the moment I use the built-in Actinic payment page and a merchant account with virtual terminal.

Thanks, Geoff

[RuralWeb]

I use the built-in Actinic payment page

Actinic payments will be a huge step forwards for you as the built in payments page was current at about the same time as stonehenge was built.

ALL psps have problems at times so dont be put off by Actinics offering as it has many advantages over others especially if you are using V9

[software4ed]

Thanks Malcolm,

I agree that it is far more automated but I do like the ability to make my own decision on which orders I accept. This has saved me a lot of money in the past. I tried HSBC once but that was a disaster in terms of missing payments, addresses, and the overall slowness of their system.

However, I accept that security has improved greatly over the past few years and know that I can hold orders at the authorisation stage within Actinic.

I note that you stopped short of an actual recommendation!

[RuralWeb]

I note that you stopped short of an actual recommendation!

Yes I do recommend it - Im currently upgrading 5 sites so they can add it and I would not do that if I did not think it was any good!

[software4ed]

Thanks Malcolm, they don't come much more recommended that that!

[pinbrook]

You need 8.5.3 or 9 to use actinic payments.

[Tickle]

I've been considerin Actinic Payments for a while off and on as a V9 user. Is there that much benefit in switching from Protx to Actinic Payments? It doesn't seem cheaper for my volume of payments and I wonder how beneficial the integration is in reality.

I haven't really been swayed to switch by Actinic's marketing (I was hoping there were some compelling reasons they'd provide) so I'd love to hear from those that have used both AP and Protx.

Thanks

John

[RuralWeb]

it's down to individual site owners to work out if it's best for them but 3 of the sites I'm doing use protx at the moment the others use actinic ssl.

[software4ed]

It seems my proposed move to Actinic Payments has been thwarted by Actinic's policy on upgrades, apparently my cover contract only covered an upgrade to Developer and not the client licence that went with it. I need the extras that 9 offers so 8.5.3 isn't an option.

I'm feeling very unhappy with this and the fact that the only time I raised a support issue it was left unresolved (referrer.pl not working correctly).

Geoff

[Darren B]

I've been considerin Actinic Payments for a while off and on as a V9 user. Is there that much benefit in switching from Protx to Actinic Payments? It doesn't seem cheaper for my volume of payments and I wonder how beneficial the integration is in reality.

As mal said its an individual choice, but AP offer more extra than others, i am still considering it, waiting for it to settle down abit and the new version of actinic to come out, for me the moto is a big plus side of Actinic Payments
Still dont think this part has been advertised much.

Take telephone orders, and process the credit card all through actinic. how easy is that, no seperate virtual terminal to mess with, remember you might need and extra merchant number to use virtual terminals

D

[pinbrook]

Yep if you already use a PSP i'd be inclined to wait a while longer before changing - let it bed down some more. If you are new to psp then run with it.

My own feelings are to jump in around oct/nov time and run with 2 PSPs over the christmas period. It won't cost a fortune to run both (ie your exsisting psp and AP) for a couple of months and you will get some redundancy. After xmas close your old psp.

[george]

Any other feeback/reviews on this subject?

[Stereo Steve]

#11 That's exactly my plan. We currently use HSBC but Actinic and Streamline will save us quite a bit over a year.

[Tickle]

Sounds like good advice Jo.

I can definitely see the benefit on the MOTO side of things to reduce double entry of payments.

What isn't obvious, without running it, is how it manages refunds. Is it simple and traceable?

I've also got a query on reporting of historic payments. I recently submitted my annual accounts and had to go through all my historic Protx payments to get the "Bank Settement - Monthly" summary of payments batched up per day which matched against the payments into the business account. I also had to get the "Bank Settlement Details" report for the transaction breakdown per batch to prove what customer payments were made within each daily batch. Could I get this sort of information from AP?

Does the AP system also provide the fraud flags such as the 3rd man and attempts, etc?

Thanks

John

[TraceyHand]

FTR, I'm finding the reporting side of AP pretty comprehensive.
It can give you pretty much any report you want
If I get chance, I'll put up a screenshot of the Reports page in the admin panel

[edit]
added a screenshot