[lug] web-based credit card processing recommendations

[Rob Nagler]

We've been very happy with authorize.net.  They have libraries,
but we just coded a simple perl interface to their server.  The
support is excellent.  Documentation in clear. 

We use LAMO (not pronounced lame-o ;-), but I don't think the
db has much to do with it.   

We batch process hourly, but they only settle daily.  
This turns out to be handy, since we sometimes have to 
void payments within the same day and there's no charge 
to void before settling.  

You could write the database input side in PHP and the interactions
with authorize.net in just about anything.  I don't recommend 
real-time input to the agent.   Their site might be down or whatever
and you would have a long delay.  The batch approach decouples the
agent from your site and allows you to restart, deal with crashes,
and whatnot.

My two bits...  

Rob

Plug: If you need help, we would give you the base Perl code and charge
      you for the time it takes to extract it/integrate it.  Check out 
      http://www.bivio.net and our freeware toolkit bOP.