In our quest to reduce/eliminate all credit card storage, the question was posed as to why we use Tessitura to process card present transactions and why we don't just use the credit/debit terminals at each counter. Are there other orgs doing this or is there a reason that we have to use Tessitura?
Michele
Our box office uses external terminals for all debit/credit transactions.... but I wouldn't say that's by choice. ;)
Because Tessitura is not Chip & Pin enabled (yet!) our card terminals are not connected to Tessitura. While it would definitely eliminate your card storage for card present transactions it comes with a cost. You will need to setup dummy payment methods to pay off the order in Tessitura and there is the extra step of reconciling your card terminal to Tessitura at the end of the day. More opportunities for human error and all that jazz as well. Also, if you want to continue to have some payments directly through Tessitura for any reason you will need to make sure your payment methods are distinct (dummy vs transactional) and make sure you staff are very clear on the difference and are using them appropriately (imagine processing a transaction twice and not realizing it).
That said, isn't there a T_DEFAULTS setting that controls whether or not a card number is stored? Or you could look at running the card purge utility more often? If you don't absolutely need to do the external card reader I wouldn't recommend it. We're counting down the days until we can process our payments directly through Tess the way it was intended!
Thanks Beth. We are adding the T_Defaults setting next week, so it really is a moot point. Our Finance department is looking at all possibilities.
In the UK we are Chip and Pin enabled and have implemented a virtual terminal for our users to use which feeds back into Tessitura with basic card details.
Mark