November Newsletter 2011




Current Events & Updates

What is The New Merchant PCI Compliance?

If your business accepts credit cards, you have probably been recently advised that you will be charged a new annual fee to pay for the cost of keeping your business compliant with the latest required credit card security regulations as handed down by Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express.  This article will explain what compliance is all about.

First of all, let's get a few terms explained.

PCI stands for Payment Card Industry.  DSS stands for Data Security Standard.  The credit card issuers have suffered huge losses due to credit card fraud and they have decided to take new steps to prevent as much of that as possible.  These steps include coordinating with merchants to establish and enforce new credit card number protection strategies including the better encryption of credit card numbers when transmitted during a sales authorization by a merchant, and storage of customer credit card data afterward.

There are basically two ways to get a sale authorized:  either using a credit card terminal next to your cash register (or integrated into your POS) or via Internet.  Some merchants use a dial-up terminal and others use a high-speed Internet connection.  Either way, the card issuers are concerned that transaction data be transmitted securely.  There have been many headlines about breeches, wherein hundreds of thousands, even millions of credit card numbers are stolen.  Hackers tap into phone lines and Internet connections every day.

So – here we are.  Every bank and other credit card processing company will be passing on the cost of these increased security standards to their merchants.  So please do not go cancelling your merchant account or trying to switch to another processor who does not or will not charge you this compliance fee, because you are going to have this fee from now on, regardless of which processor you are with.

Now, let's talk about what you, as a merchant, will have to do to become and remain compliant with PCI DSS.
http://www.merchantcircle.com/blogs/Credit.Card.Merchant.News.954-513-0762/2009/5/What-is-The-New-Merchant-PCI-Compliance-/237855
 

Explanation of a few Reports

8849 FET/SET Volume Report – eee0065.rpt This report displays the total of FET and SET exemption dollar totals split up by Customer name, Product, and Quantity based on the date range entered.  Included at the end of the report is a Summary of the Products, Quantities, FET and SET dollar totals sold to customers who are FET/SET exempt.  This report sorts the records by customer name.

A/R Customer – GAS/OIL History Report – eee0071.rpt  This report displays the total gallons and dollar amounts from sales based on the date range and customer number entered. This report splits the gallon and dollar amounts by Customer (includes name, account number and address), Fuel Type, and Month the fuel was sold. Includes the ability to display one customer per page.  This report sorts the records by account number.

Available Gift Card Balances – eee0072.rpt  This report displays the Gift Card balances that are in the OneTouch system, split up by Customer Code and Name. Under each Customer Code is a list of the Gift Cards that are assigned to that customer, and includes the Description of the card and the Balance of the Gift Card. At the end of each Customer record is a total of their Gift Card balances.  You can choose to run this report for all Customers or for one specific Customer.  This report sorts the records by account number.

Credit Limit Report – eee0076.rpt  This report displays the customer Name, Account #, Balance, Credit Limit, Open Credit, and % of Limit for those customers that have a Balance on their account. The Open Credit is calculated by subtracting the customer’s current Balance from their Limit (ex: a balance of $1.50 and a limit of $25.00 would be an Open Credit of 25.00-1.50 or $23.50).  The % of Limit is calculated by dividing the customer’s Balance by their Limit (ex: a balance of $1.50 and a Limit of $25.00 would be 1.50/25.00 or 6.0%).  You can choose to run this report for all Customers or for one specific Customer, and choose whether you want to display customers that are within a certain Percentage of their Credit Limit (ex: type in 10% if you would like to only display customers that have a balance that is within 10% of their credit limit).  This reports sorts the records by customer name.


New Products and Service

Enhancement of the pumptool bar

Explanation of Dispenser States Displayed Above:

Edit section

  1. Handle Up (Calling)
  2. Dispenser Offline
  3. Fueling
  4. Payable Sale
  5. Idle Dispenser with Prepay Refund available
  6. Authorization In Progress
  7. Idle Dispenser with Receipt Printer Error (low on paper, out of paper, printer jam, or printer failure)
  8. Authorized Dispenser
  9. Idle Dispenser



Tips in our Area of Expertise

  • Avoid forcefully powering off your computer. This can cause data corruption as your computer will not have time to finish writing to the hard drive.
  • Defrag your hard drives – The defragmentation utility allows you to sort the data on the hard drive, sequentially; thereby eliminating wasted disk space. Also, this will allow for faster access time, increasing the computer performance.
  • Clean your hard drives – Disk cleanup allows you to delete unnecessary files. Such as temporary files, downloaded office files, temporary program files, contents of the recycle bin, and a few others; selectively.


 

Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.
Walt Whitman

Upcoming Events

November 8th – 8AM PST
Training – Connecting to your site Remotely  Sign Up
This training will go through the steps of accessing your site remotely.

November 22th – 8AM PST
Training – DIfferent ways to setup private cards in DataManager  Sign Up
This training will talk about the multiple ways to setup a private card in DataManager.

November 24th
Office will be closed


Upgrades/ Enhancements 

We will be starting the upgrades of CP720s in December.  We will be sending out an email with more information. 


24 Hours Support

We have a 24 Hours Support available for customer who are having issue before or after our normal hours of operation.
More Information


PCI for NBS

We are proud to announce that we have completed the PCI re-audit for NBS Processing with Debit.