Book Online & Payment System

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I've been involved with several CI projects where I've used Authorize.net as well as a couple with PayPal Direct Payments or Website Payments Pro. In each of these cases, I helped the client apply and gain approval for the merchant accounts and developed the code for the credit card transactions.

There will be certain requirements that you'll need on your website to remain on it instead of redirecting to the payment processor's site and returning to their site based upon approval, cancellation of the process or a decline. Prior to merchant account approval, you'll have to display privacy, shipping, cancellation and return policies, but they are easy to obtain or cannibalize and display on your site.

On your hosting account, you'll need cURL enabled as well as a unique/dedicated IP address and an SSL certificate. Some hosting companies provide a package for this at a decent rate, or you can pay for the IP address and secure the SSL certificate from a company such as Thawte. It's not too difficult to set these things up or Thawte and/or your hosting company should be able to help you get through the process or establishing and setting up your account.

If they go with PayPal's cheaper solution, the costs are minor. If they use a more secure method, they'll incur annual renewal fees, monthly gateway processing fees and per transaction fees, so they'll have to determine whether it will be worth the level of sales that they'll generate. For two of my most recent projects, monthly gateway fees were $14,95 and $30 respectively, but I believe those fees were based upon their anticipated monthly sales and possibly their type of corporation (non-profit vs for-profit, etc.).