By Emily Lopizzo
These days, there's a growing number of remote employees. They range from off-site sales and marketing teams to newspaper delivery personnel, and more. In any of these situations, the ability to accept credit card payments from the field is an incredible advantage. I was recently made aware of a product called the Pocket Verifier Professional (at http://www.merchantanywhere.com/pocketverifier/default.htm) that allows you to do just that. This is a serious enterprise solution, which is why I selected it as PalmPower's Enterprise Edition Product of the Month. I can clearly imagine the day that I'll be able to pay for a taxi ride, a parcel pick up, or any kind of delivery with my credit card.
The Pocket Verifier software enables you to transfer funds from your customer's credit card directly into your checking account using your Palm handheld's Internet connection. The software is equipped with all the features of a traditional merchant terminal and can accept, authorize, print, and store your transactions. For faster transactions and lower rates, the software supports magnetic card readers, as shown in Figure A.
FIGURE A
The Pocket Verifier Professional software supports magnetic card readers. (click for larger image)
The Pocket Verifier Professional also supports infrared and cable connected printers for receipt printing. It even supports check readers for electronic funds transfers. The Pocket Verifier works with any Palm OS device with an Internet connection. If you have a device without an Internet connection, you can use the Palm Mobile Internet Kit to access the Internet through your mobile phone.
Some of the Pocket Verifier Professional features are an address verification system, fully encrypted transactions, the capability to maintain multiple PDAs on a single account as well as multiple accounts on a single PDA, electronic check acceptance, and magnetic card reader support. It also includes Transaction Central, an Internet based credit card authorization system.
Now if I could just find a local company that took advantage of the Pocket Verifier Professional and delivered coffee and ice cream sundaes, I'd be happy.
Emily Lopizzo is an editorial assistant at ZATZ:Pure Internet Publishing and can be reached via email at emily_lopizzo@zatz.com.
