Openbravo POS - PCCharge Integration

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Openbravo POS v2.2 supports Authorize.net as the only payment gateway option, and it works great if you don't mind paying $0.10 - $0.15 gateway fee for each credit card transaction. The fee could accumulate up to a few hundred dollars per month if you have large volume. After 3 months of King Spa & Sauna operation in Niles, we've found that it will be worthwhile to integrate PCCharge or ICVerify module into the Openbravo POS; and save money on gateway fees.

Since we've had some explosure to PC Charge in the past, we've decided to integrate PC Charge instead of ICVerify. To integrate PC Charge payment module into the Openbravo POS, we'll need a PCCharge DevKit for speedy development. We'll also need the PCCharge Payment Server in order to process the PCCharge transactions in the Windows environment.

What are PCCharge DevKit (and DevKit Suite)?

The PCCharge DevKit is a bundle of applications, tools, code examples, and documents used to enable electronic payment processing in third party applications. The PCCharge DevKit is designed to guide developers while they are building an interface in their application to PCCharge Payment Server and/or PCCharge Pro.

The PCCharge DevKit includes evaluation copies of PCCharge Pro and PCCharge Payment Server for use only during integration and testing.

The PCCharge DevKit Suite is identical to DevKit except the DevKit Suite contains One (1) live license for either PCCharge Payment Server or PCCharge Pro, and One (1) Unlimited User license that can be activated within PCCharge Payment Server or PCCharge Pro.

To get started, you may start by reading the PCCharge DevKit Manual and decide on the method of implementation.

How do you support PCCharge on Openbravo POS?

Integrating PCCharge support on Openbravo POS is a fairly simple task. It took us a day to code, test and go live with the sample code provided by the PCCharge DevKit. We've used the TCP method and created the PCCharge.java file which implements the PaymentGateway interface. If you need help with PCCharge integration, please contact us by phone or by submitting the online form.

A couple of PCCharge Challenges?

While integrating and testing PCCharge and Openbravo POS, we were struck with a couple of challenges. King Spa Dallas was already using PCCharge with a home-grown .NET application, and our job was to upgrade the POS software with the Openbravo as well as integrating PCCharge with it. Due to lack of information at hand, we didn't have the PCCharge serial number or the merchant account number.

The first problem we encountered is dreaded "Invalid Data" error. We double checked all the data we're submitting to PC Charge, but the transaction wouldn't pass beyond PCCharge. This seemed like syntax type error, as PCCharge wouldn't even forward transaction to NOVA. It turned out that the merchant account number provided by NOVA wouldn't work with PCCharge DevKit. It took us a good day to figure out that PCCharge strips first few zeros, and appends 3-digit numbers at the end of the merchant account from NOVA.

The 2nd problem we encountered is "Key Validation Failed. Shutting Down PCCharge Payment Server Error". I've Googled the error message, but I couldn't find any helpful posts from any websites. I have decided to use Verifone's Technical Support. Verifone wouldn't even consider talking to you if you do not have the support contract. We renewed support contract, and spent about an hour to find out that PCCharge wouldn't work with any language other than English. Your regional language setting MUST BE English. By resetting the language to English, we were able to eliminate "Key Validation Failed" error.