Magnetic Stripe Reader Activation

Hello Out There,

Pretty basic. We just got DSL (finally) and would like to switch from our phone line credit card machine to using our magnetic stripe reader. How do I activate the MSR that we have for RMS; what steps do I need to take to coordinate this with our bank? We are running version 1.2 at the moment.....

Appreciate Direction, Kat

Kat,

It really depends on exactly what you are doing. For example you should have a software set up for your PC such as PC Charge or IC verify that will allow to process transactions write o your PC. Quickbooks also supports this as well. If your processor sold you a MSR then they asolutely should of sold you the software to go with it. PC Charge costs about $199 (sometimes cheaper) and I would have no problem selling you a copy. Visit my companies website.

I would love to be able to do a competitive rate analysis for you and see if we could possibly save your company some money.

Regards,

Nate

If you are wanting to use the credit card processing capability built into RMS, you don't need any other software.

On your magnetic stripe reader, how does it connect to your system? If it's the "keyboard wedge" type (attaches inline with your keyboard) it should work without doing anything. When the credit card # window pops up in RMS, just swipe the card through your MSR and it should pick up the card info and away you go. Just to make sure the MSR works right, open up a notepad session and swipe a credit card, you should see the data in the notepad window.

The other piece you have to do is enable EDC in RMS. First you need to tell your credit card processor that you need a "Vital Network Setup Sheet". This will give you all the info you need to put into RMS. Just look through this forum and you will see several entries on it.

Hi John, I just came across your reply here and I wanted to clarify the setup for the keyboard wedge. We have a couple of these set up and during the day, the green light would go off and it does not read the cards. I know that in the database/register setup, we have the OPOS device name filled in. We also ran the setup program that was downloaded from the Magtek website. If we are using the Wedge version, is the OPOS setup not necessary? I have a feeling that this might be causing some conflict.

The MSR doesn't 'wake up' until the system is rebooted.

Your thoughts?

Thanks!

"John M." wrote:

I'm not an expert, but if you are using the wedge version, you should not need an OPOS driver.

To make sure, just start that system up without bringing up POS (which should then not have any OPOS drivers loaded). Open a notepad session and try swiping a card. If the credit card data appears in the notepad window, you should be good to go without any OPOS drivers.