Not all sales happen through an online shopping cart. If you run a wholesale trade desk, manage a boutique tourism service, or take bookings and catering orders over the phone, taking remote manual payments is part of everyday business.

Keying customer credit card details into a physical EFTPOS machine or—worse—writing them down on scrap paper is a major security risk. It creates significant administrative clutter and puts your business directly in the firing line for data breaches and harsh compliance penalties.

Using a secure virtual terminal through a local payment gateway nz gives your team a straight up way to take phone orders, protect cardholder data, and keep cash flow moving.

Here is how manual card payments work in Paystation, and how to keep your back-office team compliant.

What is a virtual terminal?

A virtual terminal turns any web browser on your computer, tablet, or laptop into a secure card payment terminal.

Instead of needing a physical point-of-sale card reader next to your desk, your team logs into the secure Paystation admin portal. When a customer calls to place an order or settle an invoice, your staff member enters the transaction amount and the customer’s card details directly into a secure web form.

The payment is processed instantly through your bank merchant facility, and the customer receives an automatic digital receipt via email.

Ditching paper notes to stay PCI compliant

Whenever your staff handle raw credit card numbers, your business must comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

Writing customer credit card numbers, expiry dates, or CVVs on paper invoices, sticky notes, or spreadsheets is one of the most common security slip-ups in small businesses. If a paper notebook goes missing or an unencrypted spreadsheet is compromised, your business is held liable.

When you process manual payments (often called MOTO, or Mail Order / Telephone Order) through Paystation:

• No local storage: Card numbers are entered directly into our Level 1 PCI DSS compliant portal. They are processed over encrypted connections and never saved to your local computer or network.
• Restricted staff permissions: You can assign individual user logins to staff members with specific permission levels. This allows team members to process daily phone payments without giving them access to bank settings, account configurations, or transaction refunds.
• Audit trails: Every manual transaction is logged with a timestamp and user ID, making end-of-day bank reconciliations clear and straightforward.

Pair phone orders with PayMe links

Sometimes a caller doesn’t want to read their 16-digit card number aloud over the phone, especially if they are in a busy office or public space.

With Paystation, your team can instantly generate a PayMe link from the admin dashboard and email or text it to the customer while they are still on the line.

The customer clicks the link on their smartphone, enters their card details into our secure hosted form themselves, and completes the payment in seconds. Your staff member sees the successful status update on their screen immediately, keeping the sale moving without anyone having to speak card numbers aloud.

Straight up pricing for phone-order businesses

If your operation doesn’t need an e-commerce shopping cart and primarily handles manual payments, wholesale orders, or remote invoicing, our MOTO plan is tailored specifically for you.

For just $19 per month (plus a $99 one-off set-up fee), you get access to the Paystation virtual terminal, PayMe link generation, and 25 free transactions every month. Additional transactions are just $0.39 each. Because we link directly to your Merchant ID at your New Zealand bank (ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Kiwibank, or Westpac), your money settles into your bank account promptly every business day.

Getting set up is easy: complete an online application, link your bank merchant facility, and start processing secure phone payments right away.