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Anacom Communications' WebCharge By Kevin Reichard June 25, 1999 Unlike other online-transaction services, the fees for establishing and maintaining an Anacom account are upfront: $279.95 to set up the account, $34.95 per month, and $.25 per transaction. There is no long-term commitment required in order to use -- which means online merchants can walk away if they are not satisfied. (However, a merchant account is needed in order to use the service.) Be warned that WebCharge is merely the end of the journey. Anacom doesn''t offer any shopping-cart capabilities or any sophisticated links to inventory databases, and while the company says that it will do the coding to make WebCharge work with your existing Web site, a little technical proficiency on the merchant''s end would be useful in order to plan the system that works best. (However, there is excellent documentation on the Anacom Web site with these technical details.) Anacom does offer WebForm, an order form geared toward small businesses. Up to 50 products can be listed, and WebForm can be set up to calculate shipping and sales tax. These forms are stored on the Anacom Web site. All in all, WebCharge is a good choice for the small or medium-sized business that wants to process credit-card transactions and is willing to put a little elbow grease into the process. It is not, however, applicable for small businesses who want an all-in-one e-commerce site or large businesses that need more interaction between their e-commerce sites, accounting software, and inventory databases. Pros: Added level of fraud screening; works with any Web server; relatively inexpensive. Cons: No links to accounting packages or inventory databases, no shopping-card capabilities.

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