Doug Sleeter has written a small guide to checking whether you or your clients are PCI complient when using Quickbooks.

All small businesses are now having to become complient with the regulations and some are finding it difficult & confusing. It’s easy to overlook some information & your accounting package should not be overlooked.

PCI COMPLIANCE IN QUICKBOOKS
Every business using QuickBooks should at the very minimum perform the steps here to ensure basic compliance with PCI DSS with respect to storing credit card numbers in QuickBooks. Keep in mind that these steps are just the QuickBooks part, so make sure you do this plus all the things in the list above.

To enable Customer Credit Card Protection in QuickBooks:

1. Enable Customer Credit Card Protection.
   • Select Customer Credit Card Protection from the Company Menu. The button in the window (see image below) will either show Enable Protection (which means the protection is NOT enabled) or Disable Protection (which means the protection IS enabled).
2. Ensure that all users of QuickBooks store customer credit cards only in the Credit Card No. field on the Payment Info tab of customer records.
3. Do not store sensitive authentication data such as card-validation codes (the three-digit number near the signature panel), personal identification numbers (PIN) or magnetic strip data.
4. Limit access to credit card data by assigning or removing permission for users to view full customer credit card numbers.
5. Set complex passwords and change them every 90 days for all users with access to credit card data.
6. Keep QuickBooks updated by turning on automatic updates.

Source: cpatechnologyadvisor.com
http://www.cpatechnologyadvisor.com/print/The-CPA-Technology-Advisor/Are-Your-QuickBooks-Clients-PCI-Compliant/1$2917

UK supermarket chain Asda will start to roll out contactless payment machines to its 2600 stores over the next couple of years at a cost of £700,000.

This will alow customers with contactless credit & debit cards to pay for their goods without having to enter their pin. All transactions made in this way will have to be under £15 and the customer can be asked for their PIN’s at any time.

Source: The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/30/spar_contactless_payments/

As all you computer engineers will know, sometimes taking a PC case apart can be a somewhat unpleasant experience.
So far I have not have many that are worse than the standard dust packed, cigarette smoke clogged insides with keys that won’t press due to having a ton of crumbs underneath because of the last 2 years worth of working lunches.

The register has put together a collection of photographs of dirty computers, one has a spider nesting in it & another has what looks like 2 dead mice inside.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/13/ventblockers/

Lovely.

Sources – Photo =linked to from the theregister.co.uk

Small and medium enterprises using electronic point of sale terminals and e-commerce systems now need to be PCI compliant.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/30/pci_compliance/

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