My business wants to accept Bitcoins

[neutrinox]

Hi!

I'm pretty new to Bitcoins, but our business would like to start accepting Bitcoin payments.

Our e-commerce platform doesn't support Bitpay, so I'm thinking we could simply do the same thing as we do with wire transfers: the customer is told to wire the amount of the order to out bank account. With Bitcoin we would simply ask the customer to send the required amount to our wallet.

But here's the problem:
How do we match up payments with orders in case there are orders with the same amount? With wire transfers we simply ask the customer to place the order number in the message field. But is there such an option with Bitcoin payments? Can the customer include the information needed to identify the payer with the bitcoin transfer?

[JohnGalt]

Create a different payment address for each order.

[neutrinox]

Create a different payment address for each order.

Thanks for your help!

Does this mean we need to monitor each of these addresses separately for payments? Or can we still see all of them in one wallet?

There is another issue too, which is that we can't (unfortunately) make order-specific changes to the automatically generated order confirmation email that our customer receives. So we can't really automate a system that always gives the client an order specific bitcoin address. If we sent all the emails manually, then it would be no problem.

Do we have any other options? I'm especially interested if there would be a way that would allow us to simply announce one public wallet key for the customer in the automated email he/she gets.

Ps. Cool nickname I hope you won't stop the motor of the world!

[ThinkBitcoin]

I think there are (possibly) several options:

1. Use the message system that is built into bitcoin (http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/3898/how-does-sign-message-work)

2. Generate a new address whenever a new order arrives, and monitor it.

In both cases I think a program will need be to written (or find an opensource one) for automated transaction to work.

[Mr. White]

Thats great, the more people and business we get accepting BTC, the more our investment will pay out for all of us...

[toxtom]

Thanks for your help!

Does this mean we need to monitor each of these addresses separately for payments? Or can we still see all of them in one wallet?

I now that with the Armory wallet, you could generate multiple addresses and view them all in the same wallet. I'm sure others do the same thing. 

The downside with accepting BTC seems to be the delay after the person makes the payment before you know for sure that it has been confirmed a number of times.

[The Bitcoin Catalog]

OP what's your business?

[JohnGalt]

Create a different payment address for each order.

Thanks for your help!

Does this mean we need to monitor each of these addresses separately for payments? Or can we still see all of them in one wallet?

There is another issue too, which is that we can't (unfortunately) make order-specific changes to the automatically generated order confirmation email that our customer receives. So we can't really automate a system that always gives the client an order specific bitcoin address. If we sent all the emails manually, then it would be no problem.

Do we have any other options? I'm especially interested if there would be a way that would allow us to simply announce one public wallet key for the customer in the automated email he/she gets.

Ps. Cool nickname I hope you won't stop the motor of the world!

Your wallet will generate the address and keep track of it. Since the address is only used for the one order, you don't want to see it again after the order is completed, so you would want a wallet that allows you to archive addresses. I don't know if one exists, but it would be great if there were a wallet designed specifically for this kind use. You can present the unique address for the order at the time of the order and have them pay immediately. Send the confirmation when you see the bitcoins arrive. Then you don't need to send the address in a confirmation email. I guess that still requires customization of your ordering systgem.

Note to software developers: You could make quite a bit of money developing and selling software that does something like this.

[vacuum]

Something that automatically generated a new address, and then once it got a deposit, transferred it to the main address would be very convenient.

[nebulus]

OP what's your business?

+ 1

[JohnGalt]

Something that automatically generated a new address, and then once it got a deposit, transferred it to the main address would be very convenient.

That's not how it works. There is no "main address".  You can use a single bitcoin address for your "main address", but the wallet is free to move the bitcoins to another address without telling you any time it needs to. Your wallet keeps track of actual locations of the bitcoins.