The Green Sheet Online Edition
September 9, 2026 • 26:09:02
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From in-house to interconnected
For decades, ISOs and merchant level salespeople (MLSs) have used technology to improve the customer experience. The journey began with electronic payments, followed by value-added services and integrated solutions and eventually led to omnichannel software that supports transactions across borders, devices, platforms and providers.
Some of the payments industry's most popular software solutions were designed out of frustration by people who were determined to find a better way, whether it was selling to merchants, running an ISO or meeting ever-changing compliance guidelines. This article highlights three innovators who brought their in-house solutions to a broader market.
Delayed response to real-time insight
James Shepherd, CEO of CC SalesPro, has never forgotten what it's like to be an MLS, even after establishing several businesses over the past decade, including Full Stack Payments, ISO Amp, CC Storage and the Merchant Sales Podcast. In a recent interview, he described a typical door-to-door sale. "An MLS is going to walk into a business, present a software solution, offer to analyze their statement and forward the statement to an ISO's internal team of experts for analysis," Shepherd said. "Today, statement analysis is mostly done for larger accounts, but an MLS can use our new tool and say, 'I'll be back tomorrow but just want to show you're paying $179 a month for PCI DSS noncompliance.'"
As he reminisced about writing the first version of ISO Amp, Shepherd mentioned he enjoys coding, misses it and remains a software developer at heart. He recalled aha moments that turned out to be false starts. Most entrepreneurs don't talk about failure, he added, or the three times out of a thousand when they finally get something right.
The real aha moments, according to Shepherd, occurred when an early adopter began to scale the system and later when he and his team found a way to automate data entry.
"An ISO began to run around 700 instant quotes a month," he said. "When people start using your software, that's when you realize there's actually something there. And when we realized we could automate data entry using AI and OCR, that was a big moment, going from keying in everything to saying just upload your statement and we'll do the rest."
Multi-screen to single sign-on
Dee Karawadra, CEO of Impact Techlab, RevUp and Impact PaySystem, was frustrated by having to log in and out of multiple client and vendor portals to complete simple tasks. The self-described "reseller's reseller" resolved to do something about it.
"I've run an ISO long enough to know the feeling of being buried alive by your own reseller relationships," he said. "We're not just plugged into one processor; we're resellers of transactions, equipment, SaaS technology, gateways, ancillary services, you name it, and there was nothing on the market built to hold all of that together."
As their existing CRM approached obsolescence, he and Emily Karawadra, partner and chief operating officer of the Impact family of brands, searched for suitable replacements. "We tried the big-name CRMs everyone recommends and bolted on financial tracking, equipment deployment and agent commissions, hitting the same wall with CRMs built for different businesses," he said, adding that logins were out of control.
"When a client called in, I'd toggle through a graveyard of tabs trying to remember which portal had the answer," he said. "Each deal required a different login and each application meant keying the same merchant information into the reseller's portal, our CRM and our billing department. Train a new hire on that and watch them quit by Friday."
Building ISOhub was a game changer for the Impact family of brands, Karawadra stated, noting the system helped Impact PaySystem win back 130 hours of manual entry in its first month of production. "Now I can run my entire ISO from a laptop, on a plane or on a beach," he said. "Wherever I am, the business is right there with me."
Out-of-reach to accessible compliance
Josip Povreslo, CEO of Field39 and Oneiric IT, found PCI DSS compliance cumbersome. Organizing policies, procedures and evidence, then mapping everything to the right requirements can be challenging, he stated, even for an experienced paytech.
"Every year, certification meant rediscovering information, reorganizing documents, and repeating work that should already be in one place," he said. "When your scope doesn't change much from year to year, you're demonstrating compliance against largely the same requirements, unless the standard itself changes."
Povreslo needed a specialized PCI DSS tool but found only enterprise-level governance, risk and compliance (GRC) platforms. Solutions were either prohibitively expensive or required him to work with their own Qualified Security Assessors (QSAs).
"That experience shaped what I wanted to build: a focused PCI DSS tool that simplified the work and provided the freedom to work with a preferred QSA without vendor lock-in," he said, noting he wasn't the only one needing this tool. He credits colleagues whose valuable feedback helped Oneiric make an internal tool into a viable product that others could use.
Oneiric's Which SAQ am I? tool attracted dozens of users the first week the website went live, Povreslo stated, encouraging his team to fully automate the user-friendly self-assessment questionnaire. Now merchants can type their answers into a plainly written, downloadable PDF and submit the form directly to their bank or acquirer.
The PCI DSS Dashboard remains a work in progress, he added, as feedback from people using the product prompts requests for more features and helps shape the next iterations. Oneiric continues to map the entire PCI DSS standard to its database while adding new ideas and capabilities.
For us, by us
Shepherd, Karawadra and Povreslo shared how their solutions can improve efficiencies and benefit industry stakeholders.
- Pocket rocket: Shepherd observed that most MLSs want to see their projected margins and residuals. ISO Amp's slider tool enables an MLS to price a deal, view potential earnings, adjust the merchant's pricing and spark a conversation.
"We can show a merchant a little proposal screen that says, 'Hey, it looks like I might be able to save you up to $300 a month. Can you grab a payment processing statement so I can take a look at it and make sure this is accurate?'"
ISO Amp continues to evolve, Shepherd noted, as client needs and market trends change. Amid ever-present changes in statement terminology and card brand rules, ISO Amp continuously updates its platform and interchange optimization capabilities.
"The three big iterations were automating data entry, automating fee matching, and getting a statement done instantly if it passed all the quality checks," he said.
The biggest innovation by far, Shepherd stated, has been using AI for the agent and ISO experience rather than just on the back end. In fact, he mentioned that ISO Amp's next release will use AI to extract key talking points from each merchant statement analysis.
- Both sides now: Karawadra pointed out that owning both the ISO in need of a solution and the company tasked with building it helped him control the entire process from design to execution.
"We owned both sides of the equation," he said. "When nobody was going to build the tool we needed, we knew exactly who was going to have to build it: us."
Reflecting on 25 years of running an ISO, Karawadra said the challenge was not a lack of technology but having an abundance of technologies that didn't talk to each other.
"The impact wasn't just inconvenience, It was time," Karawadra said. "Our people were spending too much time looking for information, reconciling information and moving information from one system to another instead of servicing merchants, supporting agents and growing the business."
Karawadra recalled that ISOhub went through three major iterations between concept and production. The solution exists because Impact was trying to run its business efficiently, he said, with greater control and visibility while reducing the time required to do it. And when Impact Techlab built direct boarding API connections with its own resellers it improved Impact PaySystem's operations.
- Bye-bye GRC bloatware: Povreslo described his compliance tool and what it does in an Aug. 20, 2026, LinkedIn post, "Escaping Spreadsheet Hell: Why We Built a Dedicated PCI DSS v4.0.1 Dashboard," writing, "Most PCI compliance tools are either empty spreadsheets or $60k GRC bloatware." He cited key features and benefits:
- ISOs can use the dashboard's multi-tenant view to onboard clients, track SAQ completion and monitor portfolio-wide compliance. They can see which merchants are compliant, which are stalled and which are at risk of non-compliance.
- Service providers can use the compliance hub to track status across all 12 requirements, maintain an up-to-date Cardholder Data Environment (CDE) system inventory, attach evidence to specific sub-requirements and keep teams and QSAs aligned year-round.
- Merchants can use the wizard tool to determine their PCI scope, whether SAQ-A, SAQ-B-IP, or SAQ A-EP. The tool can help them answer relevant requirements in plain language and generate an audit-ready SAQ document to submit to their processor.
"After 10+ years managing compliance for different companies and building PCI infrastructure for my own business, I think I found a better way," Povreslo wrote. "So I built the tool I wish I'd had all along."
Convergence to commercialization
As the three experts have noted, our jobs become more difficult when technologies don't talk to each other. Recent advancements in application programming interfaces (APIs) help solve that issue by allowing different technologies to communicate without requiring one to become part of another.
Shepherd wanted to connect gaps in the sales cycle. "I think my biggest takeaway is that building good software is hard," he said. "It takes a lot of thought to make flexible and easy software that everybody can use. It's hard but totally worth it to make simple but fully functional systems and I think that's the ultimate challenge in software design."
Karawadra wanted to connect gaps in operational technologies. "Once we decided ISOhub was going to be a commercial product, we had to start thinking about how other ISOs operate," he said. "Every company has its own processor relationships, agent structures, commission arrangements, workflows, permissions and ways of managing merchants. ISOhub had to become more flexible and configurable."
Povreslo wanted to connect gaps in PCI DSS compliance management. "Every business is its own universe and customers have taught us the importance of adaptability," he said. "If I had continued using the PCI DSS Dashboard only within my own company, I wouldn't have needed the same level of flexibility. Working with outside customers has broadened my understanding of what the product needs to support."
Homegrown innovation
Salespeople know there's no better product endorsement than being able to say, "This is what I use and here's how it helped me." Looking back at my thirty-odd years of selling in this industry, I don't recall too many times when I could have made that claim. Maybe that's why I had to practice and practice my equipment demos to make each new model look easy and natural to operate.
Imagine how different the experience would have been if I myself had drawn the blueprint for a new technology that would solve a problem and make my job easier. I'd want to shout from the rooftops and tell the whole world about my game changer. For now, however, I am honored to celebrate these champions who are moving our industry forward. 
Dale S. Laszig, content strategy director at The Green Sheet and founder and CEO at DSL Direct, is a payments industry journalist, creator and consultant. Connect via email at dale@greensheet.com, LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/dalelaszig/.
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