ecart5 and ordering without gateway

I haven't actually bought ecart 5 yet, because I want to be sure that I can accomplish what I want with this software. Sales support referred me to this forum. I have read several similar posts, but I want to be completely clear (about this newest version of the software) that it is possible.

Here is my plan: I am setting up a website for selling physical products as well as payment for services. I do not want to set up a payment gateway at this point because of the expenses. I will be setting up a merchant account and will have a credit card machine in the office. I would like for the customer to be able to submit an order and, from their perspective, be finished with the ordering process. Adding the extra step of having to call and get payment information will likely lose many customers. So I would like ecart to gather all payment information, including CC numbers, then I can manually process the order in the office.

I read a couple of posts with some work-arounds for this, and about encrypting data, but they were older. I'd like to make sure that this is possible with ecart 5. I would appreciate any information on how to go about this (if possible) with the least liability. I know that an SSL certificate is the obvious, least measure needed.

Thanks!

I can't address the eCart 5 question, but you might find section 7 helpful:

E-commerce - Getting Started Guide
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There is an option in eCart 5 that will allow you to set up a cart without a payment gateway, however, you should never store credit card information on your database or send it through email. Doing this is not recommended because of security on your database or email and is often times illegal. Payment gateways exist because it is an expensive process to get their databases to be secure enough to store credit card information and get it certified. You would have to find a different way to get the payment through if you chose to not set up a payment gateway.