I paint custom portraits for a living. I just launched a website for
my business. I need to be able to accept and process credit payments
manually. I have no set prices so there is no need for a shopping
cart. The clients fill out a quote form on my wesite, that is emailed
to me. I then send them a quote back. Then the client fills out an
order form on my website, based on my quote. This is also emailed to
me. This form includes all of their credit card info. I need to know
the best way to process this info online and email them a reciept?

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Clarification of Question by industry-ga on 20 Mar 2004 16:32 PST

I do accept Paypal, but most of my clients just want to pay with a
credit card and don't want to set up a Paypal account. When I request
money through Paypal to their email, they have to go through the setup
of Paypal, then they have to transfer money into their new account,
wait until it processes, then pay me. It's a lot for my customers to
do.

Hi industry,

Have you considered PayPal? It would be a secure way for your
customers to pay you. You really shouldn't be asking your customers to
email their credit card information to you - it's not safe.

Regards,
hummer

Two things:

First, unless the form is submitted with SSL encryption via a secure
server, when you ask your customers to submit your webform (which
sends you an email) their credit card information is not secure.  This
is against Internet "best practices", and also exposes your customers
to having their credit card information lifted from various
hackers/spies, etc. online.  Savvy internet buyers won't submit their
credit card information in an unsecure webform.

Second, I received a great answer that was a little more than what you
are looking for, but wonderfully useful information nonetheless.  Why
can't you simply take their credit card info over the phone or via
fax? That's far more secure than them sending you a webform email with
their credit card and expiration information out in the open. (In
fact, some merchant processors will cancel your account and take away
your rights to process credit cards if they find that you are doing
this...)

Here's a link to the answer I recieved...  You can have online
transactions that don't require paypal, but you would also be able to
accept credit cards via phone, fax, and integrate into bookkeeping
software like QuickBooks.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=123653

Good luck with your search.  I know from experience that the ability
to accept credit cards can make or break you, and I know it's
confusing to get it all set up.  BTW, I went with Western Union and
integrate it into QuickBooks.

Forgot to mention... I paid $75.00 for this same answer. 
Consider it a gift. ;-)  LOL.