Sage Payments Processing, part of The Sage Group plc, alerted Bank Innovation that it will release an upgrade to its processing payments platform mobile software within about 45 days.

The mobile product, which turns a cell phone into a POS, is optimized for smartphones, though the technology works on additional mobile devices, says Greg Hammermaster, president.

The product’s features include automated receipts and automated reverse dial-up, which allows businesses to take customers’ phone numbers to also populate their addresses, without typing them in.

“We look at mobile as a business tool, not as a gadget,” Hammermaster says. Sage customers are typically small to midsized companies.

Within about the next 60 days, Hammermaster reveals that Sage will be beta testing a virtual toolkit that encourages mobile commerce for businesses by helping them optimize their shopping carts on the web. The budding Sage service, built with a partner, allows businesses to convert the existing services they are selling into a virtual toolkit, which can be deployed as a mobile option for consumers to browse. In turn, a customer will have two options to view a participating business’s shopping site: full browser or mobile-optimized. Consumers will also be offered a mobile wallets app to download, so that once their credit card information is keyed in, they can use their mobile wallet as a one-click-to-buy tool, Hammermaster explains.

“We think customers will react very positively to this,” he says. “It will drive incremental revenue, which is the ultimate goal.”