There are two different ways to accept credit cards. One is to sign up for a service like PayPal where they actually accept the credit card and then they send you the money. This might be okay for a smaller site but if you are serious about doing Ecommerce then you should get a merchant account. A merchant account is very similar to a bank account but it is only used to accept payments from credit cards and online checks. The money is then transferred into your normal business account. The time it takes to go from the merchant account to your business account depends on a few variables, which will need to be discussed with the company you setup your merchant account with.