Hi,
1. Are you talking about the "credit cart payment method" ? There is no need for a test mode since that payment method only collect the credit card data of the customer so that you can process the payment manually with your own payment terminal.
If you want a credit card form on your checkout with an automatic payment processing, you need to use PayPal Pro, or Authorize.net in AIM, or another payment gateway which supports that mode of payment.
2. If the orders are not being confirmed, it can come from a lot of things.
Here is a documentation with instructions in order to find out the problem:
www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/i...or.html#notification