Setting clients up with merchant accounts & gateways

I've been running my freelance web design business for a little over a year now. Until now, any clients of mine that wanted to sell on their websites have wanted to integrate PayPal or Google Checkout to their sites, OR, already have a cart/merchant account/gateway and just want a redesign so I'm just using the merchant account & gateway they already use and plug it in to an existing or new cart. I'm now catering to more established businesses that may or may not already have a merchant account for their brick & mortar stores. These clients do not want PayPal, they want full fledged e-commerce.

What I'm asking here of fellow freelancers/web business owners is this: when a client comes to you wanting a new online store set up from scratch, and they do not have a payment gateway (and often, not even a merchant account), and they want you to set them up, how do you handle it? The client has to be the one to apply for the account and the gateway, but they have no idea how to go about doing this. I don't even have a merchant account myself for my business yet so I have not gone through the process myself. I CAN implement gateways and merchant accounts if established, that I have done; my question is specifically regarding the customers who don't already have these things and are asking me to help them get it.

How do you all handle this with your clients? Just point them to a merchant account site and tell them to apply - or do you provide more hand-holding? Any other advice...?

Thanks in advance!