December, 2012:

Welcome to part 8 of our 12 part series – “Tell Me the Best Merchant Solution for My Business.”   In this chapter  we will discuss the following questions: “How secure is my money?  How long after a payment is made until the funds are in our business checking account?”

When running merchant services processing for  your business there are two very real concerns that many businesses have.  Simply put companies want their money made securely and fast.  This should be standard in today’s world of fast processing.

Security
In short as long-as your merchant service provider is PCI compliant you should be safe in getting your payments quickly made to your bank account.  By law, all merchant services processors must be PCI compliant.  You want a provider that is Level 1, PCI Complaint which is the highest level of PCI compliance.  Level 1 PCI Compliance means that your provider has been audited by an outside firm and that they to meet or exceed standards for using PCI complaint merchant software, merchant equipment, data storage of credit card and billing data, employee background checks, processes for updating programs and more.  If your provider is Level 1 PCI complaint then all transactions are made, all money is moved, and all data is stored using the most advanced encryption and firewalls that are used for financial protection.

Fast Deposits
Your merchant account provider should be able to ensure all deposits are made within 24 hours of a transaction being completed.  It could be done faster if you would like, yet there are extra fees associated with faster movement of your money.  What essentially happens is that upon signup for your merchant account you let your merchant services provider know what account you would like your merchant account deposits made into and fees taken out of.  Then daily your company will run all transactions. Daily, at the time of your choosing all of the transactions from the past day will then be batched and placed into your business checking account.  Most providers usually charge a batch header free of $0.05 to $0.10 for this service, so if you would like to do it more often your monthly fees will go up.

Keep on reading.  Our next chapter of this 12 part merchant service series will be part 9, “How secure is my customers data, including their credit card information?  Is the solution you are providing me PCI complaint?”

Welcome to part 7 of our 12 part series – “Tell Me the Best Merchant Solution for My Business.”   In this chapter of our services we will discuss the following questions: “What mobile payment solutions should I take?  Do I need a mobile payment solution?”

What is a mobile payment solution?
A mobile payment solution give you the ability to accept credit cards no matter where you are so as long as you can obtain a cellular signal.  Mobile payment solutions are most often used by companies that accept credit cards in the field or in non-traditional store locations.  Yet, they are also used by companies like Apple inside the Apple store because of the coolness and efficiency of these type of payment solutions.

Do I need a mobile payment solution?
If you are accepting payments in-person, yet out in the field then you must obtain a mobile payment solution.  Examples of companies that should accept credit cards in the field are pizza delivery, plumbers, window replacement, home improvement, landscapers, taxi-drivers, farmer’s market stands.  Yet, Unless your business is a doctor’s office or a retail location where 100% of our customers come to you in a traditional location it is a good idea to have a mobile payment solution.  This is because if you can accept credit cards in person with the plastic card being swiped through a terminal you can save as much as 40% in credit card processing fess.  Swiped transactions cost less to run per transaction than manually keyed in transactions.  This is because there is less risk of credit card fraud for a card in hand transaction and there is also a lower risk of an unsatisfied customer who wants to run a charge back.  The net result is that card issuing companies like Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover charge less to run a transaction that is swiped through a terminal and companies like Choice Merchant Services then pass that savings onto you.

What mobile payment solution should I use?
We recommend Phone Swipe.  To take some excerpts from previous posts we made about Phone Swipe:

If you want to accept payments anywhere your best solution is Phone Swipe.  Phone Swipe is the lowest cost mobile payment solution on the market.  It allows you to simply plug a free phone adapter into your smart phone and then accept credit cards anywhere in the world that your mobile carrier is connected.  This allows your customers to quickly pay out on the spot as you pull out your small smart phone and swipe their credit card through the several inch reader that you plug into it.

There is another benefit to Phone Swipe.  When you use it, you will save a lot of money in credit card processing costs.  That is because instead of a 4% of transaction fee to accept a payment via a keyed in transaction, you will pay just 2.69% per swiped transaction.  Imagine getting to keep 1.31% of your total company revenue as profit.  That is what Phone Swipe does for you.

Competitors of Phone Swipe such as Square charge more money and they offer less robust customer-service.  There are also other mobile payment solutions you could get such as the Verifone VX670 and Way Systems yet they are big and bulky by today’s standards. You can also use Dial Pay to accept credit cards from any cell phone by keying in the credit card information – yet this system will raise your credit card processing costs by as much as 40% since all transactions that it would process are keyed in as opposed to swipe transactions.

Keep on reading.  Our next chapter of this 12 part merchant service series will be part 8, “How secure is my customers’ data, including their credit card information?  Is the solution you are providing me PCI complaint?”

Welcome to part 6 of our 12 part series – “Tell Me the Best Merchant Solution for My Business.”   In this chapter of our services we will discuss the following question: “What solution can give my customers the easiest shopping experience?  How can your solution help me increase my sales by upsell, cross-sell?”

Retail, Restaurant or Doctor’s Office Merchants
If you are accepting credit cards in person at a retail store, restaurant, or at an office location such as a doctor’s office you should use the Vivopay 4000.
The Vivopay 4000 allows you to accept payments incredibly fast.  If offers fast broadband connection as well as tap and go technology for those who have Mobile Wallet equipt smart phones.    This fast check out time can improve your sales as customers today are busy.  If they can get what they want fast and then get going they are more likely to come back to your business again.  In addition, the Vivopay 4000 also empowers you to accept gift cards.  As we stated in previous posts:

All retail companies and restaurants should offer gift cards.   The advantage of doing it through a merchant service processor is that you can see the balance of all of your unused gift card amount and you can make sure that no one takes advantage of the system as is often the case with paper gift cards.

In addition, gift cards offer the added bonus of improving sales through word of mouth advertising, as well as unused products and services that are purchased on the gift cards and never redeemed.

Home Improvement & Mobile Merchants
If you want to accept payments anywhere your best solution is Phone Swipe.  Phone Swipe is the lowest cost mobile payment solution on the market.  It allows you to simply plug a free phone adapter into your smart phone and then accept credit cards anywhere in the world that your mobile carrier is connected.  This allows your customers to quickly pay out on the spot as you pull out your small smart phone and swipe their credit card through the several inch reader that you plug into it.

There is another benefit to Phone Swipe.  When you use it, you will save a lot of money in credit card processing costs.  That is because instead of a 4% of transaction fee to accept a payment via a keyed in transaction, you will pay just 2.69% per swiped transaction.  Imagine getting to keep 1.31% of your total company revenue as profit.  That is what Phone Swipe does for you.

eCommerce Merchants
Your most robust and highest ROI way to take payments online is through Authorize.net.  Authorize.net allows easy shopping cart plug-in and is also comes with free shopping cards you can put into your website.  You can setup promo codes, virtual gift cards, gift cards, automatic billing, and a host of other features that will increase your sales and your return customers.

Keep on reading.  Our next chapter of this 12 part merchant service series will be “What mobile payment solutions should I take?  Do I need a mobile payment solution?”

Welcome to part 5 of our 12 part series – “Tell Me the Best Merchant Solution for My Business.”   In this chapter of our services we will discuss the following question: Can I accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Gift Cards, Promo Codes on my website, Debit Card, or  eCheck?

The short answer: Yes any high quality merchant service provider should be able to offer you everything mentioned above.

The next question is: should you accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover Gift Cards, Promo codes on my website, Debit Cards or eCheck?

The  short answer: It depends. Let’s break this question out in parts.

Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover

First off, any business should accept all major credit cards.  That includes Visa, Mastercard, American Express & Discover.  If you don’t you will lose sales revenue.

Debit Card & eCheck
If your business is a doctor’s office, business to business company, or retail outlet you should also accept Debit Card and eCheck.  You should do all of the above because it increases your sales.  Some companies may opt to accept checks but will not electronically verify them.  This is a mistake.  Electronically verifying the checks made out to you at the point of purchase will let you know if the check you are accepting is good.  It will save your company a lot of lost revenue and lost time in collections.

Promo Codes on a Website
If your business offers ecommerce transactions online, make sure you have the ability to offer promo codes on your website. These promo codes can be used in your online advertising, word of mouth advertising, advertising on online coupon sites, as well as television and radio advertisements.  Promo codes not only increase your sales but they help you track the return on investment from all of your different advertising offerings.

Gift Cards
The last question is gift cards.  All retail companies and restaurants should offer gift cards.   The advantage of doing it through a merchant service processor is that you can see the balance of all of your unused gift card amount and you can make sure that no one takes advantage of the system as is often the case with paper gift cards.

This morning I was reading my daily news with the latest updates in the credit card processing industry when I ran across this headline: MerchantService.com offers Free Ak-47 with New Merchant Account.  As a full disclosure, you should know that I pro-second amendment – yet I found this post to be quite unusual.  How do you put merchant services together with an AK-47’s machine gun?

As I read the post it seemed that MerchantService.com was not being fully serious.  Instead they were pointing out that store owners should have a hand gun to protect themselves – especially if they live in a high crime area with poor police presence. Nevertheless, I think that this press release was a publicity stunt by Merchant Service and it probably worked.  You can read the full press release here.

Welcome to part 4 of our 12 part series – “Tell Me the Best Merchant Solution for My Business.”  In this this chapter we are going to discuss the question of integrating your merchant service solution into your business and accounting systems.  Common questions that a controller or business owner will ask when making a decision on a new merchant services solution are are:

1. Does his solution I am getting integrate into my accounting systems and payment systems or no?

2. If not, do I need a new system?

3. If so, how do I get them to integrate?  Is the integration easy?

The short answer:
This is fairly complicated.  If you want a good answer that is specific to your unique needs and desires talk to a merchant services provider that will take the time to ask you the right questions to find out what you want to do and then give you a solution to do it.  Any company that is not great at doing this for you prior to signing up is not going to be good at it after you sign up.

The longer answer:
1. If you accepting payments via a website you are going to want to use Authorize.net or PlugNPay. PlugNPay offers a built in Quickbooks module where you can sync all of your transactions detail directly into Quickbooks.  PlugNPay also offers a great recurring billing module that can help you automate your billing if you have a recurring-billing business model.  If you are not using Quickbooks but another type of accounting system then we would recommend Authorize.net as it offers a very robust back-end that can integrate into almost any type of system.

2. If you accepting payments at a doctor’s office, company office, then we would recommend that you use PC Charge.  PC Charge is one of the most versatile payment solutions and it allows easy integration into many payment systems.

3. If you would like to accept credit cards through traditional merchant equipment that would typically be used at a retail business location your best option may be some of the newest merchant equipment such as the VivoPay 4000 in that it offers easy syncing features with some of the most popular accounting systems.

Keep on reading.  Next week will will go into part 5 of our 12 part merchant services series and talk about the questions such as: What forms of payment should I take and can I take?  Can I accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Gift Cards, Promo Codes on my website, Debit Card, or  eCheck?