“Cash is king!” the old saying goes, but when it comes to making payments, it’s all about plastic and other non-cash alternatives. Whether you’ve been in business for years, or are just starting out, you know how important accepting credit cards can be. Especially in a time when consumers are ramping up online purchases and utilizing the latest in mobile wallets and contactless payment technologies.
Many consumers choose to pay with credit cards instead of cash. Put simply, accepting credit cards will lead to increased sales and happier customers. That makes choosing the right credit card processing company a critically important decision for your business.
However, finding the right credit card processor is not always an easy decision-making process. Industry terms, fees, and markups can make choosing a payment processing partner very difficult at times.
In this post, we discuss different ways in which a credit card processor should be working for you and saving your business money over the long-term.
What is credit card processing?
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out the details of processing credit card transactions. Credit card processing is the technical procedure in the middle, between the buyer and the seller, that enables a purchase to be made using a personalized card.. The companies involved in credit card processing help business owners securely accept payments in exchange for their goods and services. If you are a business owner who wants to succeed in the business world, you cannot afford to miss out on the sales available to you through credit card transactions. In the consumer era, most businesses offer credit card transactions as a payment method. If you are not accepting credit cards you could be at a significant disadvantage, given more than 70% of people prefer paying via this method.
Save time and money.
Running a business requires wearing many hats, and whether it’s managing inventory, employees, or even securing funding, we know you have a lot on your plate. A partnership with a good credit card processor should help to unburden you from these tasks, and often, these organizations have capabilities that can supplement or even completely take over some of these functions.
The primary benefit of working with a credit card processing company is that it can help you save both time and money. You and your employees are already focused on other business-enabling tasks and manual accounting or inventory tracking doesn’t have to be in the mix anymore.
Reporting help.
Many processing companies have an online portal or database that helps you monitor and track your business sales activity. You can view live, up-to-the-minute information on sales, past transactions, deposits, and more. You might think you have all the information you need without a reporting tool, but access to these features can help you discover and take advantage of trends you might not have seen in the past. This will help you make more intelligent leadership decisions that will help your business thrive.
Business management support.
When shopping around for a credit card processor, it’s easy to focus on things like a baseline price per transaction. However, that’s rarely all you’ll want to consider. Many payment processors offer products and features that are specifically designed to help you manage inventory, streamline the checkout process, and track employee activity. This assistance can be critical when your business is growing or you need to focus your attention elsewhere, so it’s worth evaluating the entire package each credit card processing company is offering you, in order to determine where your best value is.
In the end, even though one company may have a higher fee, the value of receiving inventory stock alerts, automating employee scheduling, and an easy-to-use checkout process will almost always outweigh these fees and actually pay dividends for your business down the line!
Payment Types.
The more payment types you accept, the more you can get paid! When choosing a payment processor, you’ll want to review the types of cards, mobile payment options, and other currencies their system can accept. Newer forms of payment such as Samsung Pay or Apple Pay, and other tap-and-go methods are not always available through every payment processor. EBT, ACH, online payments, and invoicing are other areas you’ll also want to consider when shopping for a provider. Simply put, you want to make sure you don’t have to turn any customers away, because you aren’t able to support their preferred method of payment.
Lower labor costs.
Once you partner with a payment processing company to oversee your credit card transactions, you won’t have to worry about hiring additional staff to help customers check out or maintain your books. That can be very good for your company, since in most cases, having dedicated accountants on board will end up costing you far more than partnering with a credit card processing company. If you do a quick comparison of the time and labor costs involved, you’ll surely see you’re much better off choosing a credit card processing company to help your business automate. This service provider will not only facilitate easy electronic payments for your customers, they will also give you purchase automation and data to give you greater business intelligence, as well as reconciling that data with your accounting system. This will give you the valuable time you need to focus on running (and growing) your business.
How can we help? For over 25 years, North American Bancard has been helping merchants streamline the transaction process and grow their businesses. Offer your customers the payment options they prefer and let us handle the details for you. We even help you save money when adhering to the PCI DSS security standards with our simplified PCI compliance experience, PCI Plus.
