When a business is considering taking credit card payments, there are several questions that should be answered before they select a partner, including the following: “What are the terms of the contract?” “What equipment am I receiving?” “What level of support will I get?” “What are the risks involved?” However, there’s another question that most businesses tend to fixate on: “What is the cost?” The answer to this particular question can get quite convoluted. When you say “cost,” are you referring to the cost on your current Interchange-plus pricing plan of a downgraded over-the-phone transaction on an American Express…
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Although the card brands have recently revised their requirements around signature authorization, signatures are still the best defense in the event of a chargeback dispute as long as you’re properly processing your payments. Additionally, there are numerous instances when businesses require non-payment signatures from customers. These include terms and conditions, disclosures, disclaimers, liability waivers, privacy agreements, HIPAA agreements, warranties, etc. In the medical industry alone, this can amount to dozens of forms related to billing, on-boarding, consent, prescriptions, lab reports and care agreements that must be physically stored or scanned and stored online. Paper management takes a lot of…
EMV credit card processing entails a series of steps to authenticate a payment by ‘dipping’ or ‘inserting’ an EMV-chip card. To correctly process an EMV credit card, a level-3 EMV certified card reader is required. To achieve proper EMV credit card processing, you must take a number of pre-transaction steps. Depending on your role in the payment process, these steps may be extensive or non-existent. EMV Credit Card Processing Preparation Merchant Service Providers A Merchant Service Provider is an organization that issues individual merchant accounts to businesses processing credit cards. Typically, a provider will also offer the equipment needed to…
When seeking an answer to this question, it’s vital to know that no two credit card processing statements are exactly the same. Statements vary among providers in regard to how sections are labeled, the order they appear in, the names — and shorthand — of different fees, etc. For this reason, we’ll provide a general overview of how to read a credit card processing statement so that you know how things are typically displayed. If you’ve yet to sign up with a Merchant Service Provider or are considering a switch, we recommend asking to see a sample billing statement…
You run a small business and are ready to take the next step: accepting credit cards. Congratulations! Whether this is your first business or a new venture you’re investing in, you might not be too familiar with credit card processing. Outlined below are four steps to set up credit card processing for a small business. We threw in our industry expertise for each action item. Step 1: Choose your preferred pricing plan Small businesses tend to have simple business models and low processing volume, so an uncomplicated pricing plan is best. Our recommendation is either Flat or Interchange-plus pricing…