Veterinary practices commonly accept installment payments for high-cost surgeries, wellness plans and doggy daycares. Accepting these recurring payments can be a chore for front office staff, as they may need to mail authorization forms and wait to collect and verify payments.
Luckily, in our digital age, you can securely store client cards on file and automate this task. The right Virtual Terminal makes that possible. However, automating recurring payments is just one measure you can take to increase your practice’s cash flow and reduce your accounts receivable. Another is enabling easy e-commerce payments for your veterinary practice.
How to Collect Online Payments
For starters, you need a website to collect online payments from your clients. This is a good investment on all fronts, as a website makes you appear legitimate and helps you get found by potential clients. With that groundwork in place, you can make your website work as a sales tool for over-the-counter medications and bills. This is a great tool to offer if your practice cares about client experience — and what practice doesn’t? After all, it should be convenient for your clients to pay you.
To get started, you’ll need a merchant account in addition to a Payment Gateway to accept online payments. If things are starting to sound complicated, you’re right. They can be. That’s why we recommend consolidating providers with one all-inclusive Merchant Service Provider and Payment Gateway. That way, you have one provider for both your in-person and online transactions, making for more streamlined support.
Another way to simplify your e-commerce setup is with an easy checkout service. PayJunction, for instance, offers Hosted Checkout to its customers. The payment is securely managed by PayJunction, a PCI Level 1 Merchant Service Provider and Payment Gateway, and all you have to do is embed the HTML button generated by PayJunction on your website. You can give your clients the option to add items to a shopping cart or specify an amount to pay you if they have outstanding balances.
There are a few benefits to this method. For one, security requirements and standards are offloaded to PayJunction to manage, along with the technicalities of handling digital payments. Additionally, installation is fast and you have an award winning support team at your service.
While accepting online payments for your veterinary practice may seem like a novel concept — or go against what you’ve traditionally done — clients are increasingly expecting convenient ways to manage and pay for their services.
“In this ‘customer-centric’ reality, retailers need to be exceptionally sensitive and responsive to when and where their potential customers are making purchase decisions (both consciously and subconsciously) throughout their ‘always on’ shopping journey,” notes KPMG in “The Truth About Online Consumers.”
Furthermore, as millennials age and take on more responsibilities, it’ll only help your veterinary practice stand out by being a convenient, digitally friendly option for millennial pet-health needs.
Looking to get easy e-commerce for your practice?
So easy to use! Love the security and features like easy address search, re-charge, customer name search, and reports! Great format and design and so easy to navigate!
PayJunction has made our credit card processing and deposits easier than ever!
PayJunction is a great asset to our office! Easy to use and amazing customer service! We have not been disappointed!
A hidden gem! PayJunction may not be the biggest payment processor, but they have some amazing features and an excellent support team.
I love, love, love using PayJunction they truly are 5 star across the board.
I have used your services since your company just started and I am happy with everything. Thank you for making my job easy. Your technical department is always available to assist, if ever needed.
How have you effectively boosted cash flow for your veterinary practice? Any efficiency tips you’d share with our readers? We’d love to hear from you!
