The Role of POS and MPOS Terminal in Payment Processing

It’s important for merchants to understand the basic of how a credit card terminal works. It is the channel through which the process flows and the merchants can choose the right one for their processing needs, whether they use a point-of-sale (POS) countertop model, a cardreader that attaches to a smartphone or mobile device, a sleek handheld version for wireless processing or a virtual terminal for e-commerce transactions.

A credit card terminal’s function is to retrieve the account data stored on the payment card’s EMV microchip or a magnetic stripe and pass it along to the payment processing company (also known as merchant account provider).

For card-not-present (CNP) – mail order, telephone order and online transactions – the merchant enters the information manually using a keypad on the terminal, or the e-commerce shopper enters it on the website’s payment page. The back half of the process remains the same.

The actual data transmission goes from the terminal through a phoneline or Internet connection to a Payment Processing Company, which routes it to the bank that issued the credit card for authorization.

In card-present transactions where the card and cardholder are physically present, the card is connected to the reader housed in the POS terminal. The data is captured and transmitted electronically to the merchant account provider, who handles the authorization process with the issuing bank and credit card networks.

A POS retail terminal with a phone or Internet connection works best in a traditional retail setting that deals exclusively in card present transactions. For a business with a mobile sales, a mobile credit card processing option like Virtual Merchant Converge Mobile relies on a downloadable app to transform a smartphone or tablet into a credit card terminal equipped with a USB cardreader.

Wireless Terminals are compact, allowing you to accept credit cards in the field without relying on a phone connection. If you process debit cards, you’ll need a PIN pad in addition to your terminal so cardholders can enter their personal identification number to complete the sale.

Selecting the right terminal for your credit card processing needs depends largely on the type of business you run and the sorts of transactions you process. Terminals are highly specialized and provide different services. At National Transaction we offer a broad range of terminals with NFC (near field communication) Capability to accept Apple Pay, Android Pay and other NFC/Contactless payment transactions at your business. An informed business decision benefits your bottom line. Start accepting credit cards today with National Transaction.

 

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit card Processing, e-commerce & m-commerce, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Mobile Point of Sale, Point of Sale Tagged with: Android Pay, Apple Pay, card-not-present, card-present transactions, cardholder, cardreader, cnp, contactless payment, Converge Mobile, credit card, credit card networks, credit card terminal, debit cards, e-commerce, EMV, magnetic stripe, mail order, merchant account provider, merchants, microchip, mobile credit card processing, mobile device, Near Field Communication, nfc, online transactions, payment processing company, PIN pad, point of sale, POS, POS terminal, smartphone, telephone order, virtual merchant, virtual terminal, wireless processing

NFC (Near-Field-Communication) Benefits is it Worth It?

 

What can near field communication do for individual and how can it make lives easier. Many uses of NFC technology offer benefits in a number of everyday tasks ranging from paying for groceries to receiving adequate health care treatments.

Check this out if the benefits are worth it:  

Contactless Payments – well-known use of NFC technology is for contactless payment. Customers can use their smartphone over a card reader to make a purchase without swiping or counting out cash. This saves time and also reduces the chances of losing a credit card that comes with carrying multiple cards around.

Health Care – With NFC technology, hospitals can better track patient information and doctors’ notes in real-time. This helps prevent the wrong medications from going to the wrong patient and creates a streamlined system focused on the best in patient care.

Information Sharing – NFC tags most common way NFC is currently used on Android and Windows phones. Using your Phone or Tablet, you can tap a strategically-placed NFC tag, which prompts your phone to take action on something, like automatically prompts your phone to enable Wi-Fi, disable sounds and decrease brightness. Exchange information between two Android phones.

Pairing with Devices – Smart household appliances are adopting NFC. LG’s smart washing machines let you pair your phone with the machine so that you can remotely monitor the washing cycle.

Social Networking Social networking is booming, and NFC tags are looking to get in on the action. NFC allows users to interact with each other and update their location and other info without any unnecessary log-ins or tapping through menu screens.

Transportation – Swiping a smartphone not only allows the passenger access to the subway but also keeps track of the number of trips he has left. Passengers can come and go much faster and easily pay for extra trips.

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Near Field Communication, Smartphone Tagged with: Android, card reader, contactless payment, credit card, health care, Near Field Communication, nfc technology, smartphone

NTC’s Point of a Sale Solution for all Types of Business.

Virtual Merchant/Virtual Merchant Mobile now called Converge, is a popular product offering solutions for retail stores, Non Face to Face businesses along with E-commerce/Internet sites. Converege can be access anywhere with internet. Users can download the application on their smartphone or tablet. Converge also gives users the convenience of sending an invoice to customers electronically with NTC e-Pay!

For Retail store National Transaction offers the latest in EMV and NFC technologies. NTC customers can accept contactless payment with the same NFC technology used by Apple Pay, Google Wallet and SoftCard. NTC offers different solutions that cater to your business needs. For those already using a POS system, NTC integrates with most systems. NTC has you covered.

 

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Payments, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale Tagged with: Apple Pay, contactless payment, Converge, e-commerce, EMV, Google Wallet, nfc, POS system, smartphone, tablet, virtual merchant

Are New Payment Methods Worth the Investment for Merchants?

The digital payments landscape is changing at a rapid pace. Consumers are finally adopting digital wallets, like Apple Pay and Android Pay.

The deadline for merchants to become EMV compliant, the global standard that covers the processing of credit and debit card payments using a card that contains a microprocessor chip, is quickly approaching.

Today’s consumers show an increasing desire to use new payment methods because they’re convenient. However, this presents a challenge to merchants, as many have not made the switch to the modern technology required to accept these methods since they’re generally hard-wired to resist technology changes.

Merchants must evolve with technology or they’ll find themselves unable to compete and in danger of losing customers.

Looking long term, the benefits of adopting new payment technology will outweigh the cost of transitioning. The fact is that new payment technology will reduce fraud risk due to counterfeit cards, provide greater insight into shoppers with sophisticated data and will ultimately lower costs for merchants over time.

The value merchants will get out of new payment methods: 

Security

Investing in new payment technology will help reduce the risk of fraud. EMV, as an example. Beginning in October 2015, merchants and the financial institutions that have made investments in EMV will be protected from financial fraud liability for card-present fraud losses for both counterfeit, lost, stolen and non-receipt fraud.

EMV is already a standard in Europe, where fraud is on the decline. In turn, American credit card issuers are being pressured to replace easily hacked magnetic strips on cards with more secure “chip-and-PIN” technology. Europe has been using Chip, and Chip & Pin for years.

There’s nothing that can guarantee 100 percent security, but when EMV is coupled with other payment innovations, like tokenization that separate the customer’s identity from the payment, much of the cost and risk of identity theft is eliminated. If hackers get access to the token, all they get is information from one transaction. They don’t have access to credit card numbers or banking accounts, so the damage that can be done is minimal.

As card fraud rises, there’s a strong case to upgrade to a payment system that works with a smartphone or tablet and accepts both EMV chip cards and tokens.

Insight into Customer Behavior

In addition to added security, upgrading to new payment technology opens up a door to greater customer insights, improved consumer engagement and enables merchants to grow revenue by providing customers with receipts, rewards, points and coupons. By collecting marketing data at the point of sale a business can save on that data that they only dreamed of buying.

Investment Outweighs the Cost

New technology does have upfront costs, but merchants need to think about it as an investment that will grow top-line revenue. Beware of providers offering free hardware. Business can benefit by doing some research on the actual cost of the hardware.

By increasing security, merchants are further enabling mobile and emerging technologies, which will make shopping easier.

Customers will also be more confident in using their cards.

As an added bonus to merchants, most EMV-enabled POS equipment will include contactless technology, allowing merchants to accept contactless and mobile payments. This will result in a quicker check-out experience so merchants can handle more transactions.

Faster customer checkout.                                               

The best system for is the one that makes the merchant as efficient and profitable as possible, as well as improves the customer checkout experience.

Retail climate is competitive, merchants have two choices:

Do nothing or embrace the fact that payments are changing. Transitions from old systems to new ones require work and risk, but merchants who use modern technology are investing in the future and will certainly outperform those who choose to do nothing.

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Mobile Payments, Near Field Communication, Point of Sale Tagged with: American credit card, card, card present, chip, Chip and PIN, contactless technology, credit, data, debit card, digital payments, Digital wallets, EMV, EMV compliant, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, merchants, Mobile Payments, payment innovations, payment methods, payment technology, payments, point of sale, POS, provider's, smartphone, tablet, token, tokenization, transaction

WAYS MOBILE IS CHANGING EVERYTHING WE DO

Few Americans will likely remember the life and work of Martin Cooper, largely because most Americans have no idea who Martin Cooper is. Without Martin Cooper much of what we identify as normal life for the last two decades would not have been possible, as without his invention we would still be looking for pay phones, dropping off film to be developed, printing out boarding passes and contemplating a future where a plastic rectangle was the height of payments technology.

Anyone reading this has a phone with internet access which means no one has to guess, with a few taps on a smartphone most readers who didn’t already know were able to find out that Martin Cooper invented the handheld mobile phone and by so doing changed the lives of not just Americans, but people all over the world.

Mobile has integrated so seamlessly into our life that we didn’t realize it was changing everything we do.

Here are the list of all of the ways that mobile has improved life for us all.

We All Get To Know Everything All The Time, with just a smartphone.                                                       Impulse buy is a thing of the past because consumers just don’t buy on impulse as much anymore.                 A new intentionality has taken hold of shopping. Many Americans have the money and the will to spend. But they are time-pressed and deal savvy, visiting stores only when they run out of items like cereal or toilet paper and after doing extensive research on purchases online and with friends. They buy what they came for and then leave. Plus consumers are harder to fool, they know if they are being overcharged because they can look it up in real time while they are in the showroom.

Full Price Is A Notion Utterly Without Meaning.                                                                                             There are sites like Groupon, LivingSocial and a thousand imitators offer coupons pretty much across every retailer that mean no matter where one is shopping or eating they’re probably a few button taps away from paying less for the type of service they are out for.  And then there are the retailer rewards programs all bent on giving consumers more stuff for free as long as they use their mobile coupons.

We All Think Way More About Privacy And Digital Security Than We Used To.                                         Twenty years ago one’s largest security concern was probably that their home or car would be broken into, followed closely by their wallet being stolen.  Now we wait for Russian cybercriminals to steal our cards by hacking into POS systems and lifting the data. Or for cybercriminals to hack our phones and upload naked pictures of us to the internet (celebrity readers only). Or for Nigerian princes to trick our grandparents into wiring them money.  In short, while we still fear for our physical possessions as much as we ever did, the mobile world gave us something entirely new to worry about, the integrity of our data and who could use our phones, cards and email accounts as a backdoor into our entire personal and financial lives. 

We Want It All, And We Want It Now.                                                                                                    Anyone with a phone in their pocket can, in one way or another, buy it on the spot.  Which has given rise to the push for same-day delivery, consumers who can buy it now, also want to be able to get it now, or as close to now as possible.

We Also Want It Later.                                                                                                                             Maybe the consumer likes going to the store, enjoys the Christmas lights, wants to eat at a mall food court, they just don’t want to stand inline. And now, through the magic of omnichannel commerce, they may not have to do. Through the magic of multi-device shopping an instore pick-up, consumers are increasingly getting used to finding something on their mobile, paying on their computer and picking up in store. Or some combination thereof.

Mobile has made commerce less a race between the e-markets and the brick-and-mortars, and more a race to offer the most seamless commerce experience. Mobile has taught ever one to care less about where they buy, and more about what the total buying experience is.

We Pay For Access Instead Of Objects.                                                                                                         Ten years ago when your family set about its early experiments in binge watching television with the first season of Lost, odds are everyone gathered round and watched a DVD set or maybe a Blue Ray, if your family happened to be full of early adopters.

This weekend, when entire families are sitting down to watch How To Get Away With Murder, more likely than not they are streaming it through Hulu. Unless they don’t want to watch that, in which case, they are watching something else on  Netflix on their phone while sitting in the same room with their family. Unless of course this is a football family, in which case you are paying the NFL for access to every football game played everywhere in America tomorrow and a cable company to watch in HD.

We Want To Use A Phone To Access Everything.                                                                                      It’s almost now quaint to refer to a time when phones were used primarily to talk.  With the rapidly emerging internet of things, it will soon be quaint to talk about a phone as a tool used primarily for communicating and shopping.

The smartphone is already heading toward being the key interface between connected devices and products (The Internet of Things) and their users. Among other things, people will use the device to remotely control household appliances, interact with screens and automatically adjust car settings to their preferences.

We Kinda Hope The Phone Might Keep Us Alive.                                                                                    With the release of Apple Pay, also came the release of Apple Health that has widely been reported as ushering in the age of mobile device as wellness guru. Smartphones can already help people lead healthier lives by providing information, recommendations and reminders based on data gathered through sensors embedded in users’ clothing (shoes, wristbands, etc.) or through other phone capabilities (motion detectors, cameras, etc.).

And, even if you don’t listen to your phone and put your health at risk, it will still probably save you.  Internet-enabled mobile devices are becoming important tools in broadening access to health care, diagnosing diseases and saving lives in crisis situations.

Making Life A Lot Better For Everyone.                                                                                                          Small merchants can do something now that they couldn’t do en masse twenty years ago. Take credit card payments and use a tablet to do that and run their business. With the emergence of mobile, came thousands of the other mPOS solutions and platforms exploding all over the world. This has not only changed the way these small businesses operate, it has changed their entire pitch to their customers.

Mobile has made life easier for many consumers, but for some businesses and many people mobile has made mainstream financial participation possible.

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Smartphone Tagged with: (POS) systems, brick-and-mortars, cards, consumers, credit card payments, customers, data, e-markets, email accounts, mobile, mobile coupons, mobile device, mPOS solutions, omnichannel commerce, pay phones, payments technology, platforms, Small merchants, smartphone, tablet

Guidelines to execute a bricks-and-clicks strategy

Online retailers are finding the bricks-and-clicks strategy to be an effective way to serve and engage shoppers. Perhaps that is why an increasing number of ecommerce merchants are setting up shop offline. It’s important to note, however, that a bricks-and-clicks business isn’t just about having a physical store and an ecommerce site. For this model to be effective, each channel must complement and add value to the other.

Guidelines to execute a bricks-and-clicks strategy:

Allow Access to Online Account Information in Physical Store

Bridge the gap between bricks and clicks by giving your customers and physical-store staff access to online account information. Doing so can enhance shopping experiences and drive sales.

Integrate Online and Offline Inventory, Fulfillment

Offer click-and-collect services that allow shoppers to buy merchandise online and pick it up at a local retail branch or service station. Many consumers would rather forgo the shipping costs and wait time and instead pick up their items at a time and place that’s convenient for them. Also, use your brick-and-mortar inventory when an item is out of stock online.

Use Online Data for Offline Selling, and Vice Versa

Data pertaining to online sales and traffic won’t just help you optimize your ecommerce site. It can also apply to offline decisions. For instance, if you see an increase in sales for a particular product on your website, you should consider promoting it offline, as well, to your brick-and-mortar shoppers.

Also pay attention to social media data such as Facebook likes and Pinterest pins. What’s trending on social sites can help with merchandising and marketing. Consider something similar in your brick-and-mortar business. Take note of the most liked, viewed, and pinned items online and then leverage that information when making decisions regarding product displays, inventory and more.

You can also use offline information to enhance your ecommerce site. Utilize in-store analytics tools, such as people counters and sensors, to better understand how your offline customers behave and then compare that with online behavioral data to spot patterns and opportunities.

Qualitative information, such as shoppers’ common questions and concerns, can also be used to improve your online shop. For instance, if your physical store associates keep getting the same questions about a particular product, there’s a good chance that online shoppers have similar queries. So you may want to include the answer in that item’s product description page.

Use Smartphone Beacons in Physical Stores

Beacons are Bluetooth-enabled devices that let brick-and-mortar merchants send customized offers and recommendations to their shoppers via their smartphones based on where the shoppers are in the store. For example, if a shopper is in the footwear department, the retailer can use its store beacons to send the shopper a coupon for shoes. Bricks-and-clicks businesses can also use the technology to send tailored offers to shoppers based on their online behavior.

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: account, Beacons, bluetooth, brick and mortar, business, consumers, coupon, customers, data, devices, ecommerce, Facebook, inventory, marketing, merchandising, Merchant's, Online Account Information, Online Data, pinterest, product, sales, shoppers, site, smartphone, social sites, store, website

The push that mobile payments need – iPhone 6

While Apple doesn’t talk about future products,latest report that the next iPhone would include mobile-payment capabilities powered by a short-distance wireless technology called near-field communication or NFC. Apple is hosting an event on September 9^th, that’s widely expected to be the debut of the next iPhone or iPhones. Mobile payments, or the notion that you can pay for goods and services at the checkout with your smartphone, may finally break into the mainstream if Apple and the iPhone 6 get involved.

Apple’s embrace of mobile payments would represent a watershed moment for how people pay at drugstores, supermarkets or for cabs. The technology and capability to pay with a tap of your mobile device has been around for years, you can tap an NFC-enabled Samsung Galaxy S5 or NFC-enabled credit card at point-of-sale terminals found at many Walgreen drugstores, but awareness and usage remain low.  Apple has again the opportunity to transform, disrupt and reshape an entire business sector. It is hard to overestimate what impact Apple could have if it really wants to play in the payments market.

Apple won’t be the first to enter the mobile-payments arena. Google introduced its Google Wallet service in May 2011. The wireless carriers formed their joint venture with the intent to create a platform for mobile payments. Apple tends to stay away from new technologies until it has had a chance to smooth out the kinks. It was two years behind some smartphones in offering an iPhone that could tap into the faster LTE wireless network. NFC was rumored to be included in at least the last two iPhones and could finally make its appearance in the iPhone 6. The technology will be the linchpin to enabling transactions at the checkout.

Struggles

The notion of turning smartphones into true digital wallets including the ability to pay at the register, has been hyped up for years. But so far, it’s been more promise than results. There have been many technical hurdles to making mobile devices an alternative to cash, checks, and credit cards. NFC technology has to be included in both the smartphone and the point-of-sale terminal to work, and it’s been a slow process getting NFC chips into more equipment. NFC has largely been relegated to a feature found on higher-end smartphones such as the Galaxy S5 or the Nexus 5. There’s also confusion on both sides, the merchant and the customer, on how the tech works and why tapping your smartphone on a checkout machine is any faster, better or easier than swiping a card. There’s a chicken-and-egg problem between lack of user adoption and lack of retailer adoption. It’s one reason why even powerhouses such as Google have struggled. Despite a splashy launch of its digital wallet and payment service more than three years ago, Google hasn’t won mainstream acceptance or even awareness  for its mobile wallet. Google hasn’t said how many people are using Google Wallet, but a look at its page on the Google Play store lists more than 47,000 reviews giving it an average of a four-star rating.

The Puzzle

Apple has quietly built the foundation to its mobile-payment service in Passbook, an app introduced two years ago in its iOS software and released as a feature with the iPhone 4S. Passbook has so far served as a repository for airline tickets, membership cards, and credit card statements. While it started out with just a handful of compatible apps, Passbook works with apps from Delta, Starbucks, Fandango, The Home Depot, and more. But it could potentially be more powerful. Apple’s already made great inroads with Passbook, it could totally crack open the mobile payments space in the US. Apple could make up a fifth of the share of the mobile-payment transactions in a short few months after the launch. The company also has the credit or debit card information for virtually all of its customers thanks to its iTunes service, so it doesn’t have to go the extra step of asking people to sign up for a new service. That takes away one of the biggest hurdles to adoption. The last piece of the mobile-payments puzzle with the iPhone is the fingerprint recognition sensor Apple added into last year’s iPhone 5S. That sensor will almost certainly make its way to the upcoming iPhone 6. The fingerprint sensor, which Apple obtained through its acquisition of Authentic in 2012, could serve as a quick and secure way of verifying purchases, not just through online purchases, but large transactions made at big-box retailers such as Best Buy. Today, you can use the fingerprint sensor to quickly buy content from Apple’s iTunes, App and iBooks stores.

The bigger win for Apple is the services and features it could add on to a simple transaction, if it’s successful in raising the awareness of a form of payment that has been quietly lingering for years. Google had previously seen mobile payments as the optimal location for targeted advertisements and offers. It’s those services and features that ultimately matter in the end, replacing a simple credit card swipe isn’t that big of a deal.

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Smartphone Tagged with: app, Apple, card, card swipe, cash, checkout machine, checks, chips, credit, credit card swipe, credit-card, customer, debit card, Digital wallets, fingerprint recognition, fingerprint sensor, Galaxy S5, Google Wallet, iOS, Iphone, market, merchant, mobile, mobile device, mobile payment, mobile wallet, Near Field Communication, network, Nexus 5, nfc, payment, payment service, platform, point of sale, products, sensor, services, smartphone, software, statements, swiping card, terminals, transactions, wireless technology

Top 3 Business Features of Windows Phone 8.1

The latest version of Microsoft’s smartphone operating system, already packs tons of new productivity-boosting features. Now, the first update for Windows Phone 8.1  is nearly ready to launch, with extra functionality that makes it even better for work. Features come on top of additions that already arrived with the initial release of Windows Phone 8.1, such as Cortana, a voice-activated virtual assistant. Windows Phone8.1 Update 1 was released to developers this month, and will roll to consumers in the coming months.

App Corner – gives you better control over how employees use company-owned smartphone.  You can manage which apps are installed on a phone and even save and export your app settings to other devices to quickly configure company phones. That way, employees can’t accidentally install applications that could compromise company data.

Folders – Staying organized is one way to boost your productivity. Now, Windows Phone 8.1 gives you better control over your smartphone’s home screen with the addition of folders. Just drag one app over the top of another to group them into a folder, then tap a folder to see which apps it includes.

VPN support – is a secure, private network that lets employees wirelessly access company resources while on the go, including files, apps and printers. Windows Phone 8.1Update 1 adds VPN support to the mobile OS for the first time. Users will be able to toggle the VPN on or off easily, or set a device to automatically connect to a VPN when a particular Web domain is accessed. You can also turn on encryption to secure all traffic between your smartphone and the work network.

 

Posted in Smartphone Tagged with: app, consumers, data, encryption, network, smartphone, windows

Scan Your Groceries with a Grocery Shopping App

Scanning your groceries yourself with the supermarket’s handheld scanner is something you may well have already done. Instead of waiting in line for a cashier to scan, tally and bag your groceries, you save time by scanning as you go and doing your own check-out. However, now in certain grocery stores you can go even further by using a bar code scanner app in your own smartphone to scan each grocery item you’re buying and to expand your shopping experience by receiving personalized offers, syncing with loyalty cards and tracking your budget while you shop. The first supermarket company in the United States to make this available to customers has been the Stop & Shop Supermarket Company LLC, with its Scan It! Mobile app service. Starting with three grocery stores and plans to roll out the capability to 45 more of its stores in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The company could extend the service to the 400 or so grocery stores it operates in total, including the other states of New Hampshire, New York and New Jersey. 

How Can You Use a Bar Code Scanner App?

By using a grocery shopping app like this in your smartphone, you can not only get directions on how to find the store in the first place, but once you’re there, you can also get relevant and specific offers according to where you are in the store and what you’ve already bought. With targeted coupons being sent to your smartphone for each shopping trip, you can save money as well; Stop & Shop estimates possible savings for customers on groceries of between $250 and $500 per year. The grocery shopping app also gives customers access to online accounts, including checking for gas points, A+ School Rewards and personalized savings, as well as to daily information about sales promotions for stores in general. To use the app to scan your groceries, you aim the camera of your phone at the bar code of a grocery item to see the price on your phone screen and to add it to an electronic shopping basket. When you’ve finished shopping, the bar code scanner app transmits the information via the supermarket’s Wi-Fi network to the point of sale, where you pay as you would normally. The same wireless network also allows the retailer to send you personalized information.

Happy customers and increased sales are not the only benefits for grocery stores making such bar code scanner apps available to customers with smartphones. Because the customer has in effect already financed the scanning device (the smartphone), grocery stores can envisage making corresponding savings by reducing the amount of in-store scanners they have to buy, as well as decreasing labor costs, which are typically between 12% and 15% of their total expenses.

Check Your Smartphone Compatibility

Using your mobile to do this means having a compatible smartphone. Currently for the Scan It! Mobile grocery shopping app you’ll need either an iPhone 3GS or 4G, or a compatible Android device. The list validated so far includes Android 2.2 running on Nexus One, Motorola Droid1, Samsung Galaxy, and HTC Thunderbolt 4G. The app can be downloaded for free at the Apple App Store or the Android Market.

 

Posted in Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Smartphone Tagged with: Android device, Android Market, app, Apple App Store, bar code, bar code scanner app, coupons, electronic shopping, HTC Thunderbolt, in-store scanners, Iphone, loyalty cards, mobile app, Mobile app service, Mobile grocery shopping app, Motorola Droid1, Nexus One, online accounts, point of sale, Samsung Galaxy, scan, scanner, shopping app, smartphone, Stop & Shop, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi network, wireless network

Top Android Apps For Business

An Android tablet is a great tool for work, but not every Android app was made for tablets. In fact, most Android apps were made for smaller smartphone displays. While those apps will run just fine on your tablet, they don’t do anything to take advantage of the extra screen space, and while smartphone apps are forced to hide options deep in menus, tablet apps have more room to put those controls front and center. Plus, phone apps just don’t look very good on a tablet. The interface is usually stretched and skewed to fill the larger screen. With that in mind, here are apps that will help you get to work on your Android tablet.

Android Device Manager (Free) – a good tool to help you find a lost or stolen Android device. Keeping it installed on your Android tablet will enable you to quickly locate your business phone if it’s ever misplaced. The app can force your phone to ring even if it’s in silent mode. Lock it to prevent thieves from accessing private or confidential business data and even locate your phone using its built-in GPS sensor. Using Android Device Manager on a tablet gives you plenty of space to view and pan around the map while you’re pinpointing the location of your phone. As a last resort, you can use the app to remotely wipe all the data from your smartphone.

Evernote (Free) – is a great app for taking notes, making to-do lists and saving photos and it’s even better on a tablet. The biggest difference between the smartphone and tablet version of Evernote is that the latter features a persistent sidebar that lets you quickly flip between notes, notebooks and tagged items. It has large buttons that let you create a new note, snap a photo or quickly dictate a voice memo. Those options are hidden in a slide-out menu in the smartphone app. You also get more space to view each individual note, which means you can see your entire memo or list at once with less scrolling and swiping.

Google Docs (Free) – Let’s face it: a word processor like Google Docs isn’t all that useful on your smartphone. Sure, it can come in handy when you need to make a few tweaks to an existing document, but you’ll need a bigger display to get much work done. The Google Docs app was really made for tablets, especially when you pair your slate with a Bluetooth keyboard to use it like a laptop computer. Not only do you get a better view of your entire document on the tablet, but you also get quick access to formatting options at the top of the interface, letting you change fonts, colors, text alignment and more. Those options are tucked away in several layers of menus in the smartphone app. Google’s Sheet spreadsheet editor and Slides presentation maker are also better suited for a large tablet display than a smartphone.

Google Drive (Free) – is a solid cloud storage platform for Android users, and a large tablet screen makes it easier to navigate your file library, thanks to a persistent sidebar that lets you jump to any folder with one tap. It also helps you search through shared and starred documents, or jump to a view of your recently uploaded files. But the best reason to use Google Drive on your tablet is that it lets you open those documents on the tablet version of Google Docs, which is much more functional on a large screen than on a smartphone.

Google Keep (Free) – is a minimalist productivity app that lets you quickly capture notes, voice memos and photos, then view all items in a colorful pinboard-style layout. It works fine on smartphones, but on tablets the app scales beautifully to fill the entire screen, letting you view more notes and photos at once. Otherwise, the app offers identical functionality on smartphones and tablets. In addition to pinning new notes to your board, you can create a to-do list and check items off with one tap. You can also set reminders for any item on your tablet and receive an alert on your smartphone when the time comes.

Hangouts (Free) – is an all-in-one messaging app that combines text messaging and videoconferencing functionality. The app imports your contacts from your Google account to let you create new conversations quickly and the ability to add and remove participants in the middle of a conversation helps it stand out from other messaging apps. You can start a video chat session at any time by tapping the video call button during a Hangouts session. That comes in handy when you need to meet with an employee, colleague or client, but can’t meet face-to-face. Hangouts works fine on a smartphone, but it’s better on a tablet. A persistent sidebar makes it easier to browse through your past conversations, and a larger touch-screen keyboard makes it easier to type out messages.

Informant 3 ($9.99) – is a powerful productivity app that combines a business calendar and task manager in a single location. The calendar automatically imports all your events and appointments from the stock Android calendar, so getting started with Informant 3 is easy. Once it’s set up, you can view your agenda at a glance. Change the view to get the optimal view of your day, week or month and add, move and delete items with a few taps. Meanwhile, the task manager lets you add items to a dynamic to-do list, set reminders and alerts, sort tasks by importance and more. Informant 3 works best on a tablet. Browsing your calendars and lists is easier and more comfortable on a larger display. The app also features a special tablet mode with a sidebar that lets you quickly jump between calendar dates.

Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with: Android, Android Device Manager, app, Bluetooth keyboard, computer, data, evernote, Google Docs, google drive, Google Keep, hangouts, Informant 3, laptop, notebooks, notes, phone apps, platform, smartphone, tablet