September 8th, 2014 by Elma Jane
One of the greatest mistake any merchants can do is deciding to lease or rent a credit card terminal rather than getting one for FREE. While the practice of leasing has declined in recent years in the US it is all they are doing in Canada whether the merchant is renting from a bank or leasing from a sales rep. In both the US and Canada some sales reps will still strive and persuade you that leasing is the perfect choice for you. You’re not obliged to pay any cash up front, or You’re assured a substitute terminal if yours breaks. Those selling statements may sound decent, but they’re not. A terminal lease will end up costing you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars more than what it’s worth. With the fees you’ll end up disbursing to lease a terminal, you could buy that same terminal in a matter of months. If you lease a terminal you could also be forced to buy equipment insurance, which is an additional expense. You may even have to give back the terminal at the end of your lease!
Why Purchasing a Credit Card Terminal is a Good Choice
A terminal lease brings with it a 48 month lease contract. That is a lengthy time to be giving for a terminal that doesn’t cost more than $300 today. Why not just buy one entirely? The cost of the purchase is absolutely tax deductible. Even if you can’t come up with the money to pay cash for your terminal, you can just put it on a business credit card. The interest given is still tax deductible, and let’s says you have a 19 percent credit card rate, if you pay the same amount of $/month toward your credit card balance that you would have paid toward your lease, you’ll have the terminal paid off in less than a year. That’s a savings that can be better channelled into budding and growing your company.
FREE Credit Card Terminal
For those of you, who feels that because of the ever changing technology, they do not want to continue buying new terminals, there are FREE Terminals offers all across Canada. So, with your FREE terminals, there is no out of pocket set up expense and your current processing rate can be the same or reduced significantly. If your terminal breaks or if there is a better technology that develops, the company automatically ships to you at no charge an upgraded terminal. So, if you can’t buy one, see if your credit card processor will give you one for FREE.
If you’re stuck in a lease, you most likely won’t able to end the contract. A lease term is usually 48 months, so you’ll have to look up when that term terminates before you can leave without a consequence. As an alternative, do your own research and analyze the total expense of leasing vs. purchasing. Better yet, strongly consider the benefits of not having to worry about anything, at one point is that FREE terminal usually has $25 minimum expense to the merchant. Mom taught you there was no free lunch didn’t she? If you decide to return the FREE terminal, you may find a RETURN EQUIPMENT FEE or an EARLY RETURN FEE of that FREE EQUIPMENT.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Reader Terminal Tagged with: bank, card, cash, credit, credit card processor, credit card terminal, credit-card, fees, Merchant's, processor, tax, terminal
May 16th, 2014 by Elma Jane
National Transaction discussed about credit card underwriting today, a training twice a week given to our Sales Representatives together with our partner Elavon. Training outlined the following why Elavon needs guidelines, credit decision factors as well as which merchants are restricted vs. which merchants are prohibited. For company understanding, facts about fulfillment will be outlined allowing for a better understanding of the department that receives and processes new merchant applications. Application requirements will be identified and then why applications pend.
Fulfillment Services – The department who manages merchant applications through the process of: Data Entry, Underwriting, Deployment and Merchant Activation.
Best way to get an application to boarding – Email and Fax.
The key to success is gathering the right information, such as data from a myriad of sources, including bank statements, credit reporting agencies, utility assessments, tax assessments and additional financial documentation. These are just some chunk of what we have discussed today. With the right tool and support from National Transaction Team closing a deal is feasible.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit card Processing, nationaltransaction.com Tagged with: bank statements, credit, credit card underwriting, credit-card, data, Data Entry, Elavon, Merchant Activation, merchant applications, Merchant's, National Transaction, tax, underwriting
May 9th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Email is an indispensable part of running any business, it is so important. It’s often the best and least intrusive way to communicate with employees, colleagues and collaborators. Not all email platforms are equal, it’s important to choose one with the right email service and features your business need, also to avoid overpaying for features that you don’t need.
Factors to consider before settling on an email platform for your business.
Bonus Features
Once you’ve found an email service that covers all the basics, check for additional features that can boost your productivity. Some platforms such as Gmail and Outlook includes integrated video chat. That means you can use a single service for both exchanging messages and meeting remotely, making your day-to-day operations simpler and more efficient. Some email platforms also include instant messaging functionality. Instant messaging is better than email for real-time discussions, since you can exchange numerous short messages in rapid succession. Sending an instant message may be preferable to sending an email if the content of your message is not that important
Collaboration Tools
Good business email platform makes it easier for you to work together with your employees or colleagues. The best platforms include tools to help you collaborate. Services such as Gmail and Outlook include a built-in-calendar as part of your email inbox, in a few simple steps you can share your calendar with others so they can view and edit it on the fly. That can really help with planning and collaboration. Email threading is another feature that can help you work together with colleagues. Threaded emails make it easier to follow long exchanges because replies appear one after another in a single thread, instead of being spread throughout your inbox in the order they were received.
Free or Paid??
One thing you can’t get with a free Web mail service is the ability to use your brand’s name as part of your email address. Registering for a free Gmail account gives you an email address like [username]@gmail.com; but by subscribing to Google Apps for Business, you can secure an email address that reads [username]@[yourbusiness].com. In most cases, you’ll need to already own your own Web domain in order to use it as part of your email address, but registering a domain can cost as little as $10 per year. Services such as Microsoft Office 365, give you your own domain name without the need to pay additional hosting fees.
Security
Whether you pay for email or use a free service, you’ll want tight security for your business inbox especially if running your business involves the exchange of private client data and other sensitive data can be attached to your email account, such as bank account numbers and tax returns. Even more than with your personal email, it’s important to keep cyber criminals out of your business account. Before settling on an email service, check for common-sense security measures such as spam and phishing filters. Support for two-factor authentication is also important. The feature helps keep outsiders out of your inbox by requiring users to have two pieces of information to sign in. The first is your regular password and the second is a freshly generated code sent to either your mobile phone or a second email address. Other security features to check for include built-in antivirus measures to keep malware off your computer, which is especially important if you download a lot of attachments. Whether or not it’s important for you (and any employees) to have a branded email address is ultimately up to you. An email address that includes your own domain name can potentially boost the perceived credibility of your business. On the other hand, a generic email address might be fine for the smallest businesses, especially if you are a sole proprietor.
Storage Space
A branded email address isn’t the only advantage of a paid email service. Paid platforms offer plenty of other perks, such as expanded cloud storage for email and other files. Many free email services offer limited storagespace, forcing you to delete messages when your inbox gets full. If you run a small business that relies heavily on email and you prefer to archive messages rather than delete them, your inbox can fill up in a hurry. By subscribing to a paid service, you can gain access to a much bigger inbox. There are a few other related concerns to consider. The maximum size of an email attachment varies widely between different services, with some services capping attachments at 10GB and others letting you send huge files up to 300GB or more, as long as the file is already uploaded to the cloud.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: antivirus, bank account, business account, chat, client data, cloud, code, computer, data, domain, email, email address, email inbox, email platforms, email service, Email threading, gmail, Gmail account, Gmail and Outlook, Google Apps, hosting, hosting fees, Instant messaging, Malware, messaging, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, mobile, mobile phone, password, personal email, phishing filters, phone, platforms, Security, security features, spam, spam and phishing, tax, tax returns, threading, video chat, Web domain, Web mail, Web mail service
New legislation is working its way through congress to require e-commerce retailers and mail order telephone order business to collect local sales taxes on transactions. e-commerce web sites and mail order telephone order businesses that conduct over $1 million gross sales and sell products and services in states where they don’t maintain brick and mortar presences would be required to collect and pay local and state taxes in those states. Targeting remote retailers that engage in interstate commerce the most obvious being mail order and telephone order as well as e-commerce shopping cart sites. Read more of this article »
Posted in Electronic Payments Tagged with: brick and mortar, DSS, e-commerce, electronic payment, mail order, merchant, merchant account, PCI, shopping cart, tax, taxes, telephone order
