Businesses looking to make an impact on their bottom line should take a look at the way they process electronic transactions. Today consumers view their transactions as an experience gravitating toward convenience. Long lines at the cash register can often turn away customers, sending them to competitors who might have more convenient ways to pay and therefore shorten time spent to complete the purchase. Impulse buyers are another reason to make sure that transactions go as smooth as possible increases the chance of future purchases. Today new technologies are emerging in electronic payment that allow merchants to collect valuable data on their customers from emailing receipts to providing incentives to mention the merchant on social media. So what’s behind the process of processing electronic payments? The heart of all your payment processing needs will most likely lie in a merchant account. With a merchant account you can deposit funds from ebt cards, debit cards, gift or loyalty cards and even checks into your bank account. If your business has never had it’s own merchant account, it’s probably missing out on some very valuable opportunities.
I’m Ready To Process Transactions Electronically
Let’s say you’re convinced that electronic payments are the way to go. What is the process to establish a merchant account? What should a merchant be aware of during the process? Well, it starts with establishing an account that will link credit card transactions presented to you with a bank account. This account is treated much like a loan from the bank hosting your merchant account. When you establish a merchant account there will typically be an application process involved. Banks do this because processing credit cards electronically moves digital money from one account to another. In the event of an error, a fraudulent charge or a large number of transactions or high value transactions, the bank is at risk for a certain amount of those transactions at almost any time. Consider a business like a travel agency. Someone books a flight today for traveling on a date 6 months from today. A change in plans, weather or a simple change of mind might mean a cancellation and trigger a refund from the travel agency bank account back to the consumer or the customer might demand a chargeback for the purchase. Banks, not wanting to be in the middle of a dispute, inspect many aspects of a business to determine their risk exposure and to determine that risk they usually inspect an owner or co-signers credit. If the owners credit isn’t great the business itself can be used by looking at financial information like tax returns or a profit and loss (P&L) financial report.
At National Transaction Corporation this process is simplified to a signature page and a cancelled check. We consult your business personally to establish the lowest rates and fees possible with your electronic payment processing. We ask detailed questions about how you process your transactions, and if you already process credit cards, we offer a free statement review where we determine your most common transaction types and how to lower their fees and rates. Once your application is submitted there is a review process where the application is either approved, pending (for additional information or action) or declined. This portion of the process is typically 72 business hours, if the application is pended, it usually prolongs the process until requests are fulfilled. Typically our accounts are approved in about 48 hours. Once approved we have a merchant account id which is ready to deposit funds into our bank account and we’re ready to process.
How Much Will Electronic Payment Processing Cost?
When discussing the price of electronic payment processing there are three parts to the answer:
Up front or start up costs of a merchant account include things like an application fee, an account setup fee and equipment fees. At National Transaction, we don’t have any application, setup or cancellation fees on our services. Our credit card readers and terminals are non proprietary and will work with almost any merchant services provider and we sell them at cost to make it easier on our merchants. We do not lease our equipment unless the situation and merchant require that so when you buy a terminal from us you own it and are free leave us at any time and use the terminal to process through another merchant account provider with no penalty payments at all. We do this for the comfort and trust our merchants have come to expect from us. Other startup costs might be check readers, cash registers and receipt printers, mobile point of sale software, and credit card swipe readers for smartphones, tablets or a PC or laptop. Accounting software like Intuit’s Quickbooks Pro or PeachTree accounting might be necessary. If you already own any this equipment we can integrate your existing hardware into our services and can accent it by providing new solutions to bring it all together.
Monthly service fees depend on what services are required and are typically up to the merchant. Our base monthly fee is $15 and that gives detailed statements and reporting on transaction activity. We offer other services like Virtual Merchant that allows a merchant to use any computer, or laptop to process transactions. This solution also allows multiple computers to process credit cards with no additional equipment fees and allows a merchant to instantly open a call center or multiple location sales operation easily and securely. We also offer Virtual Merchant Mobile where merchants can process sales on smartphones or tablet computers from Android, BlackBerry or Apples iPhone and iPad series. Many merchants enjoy our 24 hour deposit for $5 a month. This lets merchants deposit their days transactions and receive funding by midnight. We also offer many options in mobile point of sale applications that can incur monthly fees. So depending on the needs of the merchant our base monthly fee is a flat $15 and that is the bare minimum. Again, we have no fees associated with applying for or setting up the merchant account and there is no penalty for cancellation so there are no risks in trying it out.
Finally we get to transaction fees. MasterCard, Visa and American Express set what are called interchange rates. Interchange rates are a per transaction fee and/or a percentage rate based on the total of a sale. Interchange rates are very complex and consume hundreds of pages of different types of electronic transactions. These transactions are based on the type of business processing the transaction, the way the credit card data is input (like a credit card that is swiped in or manually keyed into a credit card terminal of some type) and the type of credit card used for the transaction (rewards card, corporate card, travel and entertainment credit cards, ebt cards and so on). With so many types of cards and businesses to process it’s impossible to give an accurate rate for all charges but on average the rates are between 1.5% and 4% and $0.10 per transaction. To get the most accurate rate quote for specific transactions we urge merchants to get a merchant rate review. As mentioned earlier if we can examine current merchant account activity, we can determine the most common types of transactions as well as the most expensive and do our best to lower these rates for your business.
At National Transaction Corporation we look to partner with our merchants and provide a payment platform that grows your business. We offer personal consultants that analyze your electronic transactions from the ground up and work to provide great customer service for the lowest rates and fees possible. Should you require merchant account services or just want to see how we compare feel free to contact us on our web site, here in the comment section or at 888-996-CARD (2273).
