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Collecting and processing payments from your customers is a basic yet essential function of your business. Payment processing options are continuously expanding, making it critical for business owners to have a complete understanding of each available method.
Merchant services is a broad term that’s used to define a wide range of payment processing options. Most automatically associate merchant services with debit and credit card processing, but there are actually many other pieces associated with its broader definition.
Merchant Services: Payment Processing
ACH – Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions, also referred to as electronic funds transfer (EFT), enable customers to make a payment from their checking account without writing a physical check or using a debit card. The majority of these transactions involve a regular monthly payment, but there are also many businesses that offer this option for individual purchases.
Gift Cards – Offering your customers the opportunity to purchase items with gift cards is a good way to encourage higher sales without needing to worry about fraud. After all, if a consumer enters your store with a gift card, the money that is on that card has already been successfully collected. As a bonus, customers will only be able to utilize their gift cards at your business. Most people end up spending more money than they have available on their gift card, which leads to additional revenue.
Check Guarantee – Accepting check payments provides consumers with an easy payment method, but it also increases a company’s risk of dealing with fraud. Fortunately, the check guarantee process eliminates the majority of this risk because it provides companies reimbursement for bounced checks.
Electronic Benefits Transfer – Eligible individuals can receive access to funding via an electronic benefits transfer (EBT) program. This option is more commonly referred to as food stamps, but the EBT card can also be used to purchase non-food items in some instances. These cards are used in the same method as credit and debit cards, and are typically designed to automatically deny any purchases that exceed the user’s available funds. As a result, EBT is one of the most secure ways to process a payment for eligible purchases.
Merchant Services: Value-Adds
Point of Sale – Retail stores utilize the point of sale (POS) process to complete transactions. POS includes all of the software and hardware that makes it possible to ring up purchases and process payments, including cash registers, credit card terminals and touch screens.
Loyalty Programs – Many businesses offer loyalty programs that reward consumers for making purchases. This can include everything from a club card that offers specific discounts to a points card that allows customers to exchange points for goods or services.
Check Conversion – It is becoming increasingly common for businesses to use paper checks in the same way as ACH. In fact, these checks can be run through ACH to automatically transfer funds from the consumer’s bank account without anyone from the company needing to make a physical bank deposit. This saves businesses time, and also makes the process of validating checks much quicker.
Payment Gateway – Companies that take advantage of an e-commerce payment gateway can receive authorization for credit and debit card payments via a secure payment processor. This option is very similar to POS, but it is typically utilized to process payments that are entered by a consumer onto a website.
Online Transaction Processing – This option allows companies to easily track and retrieve transaction processing. Businesses that have online transaction processing in place can increase the accuracy of their expense and revenue forecasts, and they will also be able to greatly reduce their reliance on paper.
Merchant Cash Advance – Companies that need access to funding but are unable to secure a loan from a bank can turn to merchant cash advance. This allows them to receive a short-term loan that typically requires daily payments until the loan has been settled. Additionally, a merchant cash advance can be structured to provide a business with one lump sum payment in exchange for providing the lender with a set percentage of debit and credit card sales for a specified time.
Utilizing Merchant Services for Your Business
Merchant services applies to a wide variety of products and offerings. With so many payments relying upon merchant services, it is imperative to carefully consider which options you are going to offer and what companies you want to partner with to complete each transaction.
Even if you’re concerned about keeping things simple for your staff and customers, you should at the very least be set up to process credit cards, debit cards, mobile payments and possibly ACH or check conversion. Each additional payment method that you embrace will have a positive impact on your bottom line.
Read the original TSYS Payments 101 article here.
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