Credit Card Processing Guide: Your First Time Processing

So you’re new to the business and you’re looking for something that’ll help you speed up billing transactions and business-to-business (B2B) credit card processing but how do you do this? This credit card processing guide is here to help you understand how you can accept credit cards and what you need to look out for if you find yourself in the market for a credit card processor. 

As a business owner in today’s fast-paced and ever-growing economy, the use of debit cards and credit cards has become quite popular as it’s an easy and most importantly, convenient mode of payment that a customer can use to pay for a service or product with just one swipe or tap.

How it works

The best way to find out what method to use when accepting debit or credit card payments is to first find out what happens during the time of purchase. When a customer comes to the cashier to pay with physical cash the money typically goes into the register and will later be deposited into your bank but with credit and debit cards that are an entirely different ballpark.

This method of payment requires the usage of several other services typically coming from multiple parties. First, there’s the merchant, second, the customer or cardholder, third, the financial institution that has given the cardholder the authority to use something akin to a revolving loan. Sometimes a fourth entity will be placed into the fray, an example of such is PayPal, which is at times called a payment aggregator, which replaces the acquiring bank as the third-party payment process service.

At some point, you may have heard of business-to-business (B2B) credit card processing, which is a little more complex than most consumer payments. This type of payment is much larger and not as frequently used as B2C known as business-to-consumer payment. Of course, there can be smaller B2B payments and these are transactions that are done in real-time, but for larger payments, these can present a problem as this requires the use of fraud detection, and currently, there are very few channels available that can help process large payments.

What is a Traditional POS system? What does it look like?

When selling goods and services you’ll find that having a POS system ready will be more than beneficial for both you and your business. Today’s vast variety of POS systems has a lot of features to help cater to each company’s unique needs.

A POS system in general is a technology that allows you to manage your customer interactions and accept multiple forms of payment like debit or credit cards. So how does someone choose a POS system that best fits the needs of their business?

Well, there are a few things to consider, like the size of your company and the volume of sales it makes regularly, the quality and quantity of features that it provides, the potential expansion of your products and services, the specific industry that you cater to and so much more.

Fees and credit card purchases 

Depending on the type of business that you own this will ultimately play a big role in the type of payments that you need to process. As a business owner, you want to ensure that transactions are smooth, intuitive, secure, and almost seamless when done in person, over the computer web browser, and even on mobile devices.

Since more people are turning to e-commerce to purchase just about anything they can in retail stores or restaurants then a common problem that you’ll run into are disputes over transactions made. The merchants usually get the short end of the stick since aside from shouldering processing fees they don’t get paid for the purchase made. That’s why finding a processing system that provides no-fee credit card processing is extremely useful as a business that’s still starting.

Did you find this beginner’s credit card processing guide valuable? If yes then great! But if not, then perhaps you’re a business owner who’s looking for more information on a POS provider that has all the tools that you need to ensure a successful transaction between both you and your customer?

Then look no further because Savvy Merchant is here and we’re ready to give you excellent service as our systems, tools, and POS are second best to none. Contact us today if you would like to learn more about our products and no-fee credit card processing services.