A Merchant Services Account Isn't Difficult For Small Businesses To Open

Small businesses who want to accept credit card payments need a merchant services account to process credit card payments. By opening a merchant services account, a business can accept major credit cards like MasterCard, Visa, and American Express, thereby increasing their sales.

Even with the well-known and profitable benefits of accepting credit card payments, many businesses seem a little afraid of opening a merchant services account because of the following reasons.
  • They believe it will be too expensive to set up.

  • They worry their business will not be approved.

  • They think the whole process is too complicated, especially for inserting coding on their website to accept online credit card payments.

The reality is that opening a merchant services account to accept credit card payments is simple, inexpensive, and fast, especially when you apply online. If you do an online search for 'merchant services,' you'll get tons of results. The hard part is narrowing down these results so you choose the best provider for your business. Keep the following in mind when selecting a merchant services provider.

No Application Fee

Paying a fee just to fill out an application for an account is ridiculous, so avoid merchant services providers with this fee. To narrow down your search results add the word 'free application' to your search for 'merchant services.' This way you will eliminate many providers charging an application fee.

Look For Perks

Since there are so many merchant services providers out there, look for one that offers you some perks, such as no setup fees, 24/7 customer support, shopping cart systems, and no fees for electronic statements or direct deposits into your bank account.

Both Online And Offline Purchases

If you have an offline physical location where customers come to you to make purchases and you also sell direct from your website, make sure the merchant services provider you choose can offer you credit card processing for both offline and online purchases. This entails providing you with a credit card processing machine for use in your offline physical location and providing you with custom HTML code for your website.

No Fees For Bank Account Transfers

Look for a merchant services provider who does not charge a fee to transfer your money for credit card purchases directly into your bank account. While most providers do charge a fee for mailing you a printed check, the better quality services will not charge you a fee to transfer your money directly into your bank account. Another plus to this is that your money gets into your bank account sooner than with waiting for a check, taking it to the bank, and waiting again for it to clear before you can use those funds.

By opening a merchant services account, you can open a whole new world of payment options for your customers. This will increase your sales and make your bookkeeping a lot easier. Merchant services accounts are simple to open and easy to use. So, go out today and open a merchant services account for your business. Your customers will appreciate it!

General Articles

Merchant Services Tips

You are absolutely not allowed to only process transactions above a certain minimum or below a certain maximum value. Per regulations, if you are going to accept credit cards, you must accept them for any transaction.

You must truncate account numbers on your receipts. Each state has its own laws governing what can and can not be on the receipt. For both the Merchant’s and cardholder’s protection, the general rule of thumb is to print no more than the last four digits of the card number on the receipt.

Examine the card! There have been many cases of an expired card being presented for payment that gets a valid authorization from the processor. However, in the end the transaction is not paid to the Merchant. The Merchant is responsible for examining the card and verifying the information present on the card.

Take every measure possible to prevent duplicate transactions. Duplicate transactions will result in a credit, dispute or chargeback and all of these can add up to losing your Merchant Account.

Always get an authorization for every credit card transaction you are going to settle. Not doing so will only create headaches and lost revenue for you.

Merchants are not allowed to charge any sort of usage fee for credit card transactions to offset the cost of accepting credit cards. This was done many years ago, but has since been outlawed by the card networks. Your Discount Rate and other associated fess are simply a cost of business that you accept when you decide to accept credit cards.