How To Accept Credit Card Payments for Your Small Business
If your small business isn’t accepting credit card payments, you’re missing out on business. Most customers now prefer paying with credit cards or digital wallets rather than cash when they make purchases. By accepting these payment methods, you make shopping easier for your customers and avoid losing sales to people who don't carry cash. Here, we explore how to accept credit card payments for small businesses in six easy steps.
1. Determine Your Credit Card Processing Needs
Credit card processing isn't free. Typically, when you set up a merchant account and payment processor to accept new online and in-person payments, you'll be charged a subscription fee and a credit card processing fee per transaction. These can cut into your bottom line, so it's important to understand what kind of sales volume you expect when you're shopping for a provider. Moreover, if you need a payment processor for e-commerce growth rather than just in-person payments, some options may be better than others.
2. Decide How You Will Accept Payments
How do your customers generally pay for your goods or services? If you're a cash-only business in the process of transitioning to accepting credit card payments, you should also consider accepting debit cards, online payments, and digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay. Keep in mind, there are several types of credit card transactions, including magnetic stripe, EMV chip, contactless, and card-not-present. Many payment processors offer support for a wide variety of payment methods in the same system, so you'll want to pick the option that will be most beneficial to your customers.
3. Evaluate Different Options
There are many different payment processing options on the market. You can evaluate each based on the following criteria:
- Cost: What are the subscription fees, transaction fees, and the cost to implement?
- Solutions: Does it include a virtual terminal and a physical payment gateway to accept both online and in-person payments?
- Convenience: Does it come with a mobile card reader and everything else you need to incorporate the new system with your existing point-of-sale system?
Here's a good list of questions to ask a payment processor when you're weighing your options.
4. Set Up the Payment System
Once you've picked the right payment processor for your business needs, it's time to get everything set up. Generally, a payment processing solution works by opening a merchant account, which is a bank account that accepts transactions through the payment processor. Depending on your provider, you may have a virtual terminal and a physical payment gateway to accept credit cards and digital payments into your merchant account.
5. Integrate Payments With Existing Business Systems
When you're up and running and accepting credit cards, make sure everything is accounted for in your existing point-of-sale and accounting software. Most payment processors offer intuitive solutions to connect your merchant account and payments with your existing system to streamline your business accounting.
6. Monitor and Review Payment Performance
Finally, monitor how this new solution is impacting your business. Track changes in revenue and transaction volume over time and make adjustments like setting up online payments, if necessary.
Learn more ways to support your business growth with U.S. Bank's Small Business, Big Ambition program.
