Accounting Software: Credit Card Processing

Step Up to Electronic Credit Card Processing
Are you still using the old-fashioned “slide-print” credit card processing method?  Are you still taking imprints of credit cards and handing out hand-written receipt slips?  If so, you are probably working too hard and spending too much time with the process, and you have probably had instances when there were insufficient funds that came up after accepting payment and selling your merchandise. You may want to consider updating your method to electronic credit card processing, which is no longer an expensive process and can help you to collect money more efficiently with no effort at all.

In the past, you would take a credit card, make an imprint, obtain a signature, and create a hand-written slip for the customer, also retaining a copy of that signed slip for your records. Then, on certain days of the week when records and cash deposits were taken to the bank, these slips and imprints are taken in, at which point the bank would take care of all the credit card processing, hoping that the funds were available. The task was laborious and could cause a loss of funds should there not be enough money on the account to pay for what was purchased.

Electronic credit card processing eliminates all of these issues for you as a business owner. First of all, the immediate processing verifies that there is sufficient funding for the purchase on the credit card account. Should there not be, the transaction is denied, saving you from a bad charge and giving the customer an opportunity to find another form of payment. Also, there is no laborious completion of manual credit slips, saving time for you and your customer. You’ll also be able to keep electronic records of transactions, which can then be translated into electronic reports that make it effortless to track your cash flow on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly basis.

When electronic credit card processing was first introduced, systems were expensive and had to be connected to your phone line, meaning that if you were on the phone, the process couldn’t be completed and, if you were processing a transaction, no phone calls could come in. However, credit card processing systems have been greatly improved and have come down in price because they are so common. Competition among providers has also driven down prices. Also, with new technology, the electronic credit card processing systems can now by connected to the internet, meaning that you don’t have to worry about any kind of interference in the processing or any other systems within your business.

Electronic processing creates automated receipts and makes the deduction to the customer accounts instantly. Also, while many systems used to charge a high percentage rate set by the credit providers for a retail store to use an electronic system, such fees have been reduced drastically, making the use of such systems affordable.