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You need an efficient way to get paid for your product or service in order to stay in business. Cash, checks, credit cards, and online payments are the primary ways to get paid.
Here is a look at how to set up a professional, easy-to-use payment system for your business.
Setting Up Your Business to Receive Payments
There are three important steps for setting up your payment system.
If your business only accepts cash and checks, this is all you need to do. However, with so many business transactions being done now with credit and debit cards, or other online payment methods, you should consider setting up a merchant account and an online payment system too.
Both make it convenient for consumers to buy. They also provide the added benefit of getting customers to make impulse purchases. By accepting payments via credit or debit cards, you make it easy to accept payment whether your customer is local or on the other side of the world.
Accepting Credit Card Payments
To make use of credit and debit cards, you need to set up a merchant account. This allows you to accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and other types of cards.
The merchant account service provider is a middleman between your business and your customer. The merchant account service provider will process payments, debit the money from the customer’s card, and deposit it into your business account. The equipment you need varies.
Merchant account service providers provide these main types of accounts:
Other Payment Options
Here are two more ways to accept money that are becoming more prevalent.
The more ways you can accept payment, the easier you make it for customers to do business with you. In the age of the Internet, it is not uncommon for freelancers and small merchants to conduct business globally. Be open to new ways of accepting payment to make your business and services accessible to the largest number of consumers.