I am trying to get a business going and need to know what I have to do to accept credit cards for payment. I need to know from the bottom up.
A cleaning business. I already have one client but they have to pay in credit card since it is a business. I am new to this and don't know how to get it going.
You will have to contract with a finiancial entity that will act as the clearinghouse between you and the creditcard companies. This will generally cost you a monthy fee and a percentage of the charged amounts. The best place to start would be your local bank. They may have a program in place (Suntrust does have such a division) and can give you the information. For retail, you will need a means to tranfer the information quickly such as a card reader (swiper if you will) which is available through the credit card entity that you contact. If it is not a fast retail situation you can use a computer to transfer the information, but you still would want to have a copy of the card by an imprinter if it is dealing with the general population. You can get Mastercard and Visa from the same "subscription" but you will have to add American Express and I believe, Discover separately. This is a very general overview and I hope it gives you an idea of the personalization that is possible and in some cases necessary. So, check with your banker for their suggestion, since they will have had experience with this and you personally.
You can actually buy Quickbooks software from one of the office supply stores (OfficeMax, Office Depot, Staples) that is specific for credit card usage and I believe is through J.P. Morgan Chase. You can also order a card swiper, I think. For a retail, walk-in type business, it probably would be better to go through a bank in order to acquire a merchant machine but if not...you may want to do an online search for the Quickbooks set-up.
Thank you all for your help. HG already e-mailed the guy. If anyone knows anything about paypal please let me know
You can use paypal to pay anyone who has an account...not just an on-line business. I think Johnston Co. offers it as an option for buying landfill tickets and maybe other things. Read the rules ... If someone pays you with a credit card using paypal there is an additional fee but it might not be as costly as paying a montly fee going through a financial institution. Plus with paypal you are only charge per transaction vs. a monthly fee.
As Wayne mentioned, working with a local bank to establish a merchant account can often be the best way to go. As you can deal with them direct (face to face), you might find that the least frustrating. One thing to keep in mind and be on the lookout for - many of the online offers to set you up can also be more costly in the long run due to the junk fees they add on. Our original merchant account, which we setup with one of the biggest online providers, was resulting in $40 a month in fees just to have the account open (statement fees, just because we can fees, etc.) When we moved to a local bank for those services, we cut that monthly charge considerably. Also, be aware of the discount rate that they will give you - that is the % per sale they are going to take off the top to process the transaction. You might also get hit with a per transaction fee. PayPal is also an option, as they offer services now that allow you to take payments from others that have a PayPal account AND also credit cards directly. To process the payment, you would log into your PayPall account and manually enter in the credit card info you were charging. They also have an option to setup automatically recurring monthly payments that might work for you. Good luck!
