Credit cards only?

[Gary Hamilton]

hi Peter
We take payment by debit and credit card as well as cardholder not present (for phone and email orders).
Since offering this what we have noticed is that most customers prefer it and it saves us on paperwork .
The other plus is when they confirm order we can take a deposit or full payment straight away especially no account customers as almost everyone has a some "plastic" on them.
Down side is the transaction charges by the banks but we have a notice up saying that a % charge will be made for using chip and pin up to now we have only had one or two comments .
Your comment on it becoming a cash free society is totally correct and before we know it we will be paying via thumb print from our accounts for all purchases at least we wont lose the loose change to the wife’s hidden money jar or in the street on the way home from the pub 😀

[Phill Fenton]

I resisted getting a credit card payment system in place for many years. Now I don’t know how I managed without it. Many the time I have been a bit worried when large cash payments are made not knowing for sure if I was being given forged notes (though this has never actually happened to my knowledge). At least with a card system you know you are getting paid.

[Faisal Ali]

unless it is 100% cash payment by non account customers, cards are probably the best way forward.

But the cons to credit card transactions are the fees by the card processor, the percentages they charge on each transaction, their terminal rental fees, and any subsequent charges you might get on your business bank account from all the transactions being processed. So you need to be sure the amount you take in from credit cards covers the costs associated with it.

Luckily nowadays there is a lot more competition and choice with card processing companies, before it was dominated by Streamline, Barclaycard and HSBC. I think with some you can have a web account so you do not need to hire a card terminal.

You may also need to ask for a "customer not present" facility on your account so you can take card transactions over the phone or when the customer isn’t there, Streamline used to ask for a £50 admin fee for this a few years back. I don’t know if they still charge for it anymore.

The customer also gets rights under a credit card transaction, which they do not with cash transactions. This might include "chargebacks" where the customer makes a complaint to their card company and the transaction gets removed from your account pending investigation (and some card companies hit you with a penalty for each chargeback), and on transactions over £100 the customer is covered by rights under section 5 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974

[Robert Lambie]

we will take anything… BAC’s, Cheque, Cash etc even Glass Irn-Bru Bottles if theres money on the return! :lol1:

Joking aside…
as long as you are getting paid on time, how it is paid shouldn’t really matter. especially in this day and age… but yes, there is the worry on cheques being stopped, not clearing and so on…

we accept c/cards yes and we do use it more and more… some of our big customers now pay on collection of their signs by Business Card also, so your getting paid right away on signs some of these companies expect to pay 3 months down the line… which is great!

[Martin Pearson]

I suppose what you accept is up to you Peter but for me I am one of those who is supporting the Black Market by using cash for most things.

It’s OK saying shall we take credit cards only but what about people like me who can’t or couldn’t get a credit card for a long time

[Peter Normington]

Martin
I would take your word as payment.
it just that most of the people who want to pay by cash also dont want to pay the vat, and seem to think they entitled to a discount for cash, and it annoys me.
I usually make it clear when they order, but still get the odd one that think they can negotiate for a discount after the job is completed, by taking full payment up front by cc with the order, they have statutory protection, unlike asking them to hand over full payment in cash,

Peter

[Russell Huffer]

Someone mentioned cheques being stopped, be aware that credit card transactions over the phone ie cardholder not present and so no pin number used can be quiered up to 6 months later and if this happens they can take the money back while they investigate.

Regards

Russell.

[Peter Mindham]

We use Pay pal for many transactions, especially on our websites. There is a fee of course but we find in comparable to a card machine cost as we do not pay monthly rental etc for the machine. We have been using this now for over three years and I ended up getting rid of our card processing facility as it was redundant. Many people prefer Pay pal also as it is very secure.

Peter

[Karen Griffin]

We use CNP system for our website, but customers also have the choice of paypal – we too accept money any which way. Paypal works out much more expensive than the credit cards. Sagepay offer small businesses a good deal for CNP only which works out about £23.50 per month for up to £5000 worth of transations. Hope this is still true and I am not being misleading – we’ve got our contract some time ago so get to enjoy this rate for another year or so yet.

Certainly an end to cashflow issues. I personally don’t think it works out too expensive if you factor in the time it takes to chase payment from account customers. Some of them are sooooo slooooow.