Does Your Small Business Accept Customer Payments via Phone or Mail?

Customer Payment
While an increasing number of customers prefer to pay via credit or debit card online these days, a large number of consumers still prefer to pay over the phone or via snail mail. Furthermore, not all customers are comfortable with providing credit card information with these types of payments and would prefer to write a check instead. For this reason, business owners who want to make it as easy as possible for customers to make their preferred forms of payment should have a merchant account that offers not only electronic credit card payment processing, but phone and mail payment processing as well.

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How to Use Business Credit Card Prudently for Emergency Cash Needs

How to Use Business Credit Card Prudently for Emergency Cash Needs
For small business owners cash flow is equivalent to a blood flow. If it stops or is even constricted it can wreak havoc on your body and your business. Still the reality is every business runs into cash flow problems once in a while. A large customer delays a payment for few days and you will be scrambling to meet the payroll that is coming up. You may need additional cash flow if you are looking to expand the business with new products or locations. No matter how you come across the need for additional cash you need to have a plan in place to meet emergency cash needs.

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Impact of Mobile Credit Card Processing on Small Business

Impact of mobile credit card processing on small business
Mobile credit card processing is all the rage these days. It is one of the hottest topics of discussion for small business owners, and for the right reason. After a long time traditional credit card processors, such as Visa and Master Card, have found their business model undergoing dramatic change. Many companies have introduced mobile credit card processors aimed at helping small business owners. Small businesses have plenty of choices to satisfy the growing demand for mobile credit card processing services, which can make choosing the best mobile credit card processing company a daunting task.

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Do you know about IRS form 1099K?


Come January, the festive season will be over and will soon be followed by the tax season. Small business owners will start sending and receiving form 1099’s showing the money paid and received for the services they rendered in the year 2012. One of the newer forms that IRS has introduced is 1099K starting in 2011. Sellers of items on E-commerce sites such as eBay and Etsy, that include many home-based merchants, are the typical recipients of this form. Many of them were caught by surprise last year upon receiving this form. There was also lot of confusion surrounding the form resulting from the instructions provided by IRS on this form (What else did you expect from IRS?)
So what is form 1099K and what does it include?
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Do’s and Don’ts of Small Business Credit


If you have not paid much attention to business credit the time to do it is now. For small business owners, business credit is like a lifeline, an insurance against unexpected expenses that might come out of nowhere. Business credit gives you peace of mind with the knowledge that you will not have to scramble to borrow money on a short notice to meet emergency financial obligation.
Look no further than what Ford did before the great recession of 2009 hit the world. Ford had established a huge line of credit by mortgaging pretty much everything they had, including their namesake blue logo! When recession did arise and all the banks shut their doors to business loans Ford could borrow from the line of credit and continue investing for the future. When both, GM and Chrysler, filed for bankruptcy protection, Ford was not only able to avoid it, but position itself to take advantage of upturn.
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Coming Revolution in POS and Credit Card Processing Systems


Rejoice, Small Business Owners!! There is a revolution underway in the way small businesses process credit card transactions and use Point of Sale (POS) systems. This is going to help small business owners in a big way by leveling the playing field with large competitors. We have always maintained that it is possible for small business owners to beat their larger rivals by finding a niche and focusing on customer service. Now, you are getting extra help in other areas where large businesses used to have an edge. A company called Square has introduced a portable credit card device that can process credit card transactions on-the-go with just a mobile phone. Last week, they took it one step further and introduced a free POS app on iPad that will modernize the point-of-sales system for small business owners. According to Square, this new app replicates and enhances the features of cash register systems, such as order taking, inventory management and customer data analysis significantly.
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Tips for Setting Up Merchant Account to Accept Credit Cards


This blog post is written by Shannon Martin.
Most small businesses are overpaying for credit card processing. In our conversations with number of small business owners we have not come across a single owner who does not hate credit card processing companies for the exorbitant amount of money they charge. That is why it is important to do your homework before you sign up with the merchant processing company. In this post we provide useful tips you should keep in mind when talking to credit card service providers.
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How to Save on Credit Card Processing Fees


A while ago we wrote about how most small businesses are overpaying for credit card processing. In our conversations with number of small business owners we have not come across a single owner who does not hate credit card processing companies for the exorbitant amount of money they charge. In this article we showed several techniques that can help you save money. Many of our readers have found it helpful.
We have recently come across a web site – TransFS that makes it easy to compare rates from various credit card processors. Not only that, but they go one step further and bring you quotes from various credit card merchants by auctioning your business to them. Here is how it works…
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Financing Problems for Small Business Owners


I came across this absurd news from Wall Street Journal yesterday about how small business owners are having problems getting financing from banks. To summarize, WSJ mentioned that many small business owners are denied loan applications for starting new business or business expansion. In some cases the business already had committed orders from customers and only needed money to ramp up production or hiring to start the work.
However, in almost all cases their applications were denied on the basis that they did not have sufficient cash flow to cover the payment. In the past, the business owners used to put business assets such as account receivables, inventory, equipments, etc. as collateral to get the loan. The valuation on these assets has declined in the recent downturn and is not sufficient to cover the loan payment.
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5 Proven Ways to Reduce Credit Card Processing Fees


Most small businesses are overpaying for credit card processing. After the Mafia was eliminated from Italy this has become the next legitimate way of extorting money from businesses. Visa and Master Card are making billions of dollars in profit every year just for acting as a middle man to process the credit cards.
Is there anything businesses can do to lower this cost rather than just give this “extortion” money to credit card processing companies? Although there is no way you can eliminate this cost; there are few steps you can take to bring it down. Here are 5 steps you can explore:
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