If you own a small business, you understand it is all about cash flow. Making payments easier for your customers is one way to improve your cash flow. Making it easier for your customers to pay shouldn’t make it harder for you and your team to manage payments. Here are nine payment types with turnkey solutions that set-up easily and will speed up payments and streamline your operations.
- Start Accepting Payment Cards
Seventy-five percent of consumers prefer to use a debit or credit card for their in-person and online purchases instead of fumbling with stacks of bills and unwieldy change.
Your small business will need a secure payment process to accept payment cards. The heart of any remote business payment system should be PCI DSS compliance. A PCI compliant process safeguards customer information at every step in the transaction. A PCI DSS Level 1 compliant and certified payment processor will handle all card transactions and keep customer payment history and sensitive bank information off your small business’s systems.
The best payment processors that provide payment systems for small businesses allow you, the business owner, to control which staff roles have access to and permissions to access secure payment information reducing the risk of fraudulent use of sensitive customer card data.
You should look for small business payments systems that provide physical terminals and cloud-hosted payments solutions for in-person payments and an online portal for detailed payment reporting.
- Don’t Overlook Mobile Payment Options
If you take services to your customers, mobile payment options are a must!
From lawn care and pool maintenance to personal trainers and pet groomers, a mobile payment app on their smartphones or mobile card reader to accept credit or debit card payment on the spot is crucial to a small business’s cash flow.
Look for mobile payment systems that can safely and securely transmit and store customer payment data to simplify future payments. Mobile payment apps should require a username and password to take a payment allowing complete control over who is taking payments.
Compact mobile card readers with Bluetooth connectivity pair with a broader variety of devices than mobile readers that rely on audio jacks or physical connections.
The best mobile point-of-sale system will send automatic receipts for your customers’ records and securely store important customer information making future payments a breeze. T
- Offer ACH/ eCheck, Options
All card payments are not the same. Credit card payments have high fees when a payment is processed. If your small business needs to accept costly or frequent payments, you should offer a direct bank from your customer’s bank account payment option like eChecks or ACH payment processing.
Customers directly input their bank routing and account number found on the bottom of paper checks into an online form online or mobile application—the payment processes instantly and at a lower processing cost to your business than credit cards.
Direct bank payments reduce receivables, improve cash flow, and eliminate costly invoicing and follow-up for payment. And bank information doesn’t have an expiration date like credit and debit cards.
The best small payment systems offer online and mobile applications integrated into a web-based portal for reporting and easy reconciliation.
- Add Contactless Email Payments
The best small business payment processing systems offer email payments. If you run a small services business, email payments are fast and efficient. The average cost to process a single invoice is $10.08, and invoice processing takes an average of 8.3 days. (CPO Uprising, 2020)
It takes just minutes to send your customers a customized and branded email with a secure click to pay link. And, your customers receive a receipt instantly. The payment is recorded the same online portal as all your other payment transactions
The savings in time and money and cash flow improvement make email payments an option all small business owners need to consider.
- Set Up An Online Store
For a small business, an online store expands your customer base and allows you to sell whatever you sell 24/7 seamlessly. An online store with integrated payments, including options where the customer pays for the processing costs, is another way to improve cash flow and improve margins.
Best of breed small business payment systems provide fully-hosted online payment pages, portals, and lightboxes (payment windows that float over web pages) that are easily and securely added to existing websites and integrated with your back-end systems.
- Create An Online Payment Gateway
Service-based businesses like mobile brake repair trucks or window washers with fixed fees for their services and an online payment gateway makes it easy to sell your services and get paid online.
When potential clients visit your website to book an appointment, they use a simple online payment form to pay at the same time. Plus, built-in digital wallets allow your customers to save their information for repeat purchases.
Online payments give you customers complete flexibility in paying, which is a real win-win for your business and cash flow.
- Recurring Payments
Everyone wants convenience, and automating regular payments is another way to delight your customer and improve cash flow. Small business payment systems should provide for recurring and auto payments.
Recurring payments are simple credit and debit card or ACH payments made on a routine basis, which are handled automatically by the payment processing system.
Your customers choose the payment amount and frequency from the options you set, and the next payment will appear like magic in your bank account.
Recurring payments eliminate late payments, the hassle of chasing down delinquents and improve cash flow.
- Consider Auto Payments For Small Business
We are not talking about payments made on a car, but rather payments schedule out over time automatically charged to a payment card or withdrawn from your customers’ bank account.
Automatic payments eliminate the time-consuming and costly process of sending out an invoice, making collection calls, etc., with the added benefit of improved cash flow into your business.
- Integrate These Payment Options Into Your Custom Mobile App
If your small business has a mobile app, you need to accept payments within your app.
By integrating payments within your mobile application, your customers will enjoy a seamless payment experience without leaving your app.
Intelligent Payment for your Small Business
Accepting payments from virtually anywhere can improve your cash flow. Using an integrated payment suite like IntelliPay can solve financial, technical, and business challenges for your small business.
IntelliPay is a cloud-based solution that delivers reliable in-person, online, or mobile payments with flex-fee options that eliminate or reduce processing costs. If you are currently using multiple providers or gateway for credit card or ACH payments, save time and money by moving to IntelliPay.
Our SaaS-based, PCI DSS Level 1 compliant, is extremely secure and fully scalable to grow alongside your business.
To learn how IntelliPay can solve your small business challenges or schedule a demo, contact our small business payment experts at sales@intellipay.com or 855-872-6632 option 3.
