Accepting Credit Cards And Other Forms Of Payment To Help Your Restaurant Prosper

Sept. 1, 2009 - PRLog -- Accepting credit cards and other forms of payment to help your restaurant prosper

Boosting Sales

In our world today, every cent counts so by adding them to your bottom line is also a big help. Are are some steps that will increase your profits, by boosting your sales, reducing debit card fees and expenses, and most of all block theft.

In the food service industry, if you're running a restaurant point of sale system then this tips can greatly help you drive your business to success!

Take Checks

Checks are still widely used, especially among older customers. If you haven’t been accepting checks, start soon. You will be able to find a good equipment that can scan checks as fast as credit cards, measure them against a nationwide database of bad check writers, transfers the money to your account electronically, and can guarantee that you'll receive the funds within a few days. In addition, the cost is typically lower than for credit cards and could add 10-15 percent to sales—and possibly more if you have many senior customers.

Accepting Credit Cards

If you do accept credit cards, you're probably accepting Visa and MasterCard already. What about Discover and American Express? Particularly, the latter accompanies larger transactions in general. You might have hesitated because of the high fees, but do reconsider—you may also think that it's not worth it even a 1% difference, and since American Express transactions are often larger than those of other cards, you’ll make it up in gross profit. Furthermore, it can help keep your customers coming back because your business will be well know of accepting all forms of credit cards.

Researching

Many merchants think their fees are 1.69% plus $.19 because that’s their qualified rate on a pricing program tier. Though fewer than 20 out of 100 transactions receives low qualified rate and all the rest downgrade and cost one, two, or even three percent. Researching alternate programs that offer different interchange rates could end up saving more than you think.

Understanding Statements

You or your bookkeeper shouldn’t have to scratch your heads over a complex credit card statement that just doesn’t fit. A few companies have made extraordinary efforts to simplify these reports. You should be able to reconcile your statement and rates within 15 minutes or less.

Internet Reporting

The post office is slow, don't wait any longer for them to deliver you a letter of disputing a charge. Using the help of internet reporting, you will know within 24 hours, allows you to aggressively defend against chargebacks. This type of quick action will increase your success rates and reduce your losses.

So there will be no more scratching of the head for both you and your bookkeeper over complex credit card statements.

Use the Card Validation Value and Address Verification System. They are highly effective fraud screens proven to reduce losses, and when you use them correctly, you obtain the lowest possible rate for discounts.

Also, you need to avoid hackers by being PCI compliant. There are mammoth fines charged to merchants who are hacked, and they can drive you out of business. Take the time to read Visa’s report on noncompliant systems, you need to be alert in order to protect your business.

Avoiding Huge Chargebacks

For Internet and phone orders, implementing the “Verified by Visa” or “MasterCard Secure Code” plug-in on your web site eliminates all cardholder nonauthorization chargebacks. Liability for these chargebacks will be shifted away back to the issuing card bank, and you qualify for the lowest discount rate available. This simple step could eliminate up to 80 percent of all chargebacks and increase your profits.

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With over 20 years of restaurant point of sale experience and helping businesses in the food-service industry nationwide increase their efficiency and bottom-line profits, the author of this article is the VP of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants.com.

You may visit http://www.pos-for-restaurants.com for further understanding of how our national network of restaurant point of sale professionals can help your business achieve greater success in these difficult economic times.

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