Business Ideas (Restaurant Point of Sale): Accpeting Credit Cards

Sept. 7, 2009 - PRLog -- A few simple best practices for restaurants to take credit cards and other forms of payment to boost the bottom line.

Increase Your Profits

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

For businesses in the food service industry, running a restaurant point of sale system, this can greatly help you!

Take Checks

Checks are still widely used, especially among older customers. So if you're still not accepting checks, better start soon. There’s equipment that will scan the check as quickly as a credit card, measure them against a nationwide database of bad check writers, deposits the money electronically, and guarantee you receive your funds within a few days. In addition, it costs lower than for credit cards and adds up 10-15% to your sales—maybe more if majority of your customers are seniors.

Using Credit Cards

Of course you already accept Visa and MasterCard. 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—a 1% difference may not look worth it for you, and since American Express transactions are often larger than those of other cards, you’ll make it up in gross profit. Furthermore, it helps keep your customers coming back because they know that your business is accepting all forms of credit cards.

Researching?

Most merchants think their fees are 1.69% plus an additional $.19 because that’s their qualified rate on a pricing program tier. But often fewer than 20 out of 100 transactions receive the 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.

Insist on Understandable Statements

Neither you nor your bookkeeper would have to scratch the back of your heads over complex credit card statements that just doesn’t fit. There are several companies that have made far more than usual efforts to simply their reports. You should be able to reconcile your statement and rates within 15 minutes or less.

Making Online Reports

You'll never have to wait for the post office to deliver a letter disputing a charge. Using the help of internet reporting, you'll exactly know what's up within 24 hours, allows you to aggressively defend against chargebacks. This type of quick action will increase your success rates and reduce your losses.

No need to scratch your head over complex credit card statements and for your bookkeeper as well.

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

Another thing, 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, so you don’t get caught napping.

Dodging Huge Chargebacks

If you run an online or phone ordering business, it's always a great idea to implement the “Verified by Visa” or “MasterCard Secure Code” plug-in on your web site. This can help eliminate the chargebacks on cardholder nonauthorization. Liability for these chargebacks will be shifted away from you 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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Want To Ask a Point of Sale (POS) Expert?

You can visit http://www.pos-for-restaurants.com anytime for more information or advice about this topic, a Restaurant POS professional serving your area will be willing to answer your questions.

The author of this article writes for POS-For-Restaurants.com - a VP of Customer Relations with over 20 years experience in the restaurant point of sale industry.

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