Credit Card Safety Policies for Your Store

Dec 22, 2016 by admin

Credit card machines have evolved to provide better security for the payment information passed to and from your bank to a customer’s account. Behind-the-scenes, you don’t really need to do much other than setup the account properly and test it to make sure it works. Still, it’s important to have good security policies you can use for employees in house.

Limiting Exposure

Your credit card processor will handle of the sensitive data, but your employees should try and limit the amount of times where they have to deal with the full number for a card. Avoid keying things in, or require manager approval when typing a credit card number into the terminal, and never have employees write this information down. If they need to call a customer’s card provider, or leave the terminal for any reason, the customer and card should accompany them.

The less time you spend with sensitive data, and the fewer opportunities you have to record that data, the better for you and the liability your company faces.

Tracking Terminals

Every employee should have some kind of login ID they use to sign into your store’s credit card terminals. That login should tell management who used a terminal, so you can lookup transactions and identify who rung them up if something goes wrong.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve not already done so, upgrade your store’s payment system so you’re utilizing modern technology. Then, enable chip readers at the register so you can take the more secure form of payment instead of the outdated magstrip.

 

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Know the Lingo: Basic Terminology for Merchant Accounts

Jul 12, 2016 by admin

When you’re trying to research something new, like credit card processing, you’re going to need some foundation for the lingo so you understand what is being discussed. There are many terms related to merchant accounts, almost too many to list in a single article, so these terms are some of the most important. After reading this guide, you should have a firm understanding of terminology you can use to help find the best merchant account for your business.

Merchant Bank

The merchant bank is responsible for providing the means to facilitate a transaction, also known as a payment gateway. They may not design that gateway, but they allow customers to utilize it in order to securely send money online or in-store. Aggregators, like PayPal, design their own solutions and allow transaction processing without the “bank” nomenclature.

Processor

The processor is the middleman for your transaction, which routes the credit information. When you slide a card through a credit card machine, the processor passes the information to the gateway that sends the data to the merchant bank.

Issuing Bank

The customer’s bank, or the bank issuing funds to cover the costs of the transaction (including the purchase, and associated taxes). These institutions give credit cards to consumers, and usually pay the costs up front while charging customers interest to pay those costs back.

SSL

Secure Sockets Layer, a form of encryption that helps anonymize and protect financial data as it is passed from the issuing bank to the merchant bank.

 

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If Merchant Accounts Confuse You, Read This

Sep 17, 2015 by admin

Merchant accounts are not an easy business decision to make, and they can be overwhelming for those who are just starting out in business. After all, you’re in business to make something. You’re not a bank and shouldn’t be expected to operate like one. Fortunately, there are some questions you can ask yourself that might help you determine which merchant account is best for your needs.

Are Loyalty Programs Important to You?

As businesses scale, they tend to find customer loyalty an important quality to maintain and nourish. Smaller businesses might be more reliant on the quality of their craft. Whatever stage your business is in, you need to determine whether loyalty programs are an important part of that growth. If so, you need to pay attention to the second tier in you pricing structure.

What About Volume of Transactions?

If you don’t expect to make many transactions every day, which is common with big-ticket establishments, then you might have some flexibility in taking a higher transaction rate for lower monthly minimums or lower batch fees. Pay attention to the variables offered by each solution, and don’t be afraid to negotiate a bit in order to find a plan that better suits your needs.

What About Termination Fees?

Some accounts come with a contracted term. It’s common to find merchant account contracts that extend one to three years, with some going as high as five. It’s also common to see those types of accounts include a one-year termination clause. You’ll also see annual fees as well. Be sure you carefully project the future of your business before you make this decision.

Bio: Firoz Patel directed and oversaw operations for AlertPay Inc., a company he founded in 2005. Currently, Firoz Patel oversees operations for the Payza platform and resides in Montreal, Quebec.

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Get a Shopping Cart That Makes the Sale

Apr 28, 2014 by admin

By Secure Net Shop

Every successful ecommerce website thrives on having the right shopping cart services. Without a quality ecommerce cart on their site, their customers simply couldn’t make their purchases. Anyone who runs an ecommerce website may have to find this out the hard way someday when their cart software stops running correctly.

But shopping carts are more than just virtual baskets for your customers to store their orders. If you don’t see it as anything more than that, you’re at risk for losing some important purchases.

So whether you’re in the market for a shopping cart or you may replace the software you currently use, make sure you select one that does more than just sit there patiently.

For example, you want one that always supplies an image of their purchase. Better still, it should be one that they can alter to zoom in, rotate and otherwise get a better look at the item they plan on purchasing.

You should also make it easy for customers to increase the quantity of the item they purchase. So if they decide they want two of the same item instead of one, make sure they can make that change easily. If you make this process frustrating, they may decide to go with a company that doesn’t. That will be less sales for you.

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With Secure Net Shop, you’ll be presented with a wide range of web site shopping cart options that not only help your ecommerce operation running smoothly, but also provide a number of security benefits too.

 

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Pieces for Your Business

Mar 25, 2014 by admin

Written by Cash Registers Online

Most, if not all, businesses these days, whether it is a big company or small alike, rely on cash registers to process transactions fast and effectively. This is particularly important for stores that have a wide variety of items and so manually going through a price list might not be the best idea. The most efficient solution to this problem is through the use of cash registers wherein the inventory is programmed into your cash register for easy check out, computation, and inventory update all simultaneously when a purchase is made.

But cash registers are just one item and normally goes hand in hand with other pieces of hardware to process a purchase. A scanner is also used to be able to identify the price of an item and sends that information to the register automatically. With the strict consumer rules, a sales invoice or an official receipt must always be present for all transactions. As such, a printer is necessary for print our receipts and invoices. But there are various types of printers in the market today. The thermal printer is one example of a printer that, unlike traditional printers, do not use ink, instead utilizes a heating head to transfer text onto a special paper. It is also said to be faster and more quiet than its traditional counterpart.

Don’t worry, all of these things can be found in your favorite cash register store so you do not have to worry about having to find these things individually.

Having difficulty understanding your new cash register? Cash register manuals for various models can be found in their website.

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Why you should watch your chargebacks

May 13, 2013 by admin

Article Written by : Manufacturing Strategy

Chargeback is the term used when a customer disputes a charge on her credit card bill. Generally, chargebacks will happen for one of several reasons:

• A clerical error, such as a customer being double-billed or being billed for an incorrect amount
• Customer dissatisfaction, such as not receiving a product or receiving a product different than what was paid for
• A customer not recognizing a purchase, especially if the merchant name that appears on her bill differs from the actual name of the store
• Fraud — when a customer claims she did not authorize a purchase or a purchase was made as a result of identity theft

For most transactions, customers have 120 days from the sale or when they discovered a problem with the product to dispute a charge.

The bottom line here is that whenever customers feel that they have been charged for something they shouldn’t have, they can file a dispute with their bank which begins the chargeback process. The entire process will be detailed in the next section, but it’s worth noting here that resolving these disputes can sometimes take more than two months — PayPal, for example, advises its merchants that the whole process can take up to 75 days. During this time, the revenue from the disputed sale is withheld from the merchant’s account.

Whenever a chargeback is initiated, a merchant will receive a code from its issuing bank that gives a reason for the dispute. Some of the most common Visa and MasterCard chargeback codes are listed below. Once a customer has disputed a charge, a merchant’s acquiring bank will begin going through a specific procedure to resolve the issue.

If a merchant has too many chargebacks that they loose, they could also use their merchant account and be placed on Terminated Merchant File (TMF), which means that they may not be able to open another merchant account under their own name.

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