I'm sure many of you have dealt with this which is why I'm asking. As a small business which route do you guys use to accept cards. I got a bid on a large muskrat job for a big company and the only way they can pay is with a card so I'm going to have to get a way to accept. My wife and I were looking into the square card reader and also a pay pal. Any one use either of these or have another suggestion ??? Thanks in advance!

I use square. It really depends how much business you are doing with CC. Square is easy, you take a %3 loss. Other servises that have lower % often have fees that work better if you do over $1000 in sales

Worth it, I got one from my bank, it will make it so you get some customers that otherwise you may not have gotten due to ability to pay cash/check. Also I have customers sign spot on contrac that allows me to charge there card when I pick up animals Think multiple stops during day when they are at work, key in cArd info and get paid when you pick up animal. And a lot of people do almost all business with their cards

We have been using PayPal for many years with reasonable rates 2.9% per amount of transaction, with an line activity statement and on line monthly activity statements. Very sound system and easy to navigate. You can transfer funds to your listed bank account as needed at your convenience.

They accept all types of cards and you have a choice of a virtual system to run from anywhere in the field or a basic program which is what we have that we run our card sales via the office or the customer can run their own card from their own PC or phone.

Our basic rate is $30 a month plus your 2.9% percent of each transaction. There is no per transaction or a monthly statement fee.

Why is Square a 3 % loss? Or any system like it that allows you to take cards. You would add that cost as an expense, along with all business costs to determine you minimum costs for bidding or per animal cost or flat rate costs.
You don't tell a customer you add the cost, its just another business cost. And a convenience for the customer and a selling point for you. People want to be able to use plastic. I'm looking at square and paypal to add this service to my customers.

Kurt Temple

When looking for a processing company look at several specific areas.

Area 1: Do you need any special equipment and if so, do they provide it or do you have to purchase it. I use both Square and PayPal and have used other services in the past. Square used to provide a free card reader, but due to the new "chip" cards, the specialized reader is around $40. PayPal is set up strictly for Internet use so I don't know if they are charging for their chip card reader or not. Other services may give a price that exceeds $800 for a reader so you need to understand what equipment you need to have along with what it costs before getting to far into deciding which service is better.

Area 2: What are the fees associated with the processing? I'm not talking about the discount rate as this can become extremely confusing based on your processing company with some having more than 200 rates based on the type of card you process. Instead, what I'm referring to are the banking fees. Based on what type of plan you're looking at, some will have a monthly service fee that ranges from $5 to $500 along with monthly minimums for certain card types like Visa and Mastercard. This is important as some processing companies will claim to have 0 fees, however, that is only when you meet the $5,000 minimum for EACH card. Otherwise, you end up paying a penalty fee that can easily top $100 a month.

Area 3: What cards are you able to process with that processor. While this isn't the issue it used to be, don't think that just because you're able to accept credit cards that you can accept every type out there. This is still an issue with bank style systems as many limit you to Vias/Mastercard/Discover only or they will not allow corporate cards to be processed because you're program doesn't authorize them.

Area 4: What are the terms of use. Each processor has specific limits on what you are allowed to accept payments for. Both Square and PayPal I believe have a "no firearm" policy so they cannot be used to process charges relating to firearms. This may or may not be an issue currently but think about what would happen if they suddenly enacted a no trapping policy or an anything relating to the death of an animal policy. You don't want to be caught with your pants down because you are suddenly offering services or products that would cause you to loose your ability to process cards.

All of the other concerns such as points, deposits and additional fees (i.e., batch, per transaction, interchange fees, etc.) are not as important to focus on especially with the new credit card processing laws. Even if you still weren't able to include the processing fees to the client you have to remember that the reason you got the job in the fist place was because you took credit cards so look at it as an advertising expense rather than a penalty. You shouldn't care if they pay by cash, check, MO, or credit card only that you got paid. So even if you don't add additional fees and the processor takes 3% of the gross, you still make $97 out of every $100 just because you accept credit cards. That is a heck of a lot more than $0 which is how much you'd make if you didn't take them.

On another note, I've heard that Federal Government contracts do not recognize Square or PayPal as valid credit card processing companies. This is important to understand the ins and outs of if you have any desire to bid federal contract jobs in the future.

Hmmmm! Very informative post.

Thanks for the input guys very informative stuff and things I never would have thought of. Why is it that the federal jobs wouldn't accept either of those, just curious ?

We sell product and services to the USDA and with individuals with the Dept of the Interior annually and they have used our PayPal system and we have worked for them as sub contractors as such with funds back and forth. We have not had a problem with that end of the Gov't as of yet accepting or processing through out current PayPal system.

Intuit's Go Payment is very similar to Square but unlike Square, you can get telephone support from Intuit. Last I checked, the only support available from Square was via email.

I have used PayAnywhere for 2 years. They have awesome customer service!
Would highly recommend them!

For what it is worth, I started with square, liked it just fine, no issues, we also have a paypal acct and swiper for another non profit thing we run, both are great.

Here is what occurred with some govt. work I was doing.

They paid me by credit card for nearly two years with square being my go to....

Then one day I hear, "we have an issue, our purchasing people stated that we can't hire you anymore unless you get a new way to swipe our card."

What was distilled down from there was that square and paypal are what is known as 3rd party companies.

Meaning, they are not the bank (like bank of america or chase, or citi).

Thus, they are considered unsecured in many ways despite having security and obviously being good companies that provide a quality service.

So, for my contracts which were with the VA I had to either switch or add another or stop working for them.

Obviously if it is worth your time, you simply add another service, I added B.O.A., do not love them, the stuff works fine, but all those things like fees
and charges really add up compared to square or paypal and the simple fee you know up front.

If you do enough work as I do for this one entity it was worth it to me so I added BOA and away I go.

Having worked as a fed for 10 years in USDA and watching constant upgrades and constant changes, it was a miracle anyone could ever buy anything that
was needed from paper to vehicles.... About half way through my time with them, the govt. took away the ability to write checks and added purchase cards
which became the new "easy way to pay" which it wasn't... I would guess that there isn't a broad sweeping policy on this within the govt. however be aware that it could arise, which
isn't really a big deal in terms of time, someone could tell you today you need a bank not square or BOA and you could have the acct setup within a couple of days max
if not way way less.

So anyway, that would be why I now have BOA and in terms of having the ability to take cards, to me it is essential, not because everyone pays that way, in fact most
of my clients pay with a check, but there are jobs you can lose if you don't take them and many folks find it more palatable and they get rewards, etc....

I would just like to add something to Justin's very thorough information. I never use cash or checks anymore unless forced to. The rewards that Justin mentions at the end of his post is no longer pocket change. As our company grew, we used credit cards that paid you for using them; not the other way around. We pay everything on time and the rewards at the end of the year add up to thousands of dollars. And in most cases, using charge cards is smoother and easier and you always have that printed record at tax time!

Ditto the above two. Being paid to use a CC is vera nice!
We've been thru two or three companies. Be very thorough when deciding which outfit to use. They will sneak charges in on you wherever they can. Always ask, "Are there any other fees?"
Another helpful factor is whether they have tech support in this hemisphere, with operators who speak English as their native language. This, alone, can make or break the deal.

What program do you guys use to send a link in your emailed invoice so customers can pay that way?

I've used PayPal for over 10 years on several businesses. They just can't be beat. Easy to invoice and the more your run through them, the cheaper the fee is. Plus I love how they break all your expenditures and income down.