The old saying is “cash is king,” but in today’s business world, the reality is that credit cards reign. Customers want to pay with cards, and integrating a low-fee credit card payment processing solution with your enterprise resource planning (ERP) software can help you simplify your accounting processes and provide customers with more of the easy-to-pay options they’re looking for.
Evaluating Credit Card Processing Companies
There are a lot of credit card processing companies out there. Among the top choices to consider are:
- Sage Mobile Payments, which has a low monthly fee and integrates easily with ERP, accounting, and PoS solutions
- Square, which is a popular choice for small businesses
- Stripe, which is great at supporting online and in-app payments
- Payment Depot, which is known for offering low card processing rates
Every processing company will say that they will save your business money based on an analysis of your existing three-month statements — and some really will save you money! The key is to look for those that offer a flat rate no matter what type of card your customer uses.
You should also be aware of a couple of challenges. One is that many credit card processing companies will issue statements that are so complicated that, frankly, no one really understands all of the charges, which include fees for everything from rewards cards to ACH, debit cards, and corporate cards. The processing companies are charged fees by Visa, Mastercard, and others, so those costs get passed through to businesses like yours.
Advantages of Integrating Credit Card Processing
Despite the charges and other challenges, integrating credit card processing with your ERP system typically makes a lot of sense.
For one thing, if you don’t do so, you’ll have to take the customer’s card, run the sale in a separate machine or online, then record the sale and payment in your accounting system without running the card again. That’s time-consuming and error-prone. If you offer e-commerce sales, it’s even worse, because the data has to be exported and then imported, and typically the credit card is processed online.
Conversely, when you integrate credit card processing with your accounting system, card processing takes place within the system, eliminating double data entry and still encrypting the card for PCI compliance (the card is never stored in the accounting system).
You can also offer added services to your customers, such as “click to pay,” which provides an emailed invoice to your customer, giving them a quick and convenient way to pay. You can even offer a portal for customers to securely log in, view their history, and pay open invoices with a saved credit card.
Get the Support You Need
The experienced professionals at ACI Consulting can help you evaluate different credit card processing solutions and choose the one that is most cost-effective and easiest to integrate into your ERP system. Contact us to learn more about our team and all of the services and solutions we offer.
