Merchant Services Articles

8 Posts
Ten ways to reduce your cost of accepting credit cards

by amspcs

In tough economic times, small businesses seek out ways to cut expenses. One of the best places to start is to lower the cost of credit card processing.

Here are ten proven ideas that every merchant can and should implement. To learn more about each item, please refer to the resource links provided below.


1.) Minimize surcharges Circumventing terminal prompts such as bypassing Address Verification (AVS) or failing to settle b...

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Credit Card Processing For Business

Rate Reduction Strategies That Work

By amspcs

Has this happened to you? A credit cards merchant account salesperson sold you on a really low credit card discount processing rate. You thought you negotiated a pretty good deal. But lo and behold, you realize that you're paying much more than expected! What happened? And what can you do about it?

The culprit in the above scenario is merchant lack of understanding of "Interchange", the price struc...

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Are You Compliant

Are You Compliant

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Posted by: SBOCTeam, Apr 17, 2008

PCI Compliance
If you don't understand the current Payment Card Industry guidelines for your business, you may be putting yourself and your customers at risk

By Reed Richardson

Over the past three decades, as our society has increasingly shifted toward one where both consumers and merchants prefer credit over cash (as a recent Visa commercial not so subtly pointed out), the threats from fraud have also radically increased. Gone are the days when criminals are sat...

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Farm it Out

Farm it Out

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Posted by: SBOCTeam, Jan 10, 2008

Time is money. Intelligent outsourcing can save your business a bundle of both.

By Nate Hardcastle

You didn't go into business to spend hours administering payrolls, wading through changing tax rules and maintaining fickle computer systems but when your server went down one Thursday morning there was no one else to fix it and, before you knew it, you had spent the entire day getting the problem solved. With a critical business meeting scheduled for nine the nex...

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Ask And Ye Shall Receive

Ask And Ye Shall Receive

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Posted by: SBOCTeam, Dec 24, 2007

By Gene Marks

Meet Josh, the best negotiator in the world. Josh is six.

Whenever he wants something, he asks for it. "I want juice". "I want that game." "I want to watch Rugrats." "I want ice cream." And if he doesn’t get what he asks for? Well, he just keeps asking. And asking. Sometimes this tactic has the opposite effect. My wife or I will reprimand him. But a lot of times we cave. And he gets what he wants. Just to keep the peace. He&rsqu...

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Consider The Source

Consider The Source

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Posted by: SBOCTeam, Oct 26, 2007

Taking the time to carefully evaluate your vendors and suppliers can save your business some serious cash-and prevent some serious headaches for you
By Reed Richardson

It's a truism:
All businesses depend upon other businesses to survive, no matter what their size or industry. And while it's unlikely that any small business owner ever forgets this, after all they get plenty of bills to remind them of this every day and it's not uncommon for them to get so ...

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Going Plastic

Going Plastic

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Posted by: SBOCTeam, Oct 9, 2007

With credit and debit cards increasingly becoming the norm, the business that doesn't accept them could be setting themselves up for failure
By Chris Freeburn

In a recent VISA commercial, dozens of hungry customers march in an easy, rapid dance through a coffee shop, pausing only briefly to tap their VISA card on the cash register, paying for their food and moving on with the greatest efficiency. Unfortunately, one woeful customer who tries to pay for his coffee with cas...

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Evaluating Vendors to Minimize Expenses

Many small business owners wait until the end of the year to reevaluate the services they currently use and to decide what new services they are going to implement in the coming year. Here are some tips you can use to evaluate financial and insurance services for your business.
By Chris Freeburn

Payroll
When you have employees who need to be paid, the one business function that must run error free is payroll. Accountants and companies like ADP or Paychex al...

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