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Accepting credit card payments
I have managed to avoid this for 21 years in business so far. It has worked well for me to use my inability to accept credit card payments as a tool to avoid certain clients in the past. But alas, I find myself with a potential client (who I think I would like to work with) that would like to submit his retainer fee via credit card payment.
What is the best way for me to start doing this?
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9 Replies
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If it’s a one off Client I would try to figure out something with PayPal. There are a ton of regulations about data protection & security if you run the info on your end. Not to mention the fees associated with the transaction which, unless you tack them on up front, come out of the payment. Credit Cards are a volume game which doesn’t align with most of us.
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I paid for a roof with a credit card, the roofer charged a fee to use it. It was a necessary evil, the house closed escrow soon after that so I was able to pay it off. In that moment it solved a problem for me, though.
I had three roof quotes all about the same although the roofer I used was a bit more. But he proposed a better composition shingle product, though, so that accounted for the additional proposed fee.
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About 75% of my clients pay with a credit card. Of course, my business is based online, but even so, 90% of my clients are local. I consider credit card transaction fees to be a normal business expense and it simplifies the billing process, so it’s worth it to me.
Anyway, you could sign up for a free PayPal account and send an invoice from there. Or you could get a free Square account and manually key in the card (unless you want to wait for the free swiper to arrive). Or you could have your friendly web developer (whomever that might be) create a handy online form like this: https://harnessmedia.net/payment/ — it uses a service called Stripe.
Any of those methods are going to cost around 3% or so. Rates vary depending on which service you use, and whether the card is swiped, hand entered, or entered online. Swiping, regardless of processor, will always have the lowest fee.
Your friendly, virtual neighborhood Webmaster -
I only do a few a year so I use Square Up. Works fine for me, I usually just enter the info manually instead of swiping the card. It has been convenient in the past when the owner asks to pay while I’m still on site. Just pull out the phone and enter the info, done. I like to add to cover the charge though.
Mike -
I use QuickBooks on-line which has a credit card payment checkbox option on the invoice preparation screen. It appears to use the Stripe service too at roughly 3%…
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I use QuickBooks on-line which has a credit card payment checkbox option on the invoice preparation screen. It appears to use the Stripe service too at roughly 3%…
There you go — sounds like the best, easiest option for you. 🙂
Stripe is great, I love it. Once you get signed up and get your first credit card payment, it will take 7-10 days for that first one to process and deposit to your bank account, because they run some initial fraud checks. After that, it only takes 2 business days for future transactions.
Your friendly, virtual neighborhood Webmaster -
I use square for the business. I do add a fee for credit charges for convenience. The funds are deposited the next business day after the account is setup and verified. No issues with it and I can have a receipt emailed to the client directly from the app once payment is made.
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Square.
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I use paypal. But only get a few requests a year. I send the link and they can enter the card info. I do pass along the fee that paypal charges (2.99%) to the client to pay. no problems so far.
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