Payment Processing Platforms recommendations
I've been accepting cash, check, and Zelle since I started my business this summer. I've had some larger clients recently and need the ability to accept ACH and credit card payments. What payments services are ya'll using?
They send me a check by snail mail or overnight. Nothing else will do. Well, hand delivered is good too.
I do recall a biker showed up at the front door once to pay for a commercial survey, and he peeled off a wad of 100s.
And I remember an iffy client whose check bounced. My wife said next time it better be $50s in a shoebox by Fed-Ex (they eventually sent a good check for that survey and a larger advance payment on the update that more then covered the aggravation of dealing with them, but that was the price they paid for annoying me.)
And since I am reminiscing, there was the client who called and asked if I could overnight more prints, so I said I could, but I won't. Why not said he. Because you haven't paid me, said I. Did we get the invoice said he. It was attached to the prints delivered by Fed-Ex, said I. He then FAXed me a photocopy of the check he was sending that afternoon, thinking that would soothe me. It sort of did and I sent the prints. Check arrived the next day. All's well that ends well, as Willy said.
I ran my own shop after the market crashed in 2008 but was fortunate enough to keep a list of client contacts to reach out to after I was laid off. These are clients that followed me from place to place because of the service that I gave them, and I had only one of two that were slow pay.
I only accepted cash for additional prints or copies of descriptions when the client had the bill already paid for the original amount. I can say, for fact, I never got stiffed, even once.
Times are different now, in my current position, 50% down before the research even starts and the other 50% paid on delivery.
There are different methods of collecting credit card cards like the Square on your cell phone or by check, which I always preferred but I would avoid cash for tax purposes.
If you use Quickbooks, they have a payment processor you could use. https://quickbooks.intuit.com/payments/
I've often setup payment pages on my clients' websites and connect them to Stripe for payments. They can accept credit/debit cards, ACH, Apple Pay and a bunch of others. You can also send invoices right from the Stripe dashboard and clients can pay it without having to be connected to your own website. https://stripe.com/
If you are using Kudurru Stone and sending invoices out from our software you can accept payments for those invoices through ACH and Credit Cards. This is a very new feature for us.
I've used Venmo to send money to friends and family. Has anyone here used it for business? I think they might offer a business version, but I'm not sure if the app is too sketchy in general to be taken seriously as a business product.
I've used Square for a while. I've only processed card payments, but it does have an ACH option. When you start accepting card payments, there is usually a % charge by the processor. While you are allowed to add on a surcharge (in most states), there has to be disclosure that is the case.
You need to figure out up front how you want to address the fees associated with processing card payments - recoup from client or write off as deduction.
A note about ACH: I don't have contracts with any payment processing services, but several of my institutional clients pay by ACH. All I had to do was provide them with my bank routing and account numbers, and they did the rest. I guess my bank doesn't care as long as the arrangement pertains to funds coming in, as they didn't contact me about authorization.
Zelle seems to work well. It is run by a consortium of banks and credit unions and seems to be a simplified system for requesting and sending ACH. Most banking institutes offer it. As a bonus, it is usually free for personal and small business use.
I used Zelle once and didn't have a problem, but I read something, I dunno, 2 or 3 months ago that said it was kind of susceptible to fraud or something. I don't remember the details or if it even went into detail, but I'm guessing if it was unreliable the banks would have shut it down pretty fast.
