Hi,

I left this over at Int. Pro, but I didn't know how many of you go there, please so read on.

My latest dealing with a client has led me to consider taking credit cards. I proposed a $29k home system, and the guy wanted to finance it, but I couldn't help him. This has happened in the past, and I looked into Visa a few years ago, but thought it wasn't a financially prudent idea.

Do any of you with small shops take credit cards? Which ones are best? What kind of rate should I look for, and what are the monthly fees? Anything else I should know?

Thanks for any help you can provide; I'm totally in the dark on this.

Dawn

We do not take credit cards, because we do not want to pay to take money. Always tell my customers, we take all forms of money as long as it is cash or check. LOL

We wnt throught the same thing at the palce I worked. It wasn't worth it. Especially when you take into account tha tth eaverage theater we do is way more then most's credit card limit.

My boss prefers checks.

took credit cards once...then client gave us a stolen credit card, id cecked, credit card company approved card.....then 1 month later we get a call saying it was stolen.....not only did we loose our material they sucked up that money from our account. $3k turned into a 6k nightmare...leswson hard learned

we no longer take credit cards

Man this suprises me. I just assumed everyone took creidt cards.

Yes, we take credit cards.

As far as what to look for, dont fall victim to the "leases". This is more of an issue if you have bad credit or are a high risk compay. If you lease a credit card terminal, you end up paying a LOT more for a terminal. You (as I did) can typically get a terminal on Ebay for about $200. more for some features, less for a plain ond Jon Jr XL.

You will pay a higher percentage typically if you key in the cc #'s verses swiping the card.

usually there is like a .25 per transaction fee, maybe a $10/month "maintainance" fee, and then the perentage per transaction.

I honestly dont remember the percentages, so I would just be guessing. But DO shop around, esp if you have decent credit and can afford to turn down the higher ones.

I am also surprised. I consider myself a small shop, and we accept credit cards. I didn't for a long time, but then I noticed how much I myself use plastic. Hell just yesterday I used my debit card for a $0.95 soda at the gas station. I rarly carry cash anymore, I use my debit card for everything.

I also recently switched my company's credit card to one that I get frequent flier miles for. The bonus miles for this, and bonus miles for that I have almost 100K miles racked up in less than a year. Banks are intising consumers to use plastic to get free stuff, and it is working.

If you consider how long you have to wait to get paid, how many man hours it takes to track down payment, having someone go to the bank, etc. the credit card fees are nominal. With credit cards the money is deposited in 48 hours. This is a legitamate business expense (i.e. tax right off). Yes there are risk, but you could have also gotten burned by a bad check as well.

I have to disagree with Springs though. AmEx does not have a limit, and there are a lot of Platinum cards with limits in the $100K range.

Dawn, I shopped on the internet for the company I went with. Your credit is a big thing they look at, but also the average ticket price. We average aroung $500 (mostly central vac accessories), but our rate was still good. You will pay more for non swiped cards, but talk to them about what you can do to protect yourself. Also, although the banks will not tell you this, you can charge the fee back to the customer. This is legal, but the banks will request that you don't do this.

We are starting out c.c. right now. Interesting time for this thread. We have shopped around for the best rate but, I think we are going to dump the current company because I just got an email from Quickbooks stating they have a program for it. We are driving everything (payroll, job costing, invoicing, and even some bidding) through Quickbooks so it makes sense. We don't offer cc payment on large jobs. Just remotes, accessories, single day work, etc. Large jobs are still on a draw system with cashiers checks highly encouraged.

I'm a one man operation and I except credit cards. I discourage my customers from using it but it is there. I'd say the single biggest use of my CC machine is for deposits on projects. That way the deal can be closed over the phone. this doesn't happen a lot, but it makes things easier for everyone when it does.

You've got three basic options for CC service. The bank you are currently doing business with, QB or an independant processor. In my research this was the best independant I could find http://www.merchantwarehouse.com/
Most of these companies will want a monthly minimum above your monthly service fee. I negotiated, in writing, a no monthly minimum charge. So if I don't use the service at all it's only $9.95 for the month. I'm using PCcharge express for processing. If I did a lot of charges I would get a hardware solutiuon but for the amount of processing I do the software solution is fine.

QB is an option that makes sense and yet everytime I try and use an add on service from Intuit I get screwed, so I now just use it for accounting.

we take them, up to $5K, some customers we will do more but it has to make sense financially as we have to the something like 2% on the transaction. You are really not allowed to surcharge for this but can usually find a way around it.

We go through quickbooks merchant services. High security, so never had a fraudulant card and there are no terminals to worry about. It all goes through quickbooks software

In 15 years I've lost just a couple potentially great deals. It has been lazy nice to just take a check or cash right in the client's home. No phone calls, no extra machine, no billing time at the office.

Fortunately, I've only had one bad $300 check I couldn't recover. I've asked for cash only from shady customers.

There are quite a number of clients that ask if I take CC's. But I don't get much grumbling. A few times I have discounted my total to the equivelent of the miles points they would have earned - For Southwest it's $330 @ $18,000. All the rest are even less. So you take $100 off a $6000 deal. That's better than the 2-3% charge.

On the other hand, we use the card for purchasing everything bus. related. It's been nice having a stack of flying vouchers up the wazzoo. If you are not using one you're nuts.

As a side note. For any customer looking for short term "financing" I often encourage them to use a balance transfer ckeck from their CC. A bunch of people have done this. No fees on my end and they can finance 10K or so for a year at 3.99 or something similar.

And I'm another one that pays for everything with CC. I get $150 gift cards for home depot from the points.

I am a one man show & I still have my terminal from when we had the retail store. $7.95/mo & all the fees if I need to use it. The fees are minimal if you use it as a sales tool to increase your ticket amount though. Or get a relationship with like Wells Fargo finance or their are many others too. You can offer the same deals as the big box's, 90 days same as cash, 6 mo, 12 mo, etc. Say the guy has $10K budget, but you can easily show him a way he can get that $20K system he really wants! All you gotta do is mention it somewhere up front & then when you have presented the cool package he does not have the cash for, the guy says what about that financing you mentioned earlier! They cut the checks to you real fast & again if used correctly you can increase your sales exponentially! If cash flow was tight that week or whatever, we could run down to the local office & actually pick up the check. The process to get someone financed is pretty painless once you learn what to do. All over the phone. Minimal paper work. Now I'm thinkin' about it again! If you are trying to grow your company, it's a real easy way to increase sales dramatically with the customers you're already talking to.

I think this will get more and more common. Many of our customers could probably charge 250K on their cards if they wanted to. If you explain to your customer that you will be charged X percent for accepting their cards, you may come to an arrangement like splitting the difference. With all the rewards credit card companies are giving now adays, ie "cash back, airline miles" etc. people want to pay with a credit card to get the benefits and they pay it off at the end of the month.

We do not take cards now, but are seriously considering.

Hell yes man! They'll be happy to pay the 3 or 4% service charge... because the majority of these guys use them for
air-travel mileage plans!!!

My friend works for an Ultra High End Retailer... He said even the High-Rollers come in, and plunk down their cards all the time for very large sales... Thye love the mileage deals!

You'd be amazed at the limits some of these guys have on their cards!!! My ex girlfriend was a "professional", and she had $75,000 on her platinum card... Paid it off monthly... just wanted to rack up all the incentives they dish out.

She bought a new Volvo on her card, and transferred the funds to pay off her card... Now she can travel all over the place and it cost her like the 3 or 4% of the total sale of the car!

My ex girlfriend was a

They must pay you well, I can usually only afford one of those every month or so.