Tuesday 25 June 2013

When Would You Need A Merchant Service Provider

By Lana Bray


A Merchant service provider can be described as a sales organization or company that provides merchants a transaction processing solution. Most small businesses will need some type of payment process. Knowing how to choose which services to use could impact the sales profit and revenue of the business.

When making this vitally important decision related to the processing of received monies, there are 6 important facts that have to be taken into consideration when choosing the firm. One must additionally understand all the attached rules with merchant accounts and these services. Furthermore, it is also essential to be fully informed as to the various rules governing these types of services, or the company may find itself in quite a bit of trouble and not only financially, either.

Firstly these services enable one to process card payments received from customers, normally credit card transactions. Basically, it acts as a link or special account that is connected to the credit card processor. It routes payments from the customer's bank to one's business bank account.

Financial services such as these are provided through specialized firms; these are also called independent sales organizations. All offer services in the area of processing payments received through sales. Large financial institutions are one other source that can be utilized to set up merchant accounts.

Which firm to use depends largely on the business itself; for instance a home based business may not be able to utilize bank processing services as the business may be regarded as less established. On the other hand independent providers may be much more flexible and gladly work with a home based enterprise. It also depends on which provider an individual feels more comfortable with as well as the different rates charged.

Another option that companies can choose is to contract these "payment processing" over to an outside company that will collect payments on ones behalf; they will process the transaction and then route it through to the individual companies. Prices charged may be higher through taking a bigger portion of the tagged price. Most credit card providers will charge small businesses a certain percentage per credit card payment and these charges vary from one financial institution to the next.

The only dilemma with using a third party company to process all payments is that one will need to put an order form forward to have payments processed and forwarded. It means that one will only receive payments 2-3 times per month seriously limiting ones cash flow. However, if using one own account payments are processed and received within 3 days of the transaction taking place as opposed to the other service providers or payment processors.

Internet based companies should use a merchant service provider in order to create a professional image to clients. Any one running an internet based business will agree credit card payments are vital for their consumers to feel safe and are also convenient. But, accepting card payments may turn out to be extremely costly transactions for merchants; especially if one does not look into the attached levies charges by customers' card institutions for credit card transactions.




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