credit cards

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Dolfan

Senior Member
I need to take them for payment sometimes and I'm getting ready to sign up with somebody quick. Any tip would be much appreciated. Thanks
 

texie

Senior Member
Location
Fort Collins, Colorado
Occupation
Electrician, Contractor, Inspector
I need to take them for payment sometimes and I'm getting ready to sign up with somebody quick. Any tip would be much appreciated. Thanks

IMO that's a wise move if you do a lot of residential service work. Probably the least painful way is to use QuickBooks (if you already use their software), but it will probably be the most expensive per transaction. It takes some work to figure out who has the best price as what is good for a service business may not be a good deal for for a different type of business. You can have fixed plus a percentage fees in various combinations that affect your total cost per transaction.
 

Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
No monthly fee low transaction fees, iphone and android input device for free, cant beat it: https://squareup.com/

i use squareup. there are iphone and ipad apps for it, and it works great....
it took me about ten minutes to download and set it up on my iphone,
and if you buy the dongle at an apple store, they credit you the $10 it costs,
and i swiped a CC to test, and was up and running in 15 minutes

it'll also take any atm or credit card, including amex

you have the money in your checking account the next day.

i dumped $2k on it with a card from an out of state customer, and if you
are doing transactions without a card swipe, they only give you the first
$1k, and then you have to wait for the rest of it... but i called up and
whined, and they upped it to $5k on my account, based on a whiny
phone call....

but if you are doing swiped transaction, there is no retention... you have
it to spend the next morning. in addition, they use the gps location of the
device along with a signing on the screen... and it's pretty hard for someone
to refuse the charges and get a chargeback when they signed it, and the location
of the signing was their office or living room, and you embedded a photo you took
of them standing there smiling at the time of transaction.
 
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GUNNING

Senior Member
fear

fear

I got the intuit card reader and the gopayment app. Im afraid of using it for fear of the hidden costs and locked in long term contracts.

I hear 3.25% vs 2.25%, right now Im looking at not collecting vs the loss of 1%.

Anyone have experience with the gopay system?:?
 

Speshulk

Senior Member
Location
NY
I need to take them for payment sometimes and I'm getting ready to sign up with somebody quick. Any tip would be much appreciated. Thanks

I think one thing to consider is how often you think you'll need to take a credit card?

We don't need to all that often, and the couple times that the customer wanted to pay that way, I had them pay the supply house and credit it to our account.
 

Sparky555

Senior Member
I use Square and have been completely satisfied. The rate is 2.75% for swipes and 3.5% for manual input. They will send you the device for a smart phone or iPad, or as mentioned by another you can purchase the device and they will credit your account. No monthly fees made it a winner for me.
 

satcom

Senior Member
I use Square and have been completely satisfied. The rate is 2.75% for swipes and 3.5% for manual input. They will send you the device for a smart phone or iPad, or as mentioned by another you can purchase the device and they will credit your account. No monthly fees made it a winner for me.
Square and Intuit have pretty much the same rates, both were offering a free phone jack swipe, intuit has a customer service number you can actually reach if you have any problems, Square does not have a customer service phone number you need to e-mail them and pray for a response.
 

Sparky555

Senior Member
Square and Intuit have pretty much the same rates, both were offering a free phone jack swipe, intuit has a customer service number you can actually reach if you have any problems, Square does not have a customer service phone number you need to e-mail them and pray for a response.

I ended the agreement with Intuit Merchant last fall because they were charging a monthly fee.
 

satcom

Senior Member
I ended the agreement with Intuit Merchant last fall because they were charging a monthly fee.

Good to know, I like them because they only ripped you off once with the 2.75% so now with a monthly fee they are like all the other crooks.
 

Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
Square and Intuit have pretty much the same rates, both were offering a free phone jack swipe, intuit has a customer service number you can actually reach if you have any problems, Square does not have a customer service phone number you need to e-mail them and pray for a response.

the first manual entry i did with them was for about $2k, and that was when i found out about
the retention of everything above $1k for 30 days.

so i wrote them an email, and had a reply in about 2 hours... they asked me how much i might
be expecting to do non swipe entries, and i said i really only had one customer that might occur
with, and i didn't expect it to go over $5k.

they said ok, they upped the instant release to $5k, and the money showed up in my checking
account the next morning.

hell, if i have a tap over $5k, i'm not taking a credit card for it.... it is 3.5% for a manual entry.

anyway, nothing but good things i can say about them. they didn't have to accomodate me,
and they went out of their way to do so. the exact opposite of most merchant CC providers.
 

satcom

Senior Member
the first manual entry i did with them was for about $2k, and that was when i found out about
the retention of everything above $1k for 30 days.

so i wrote them an email, and had a reply in about 2 hours... they asked me how much i might
be expecting to do non swipe entries, and i said i really only had one customer that might occur
with, and i didn't expect it to go over $5k.

they said ok, they upped the instant release to $5k, and the money showed up in my checking
account the next morning.

hell, if i have a tap over $5k, i'm not taking a credit card for it.... it is 3.5% for a manual entry.

anyway, nothing but good things i can say about them. they didn't have to accomodate me,
and they went out of their way to do so. the exact opposite of most merchant CC providers.
Sounds like they are doing a good job
 

GUNNING

Senior Member
I have had 2 bounced checks in 20 yrs. People who just disappear and dont pay, I would say 75 to a 100. This would fix the latter, and improve my collections overnight.
 

Sparky555

Senior Member
Square is continuously updating the service. I believe the policy now is:

Any swiped transaction made by 5pm is deposited (97.25%) the next morning. Phone authorization is 1-2 days. No 30 day hold.
 

Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
I have had 2 bounced checks in 20 yrs. People who just disappear and dont pay, I would say 75 to a 100. This would fix the latter, and improve my collections overnight.

i'm a lucky pup. the last check i had bounced was in 1996, for $6k.

it was a complex customer, with numerous projects in various states of completion.
when the check faulted, i did a balance sheet on them, and saw that i was within
$1k of being even, which was the best i'd ever been with them.. they usually
were into me for over $10k.

so, the gang box and everything disappeared off the job the next morning,
and i never looked back.... went and pulled my permits on the work that was
in progress, and explained to the chief inspector why.... he smiled, nodded,
and replaced the red tag on their meter....

heard thru the grapevine that the contractor who followed me charged them
almost $200k for the $60k worth of work that remained to be done.....
couldn't a happened to nicer folks.
 
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