Payment processors are vitally important to your business. They are not just the cash register and EFTPOS terminal. They can now include online services, payment plan providers or gift vouchers and are a fantastic way to gain more information about your customers, such as how they like to shop.
What is a Payment Processor?
Payment processors are the mediators between merchants and financial institutions. They authorise transactions and transfer funds as needed. Acumen Point of Sale can process cash, EFTPOS, bank transfers, gift cards and other means of payment in one system to make the buying experience more enjoyable for the customer and easier for cashiers and business owners. The ultimate goal is to make purchasing something from your business as accessible, quick and straightforward as possible.
What are Integrated Payment Systems?
Integrated payment processors are great for any size business because they make the job easier for all involved. With integrated systems, every product has a barcode, and every service is already inputted into the payment processor; reducing the number of human errors that may occur as all the cashier will need to do is scan the barcode or press a button. There is no manual inputting of purchase values into an EFTPOS machine or ringing up a cash register receipt.
You have probably experienced a cashier manually typing in your total. The process is slow, and sooner or later a customer is going to be overcharged, or worse (at least for the business), undercharged.
With an integrated system, you minimise the potential for human error. This is great for any organisation that doesn’t want to continually oversee their sales desks or those moving towards self serve customer checkout.
Adding additional terminals is easy, and staff can be quickly trained on how to use the system as there are fewer actions to take per purchase.
Therefore integrated payment systems have less human errors, are scalable, and can be automated.
Contactless Payment
As banking and transactions have become more frequent, the technology has been made easier to use and helps customers get out the door quicker. Today inserting your credit card is a thing of the past. Not only are the cards contactless, but with devices that support Google or Apple Pay, users no longer need to carry a wallet.
Currency fraud is still a common issue, something that digital transactions completely negates. This has led many small businesses to no longer accept cash as a payment method.
More recently, contactless payment has become popular due to the health pandemic. Organisations have moved to reduce physical contact between customers and devices to minimise the potential spread of germs.
Combining an integrated payment system with contactless payment methods, you get the enhanced benefits of:
- speed
- accuracy
- fraud minimisation
- for the current climate, health and safety.
Questions to Ask When Considering an Integrated Payment System
- What am I processing now?
What size and volume of payments do you process daily? This could help determine the potential saving of time with an integrated payment system. - How will an integrated payment process improve my business?
Are you looking to improve efficiency? Or have you had a lot of inaccurate reconciliations? - Do I need to handle any specialised or unique payment methods?
Are you using buy now pay later, or layby? - Do I have a gift card system?
Will I benefit from having it integrated into the one system? - Do I need to have an EFTPOS terminal for each POS terminal?
Have you been sharing the one terminal and had times where you’ve made the customer wait? - Can I continue to use my current EFTPOS provider?
Or will you be forced to overhaul multiple components of your payment process? - Can I easily reprint EFTPOS transactions if required?
Do you need a history of transactions available to serve your customers better?
These questions are a great starting point, but Acumen Computer Systems can advise you on the best options to match your business needs. We not only help businesses set up their point of sale, but we also provide ongoing support and customisation of features so that our clients have the most efficient and effective payment solutions. Get in touch with us to get started with an integrated payment system.
