Are you running businesses? Do you an avid shopper? Then both of you will find great to having credit cards! These cards bring lots of advantages uniquely for you, regardless of your profession and lifestyle. You will be able to buy and pay faster, especially at traveling times when you are unable to carry a big amount for shopping.
Hence, both business people and traveling customers are allowed to make their accounting processes simple, using the credit cards. Business people are offered with improved cash flow, as they can quickly deposit money into their account and they don’t need to concern about checks bouncing.
Here we discuss about how to take a credit card and what processes are included in it.
Merchant Account
It is a merchant account facilitating to get money from credit cards. You can take cards of American Express or Discover by contacting these companies directly and setting up an account. If you want to get MasterCard or Visa, then contact a bank that gives this service.
First of all, check it with your bank because most banks take care of credit card processing requirements of its customers. And, if your bank doesn’t offer such services, then refer to another bank that does.
Also it is important to check about the Credit Card Processing Fees at the time of getting your credit card, so that you do not end up paying huge bills.
Application policies
Your bank will give an application form to fill out with your name, business address and the type of ownership that your business has. You will be asked to personally sign for a credit card for your business purpose and also guarantee the merchant account. At that time, the bank will check and ensure your credit history.
Banks accept the risk of refunding the money during at transactions when the customers dispute credit cards. However, customers should pay the money back to the bank. Banks often link good credit with good business practices.
Risk involved businesses
For business owners who run through mail orders and over the internet there is special credit card processing, in which the bank will consider them as high risky customers who need a chargeback.
Such customers, especially if their credit is unstable, will not get a merchant account issued by bank, and if issued, then it would be at a higher discount rate. The discount rate is the money that the bank takes on every purchase of the customer, and the higher rate will help compensate certain risks than the bank assumes.
How to get started?
When a bank finds everything OK with you, it will give a merchant account opened for you. You will be asked to give an estimate of monthly transactions and the average amount of each transaction. This information is gathered to calculate the discount rate and per-transaction fee.
You can decrease your discount and per-transaction fees through a terminal for processing cards that seizes the magnetic stripe data. You will clear up the transactions every day depending the bank’s instructions. Then your bank will deposit the money into your merchant account.