Payment Processing Challenges for Small Businesses

While installing a payment processing system can have a significant positive impact on your bottom line, there are still challenges that small businesses have to face. From confusion to extra expenses, payment processing services can bring as much headache as they help relieve if vendors do not familiarize themselves with the technology and processes involved. In fact, the challenges start to pop up even before the system is in place, when looking for a vendor. In this article, you’ll learn about the three main challenges you’ll encounter once you get a payment processing system, and how to deal with them.

1. Fraud protection

Perhaps the most important challenge to tackle as soon as you install a payment processing service is fraud protection. Not only is credit and debit card fraud on the rise, customers are noticing and reacting to this rise. In the US for example, $8 billion were lost due to card fraud in 2015. Merchant services have noticed this trend and are setting up security guidelines and standards to prevent further losses.

This is where PCI compliance comes into mind. Now, it’s important to note that this standard is not mandated at the federal level, and as such, it is not provided by all merchant service providers. It is also not fool-proof, with criminals being able to develop new methods to exploit payment services. Methods such as tokenization, point-to-point encryption and fraud management filters can be extra features included by your merchant service provider in order to increase security, sometimes at no additional charge.  Accordingly, you should make sure to choose a merchant account provider that includes all of these anti-fraud protections for you and your customers.

2. Payment integration

Inexperienced small business owners will sign a contract with a merchant service provider without realizing that the system they may be purchasing is just an isolated component of a system that needs to be integrated. In other words, they will be able to read cards and transfer money, but the payment information also needs to be handed off from their website to the system. This is where a lot of time consuming data entry might come into play, especially if the business owner uses inadequate or ineffective tools and software.

To avoid this, and to prevent human error, it’s important to automate this process using payment integration solutions, which are used to sync incoming transactions with accounting, CRM, and any other pieces of software that may be essential to the business. It’s also important to make sure that your merchant account provider gives you free unlimited technical support so that they can walk you through the integration process and get you started accepting credit cards from your website without delay.

3. Omni-channel payments

Planning for scalability is another major issue. If you order a POS terminal for your brick and mortar store, you might want to take into account an online payment solution, and vice versa. Some merchant service providers offer solutions that encompass all aspects of card payment such as online payment gateways, virtual terminals, EMV credit card readers, and mobile payment processing. Make sure that your merchant service provider offers a tailored package perfect not just for your current business, but also for any future expansions you may have in mind.

For more information about any challenges you may face when implementing a payment processing solution, or to sign up for a merchant account, please call (888) 924-2743 or go to Charge.com.