Welcome to part 4 of our 12 part series – “Tell Me the Best Merchant Solution for My Business.” In this this chapter we are going to discuss the question of integrating your merchant service solution into your business and accounting systems. Common questions that a controller or business owner will ask when making a decision on a new merchant services solution are are:
1. Does his solution I am getting integrate into my accounting systems and payment systems or no?
2. If not, do I need a new system?
3. If so, how do I get them to integrate? Is the integration easy?
The short answer:
This is fairly complicated. If you want a good answer that is specific to your unique needs and desires talk to a merchant services provider that will take the time to ask you the right questions to find out what you want to do and then give you a solution to do it. Any company that is not great at doing this for you prior to signing up is not going to be good at it after you sign up.
The longer answer:
1. If you accepting payments via a website you are going to want to use Authorize.net or PlugNPay. PlugNPay offers a built in Quickbooks module where you can sync all of your transactions detail directly into Quickbooks. PlugNPay also offers a great recurring billing module that can help you automate your billing if you have a recurring-billing business model. If you are not using Quickbooks but another type of accounting system then we would recommend Authorize.net as it offers a very robust back-end that can integrate into almost any type of system.
2. If you accepting payments at a doctor’s office, company office, then we would recommend that you use PC Charge. PC Charge is one of the most versatile payment solutions and it allows easy integration into many payment systems.
3. If you would like to accept credit cards through traditional merchant equipment that would typically be used at a retail business location your best option may be some of the newest merchant equipment such as the VivoPay 4000 in that it offers easy syncing features with some of the most popular accounting systems.
Keep on reading. Next week will will go into part 5 of our 12 part merchant services series and talk about the questions such as: What forms of payment should I take and can I take? Can I accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Gift Cards, Promo Codes on my website, Debit Card, or eCheck?
