June 21, 2022
The Ultimate Guide to Accepting Credit Card Payments for Your Moving Company
Credit cards are a great way to accept payments from customers. They’re convenient, easy to use, and can help you quickly build the revenue you need to grow your business. If you’re an independent moving company that accepts credit card payments, it’s crucial to understand how these payments work. Do you know how processing fees can affect your profit margin, or how to deal with chargebacks and inquiries from credit card companies?
In this article, we discuss how independent moving companies can benefit from accepting credit card payments. We also outline how to process payments to avoid risk, and tips for navigating customer disputes like chargebacks.
Why Accept Credit Card Payments as a Moving Company?
Accepting credit card payments offers a variety of benefits for moving companies and their customers. Most consumers prefer to pay by credit card because it’s convenient, establishes a transaction record, and reinforces a contract between a customer and their service provider. Additionally, accepting credit cards accelerates the payment process, saving your company time and energy that might otherwise be wasted chasing past-due invoices or navigating delays and errors related to personal check processing.
With all the benefits credit card payments offer, adding them to your moving company’s payment options seems like a no-brainer! To ensure you’re set up for success – and not spending countless hours disputing chargebacks or processing fees – we’ve put together a handy guide that breaks down how to accept credit card payments, fees to be aware of, and chargeback navigation.
Learning how each of these components of the payment process affects your business will help you make more money faster and with less hassle.
How to Accept Credit Card Payments as a Moving Company
Firstly, to begin accepting credit card payments as a business, you’ll need to establish a merchant account. This is essentially a bank account for your business. To get paid, it’s necessary to work with a payment services provider, which enables merchants to process credit card payments. Credit card payments are very popular, and savvy entrepreneurs will reap the benefits of setting up a merchant account and encouraging their customers to quickly and conveniently pay for goods and services. Unlike checks, which are prone to errors, overdrafts, and delays, credit card payments are authorized and deposited within 2-3 business days.
There is a downside to the convenience of accepting and receiving quick, cashless payments. Credit card payments result in processing fees that typically range from 1.5% to 3.5%. These fees can increase for merchants like moving companies that take credit card payments over the phone. Credit card processing fees can eat into your profits if you haven’t planned for them!
Some companies attempt to outsmart credit card processing fees by accepting payments through peer-to-peer services like Venmo and Paypal. If you’re considering this approach, do your research! These services have very strict terms regarding business use and offer no protection from payment disputes, which places your company at risk.
1. Decide How You Will Accept Credit Card Payments
When determining the best approach for credit card payments, a moving company should carefully assess its unique requirements. You should consider the size of your operations, the volume of transactions, and the different platforms you use for sales.
- Mobile Card Readers: As a moving company, you might also very often need the flexibility of accepting payments on the move. You can provide your field personnel with mobile card readers to meet this requirement. These portable devices will enable your team to safely process credit card payments on-site, offering your customers convenience and peace of mind. Mobile card readers offer smooth transactions and can be used to collect payments for your services or any other additional costs. Square is one of the most popular and easiest mobile payment processors to use. The card reader is a tiny attachment that fits right into the headphone jack of any smartphone. Mobile readers are available in a magnetic swipe (magstripe), EMV chip, or contactless. Your team members can download the Square Point of Sale app on their Android or iOS mobile device, punch in the customer’s order or total and swipe the card to run the transaction, similar to an in-store POS system. Customers can also sign to authorize the transaction on the screen of the Mobile credit card reader if required.
- Security and Compliance: For any business during a transaction, protecting their customer’s financial information is the top priority. When selecting a credit card payment option, you must look for companies that adhere to industry-leading security standards. All Transactions, even contactless payments, should be encrypted and protected against any unauthorized access. You should maintain the greatest level of data security and develop trust with your customers by partnering with trusted payment processors.
2. Choose a Payment Processing System
A payment processor allows a company to accept client payments via credit card, debit card, and ACH. Payment processing firms provide a system that oversees these transactions, from initial card verification to approval and transmission of payments. The payment processor you choose determines whether card transactions are handled successfully in seconds or become an issue. There is no such thing as a perfect payment processor. The best one for your moving company depends on your specific needs, priorities, and your budget.
While researching options or payment processing systems, an important point to consider how easy it is to connect it with existing systems. You should look for a payment processor that integrates seamlessly with a point-of-sale system, internet platforms, and your accounting software.
3. Get Your Credit Card Payment Software and Hardware in Place
For your transactions to be successful, you have to select the appropriate payment processing hardware software to accept credit card payments effectively. By choosing the right hardware and software for payments, your business can streamline its payment process, enhance security and provide your customer with a positive experience.
Your POS system will be the central hub for processing payments, managing inventory, and generating sales reports. It is recommended that you invest in a modern POS system that offers features like inventory management, customer relationship management, and integration with other business tools.
You should look at having a secure card reader. A card reader is a device that reads the information that is stored on your customer’s credit or debit card. Remember that it is essential to choose a card reader or a credit card terminal that complies with the latest security standards such as EMV, i.e: Europay, Mastercard, and Visa technology, which helps prevent fraudulent transactions. Ensure your card reader supports contactless payments like Apple Pay and Google Pay.
How to Accept Credit Card Payments Online
As for your moving business, it is the same when it comes to accepting online payments for e-commerce or other business; you begin with an account with a payment service provider (PSP), such as PayPal or Stripe
You’ll have to connect it to your website and ensure your website developers discuss secure sockets layer (SSL) certificates with you. You might have to use a standalone service if you want to accept payments over the internet and ensure your customer’s security.
In case your current website doesn’t work well with payment providers, you may have to link out to your account with a PayPal “pay now” button functionality on your website, for example—and let customers make payments through the third-party site.
What is a Credit Card Processing Fee?
A credit card processing fee is the percentage rate a merchant pays to a merchant services provider to process a credit or debit card sale (typically 1.5-3.9% of the transaction total). Processing fees consist of two major components:
- Interchange fees – variable fees paid to the bank that issues the purchaser’s credit card
- Network fees – (also referred to as assessments or association fees) fees paid to the credit card company for the convenience of using their network to process a payment.
- Assessment fees – these are fees that your business will pay directly to the credit card network so that the merchant can use certain credit cards. This fee is based on monthly sales and not per transaction.
Another way to think about credit card processing fees is the total fees associated with processing a payment. This is referred to as an effective rate. An effective rate is the total amount you pay for processing credit cards, including additional transaction fees the processor may charge to process your customer’s payment. On your statement, these charges might appear as:
- PCI fees
- Statement fees
- Batch fees
- Compliance fees
- Transaction fees
- Support fees
Finding out your effective rate is really simple. On your monthly processing statement, divide the total fees you paid by the total revenue you collected for your services. This is your effective rate.
For example: if your monthly statement lists $70,833 in revenue and $2797.90 in fees, your effective rate would be 3.95%.
Credit card processing fees vary widely, impacting the effective rate a business pays to process a transaction. High processing fees can impact your profitability, especially if you’re unaware of how transaction fees inflate your effective rate. Therefore, research is key to choosing the right processor for your business!
At Oncue, we’ve partnered with Stripe to process credit card payments for our independent moving company clients. We’re proud to offer a 2.99% transaction fee, which is less than the industry average of 3.5%. Get in touch to learn more about how we’re supporting independent movers.
In conclusion: any merchant who accepts credit card payments must pay fees to the issuing bank, credit card company, and the payment processor to offset the costs and convenience associated with cashless, immediate payment.
Using Credit Cards Safely: Tips for Small Businesses
Credit cards are being processed for almost every business today, but unfortunately, cyber-criminals are aware of the rise in the usage of credit card payments.
Hence, credit card fraud is a real threat to your bank account and reputation. Thankfully, you can prevent credit card fraud from damaging your small business.
Fraud
As a business, you should install secure payment processing systems, encrypt customer data and educate everyone on the best and safest practices to use credit cards correctly and prevent online fraud. You should regularly monitor transactions, use a fraud-detecting system, and immediately report suspicious behavior. This will also go a long way in protecting your customers’ data and earning their trust.
Processing fees
As a business, you must prioritize and secure your customer’s data and avoid any financial loss due to fraud. Implementing secure payment processing systems and adhering to PCI compliance regulations are important. While processing fees are unavoidable, they will ensure your business has access to secure payment infrastructure and fraud protection tools to boost your bottom line.
Navigating Chargebacks
If your moving company is currently accepting credit card payments, chances are you’ve fielded at least one chargeback request from a credit card company. What is a chargeback? Simply stated, it’s a customer-initiated process to dispute a charge for products or services. Sometimes the dispute is valid, and the customer has a good reason for disputing it, but other times, the chargeback is erroneous. Resolving disputes in your favor can drain your time and resources. Because moving companies are considered a high-risk merchant, you might spend more time disputing chargebacks than other small business owners!
In a typical chargeback scenario, a customer will reach out to a credit card company to dispute a charge. From there, the customer’s bank will either submit:
- an inquiry to the credit card company, asking for more information or evidence related to the dispute
- a chargeback from the credit card company, resulting in an immediate withdrawal of funds from your account, including processing fees.
In either scenario, the responsibility of resolving the dispute falls to the merchant. Dispute resolution will typically involve:
- Contacting your customer by phone to confirm the validity of the charge
- Completing a transaction review by gathering and submitting evidence related to the job
- Awaiting the findings of an inquiry or chargeback review, which usually takes 65-75 days.
Small businesses must remain efficient to stay profitable. For independent moving companies, time spent trying to reach customers or discuss chargebacks with a credit card company could mean the difference between booking a new job or missing out!
Moving company software can help automate manual processes and organize information to help busy moving companies stay in the game. A moving company Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can manage customer data, making it easy to view and respond to client inquiries, automate communication, and collect payments.
Some CRMs offer expanded support options, like booking services, concierge customer service, and payment dispute resolution.
Bottom line: Should My Moving Company Accept Credit Card Payments?
Yes. Accepting credit card payments makes sense because it’s easy for your customers and convenient for your team. Furthermore, doing so ensures your business receives revenue immediately and establishes a record of services rendered if a customer instigates a chargeback or doesn’t pay their bills.
We recommend partnering with a moving software – or moving CRM – to help you quickly and effectively manage end-to-end credit card processing and dispute resolution. CRMs streamline operations and ensure a positive, consistent customer experience, freeing you up to focus on strategic responsibilities.
CRMs also provide valuable insights into your customer base, organize information, and help resolve payment disputes quickly and professionally.
Oncue’s comprehensive moving company software reduces the time moving companies spend collecting payments by effectively managing end-to-end credit card processing. Our Customer Success team is also on hand to help navigate payment issues. If you’ve spent hours fielding chargebacks and inquiries from credit card companies, then you can rest easy knowing your Oncue Customer Success Manager will work with you to help resolve these matters in a timely manner. Allowing you more time to focus on your customers and your business.
Minimize headaches like navigating payment issues and enable your team to spend less time in the office and more time booking jobs with Oncue!
In the market for a moving software solution that supports your growing company with intelligent tech and payment processing solutions? Get in touch with us today and learn how Oncue’s solutions can help.
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