Customers have grown to expect businesses of all sizes to accept credit card payments. Unfortunately, these payments can cost businesses a substantial amount in fees. Discover how Clarify Capital can help lower your credit and debit card fees as a small business.
When a business conducts a credit card transaction, the multistep process involves a payment processor, card network, and card issuer. As a seller, this typically means payment processing fees, assessment fees, and interchange fees. However, several other transaction fees might be involved, including an acquirer processing fee, a fixed acquirer network fee, a kilobyte access fee, and/or network access and brand usage fee.
Pricing for these fees depends on the service provider, and some might be monthly fees. Service providers typically use an interchange-plus pricing model with a markup on each transaction or flat-rate pricing.
As you can see, this array of fees can be concerning for small businesses, especially when they conduct many transactions in a day. This is where Clarify comes in — we help small businesses integrate terminal and software options to help eliminate processing issues and hidden fees. The goal is for your business to offer customers the payment methods they demand while mitigating your processing costs.
When a credit card transaction takes place with a merchant, three steps occur:
During authorization, the customer’s card is swiped at the point-of-sale (POS), and the card reader sends the card information with a payment authorization request to the payment processor (e.g., Stripe, Square, PayPal). The issuing bank of the card (e.g., Visa, Mastercard, American Express) will approve or deny the request.
The settlement and funding processes are how the merchant receives payment for the transaction. The merchant sends a batch of authorized transactions to the credit card processor, who then communicates with banks. The issuing banks charge the cardholder’s accounts and transfer the funds to the merchant’s bank (minus interchange rates, etc.). The merchant bank then deposits the funds into the merchant’s account.
Many small businesses conduct hundreds or even thousands of credit card transactions in a day, both in-person and online transactions. Naturally, this can mean significant processing fees. In addition, if transactions are for too small of an amount, the business can lose money on the transaction.
Merchants can deal with processing issues, such as chargebacks, cancellations, and other payment gateway issues at checkout. Such issues are often left to the customer support of the credit card processing companies, which can take several business days to resolve issues.
Throw in point-of-sale system issues, mobile device payment options, smartphone wallets, contactless payments, ACH payments, credit card reader issues, Google Pay, virtual terminal functionality, and accepting different types of cards — and you’ve got a recipe for small business disaster. Thankfully, we’re ready with payment solutions so your business can focus on growth.
We’re dedicated to offering credit card processing solutions that eliminate the headaches, hassles, and hidden fees when you process payments. We provide and integrate with various terminal and software options to help companies with in-store and online payments.
We assist with seamless integration with POS hardware and software systems, acceptance of card-not-present transactions (e-commerce, APIs, online gateways, MOTO), and PCI compliance for mobile payment processing.
Accept all the ways to pay, including credit, debit, gift and chip cards, and NFC payments like Apple Pay. Our comprehensive solutions enable you to accept payments in the store, on the road, and online.
Protect your business and your customers from fraud with EMV- and PCI-compliant solutions. Our solutions make it fast and easy to get set up, accept payments, and receive deposits in your bank account.
Clarify Capital has worked with thousands of small business owners, startups, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and more to help them meet their business needs. We understand the challenges of these businesses, which is why so many have trusted us for merchant services, such as loans, financing, and credit card processing services.
Get approved for credit card processing today and seamlessly integrate with POS hardware and software systems within as little as 24 hours.