Yes, Restaurant Merchant Services cost money. But you don’t have to let your money be eaten away blindly, especially by the things you can avoid. For instance, why would you pay for a particular service when you don’t need them? This happens when you blindly pay for restaurant merchant services package that includes also the services that don’t have value for money in your case.
There are many was to save some money with Restaurant Merchant Services. Here is the list of the things you should look out for in your merchant services in order to ensure that you are spending the least amount of money possible while keeping more of it to yourself. After all, it is your hard earned money through profits that your business generates.
Cheese and cough are the two main ingredients used to make the best pizza pie, but when it comes to restaurant merchant services, these are also slang words widely used to represent what should be thrown away at the end of every month. Credit card processing is typically a large expense for the owners of businesses, and when you are running a restaurant in US or anywhere, you literally have a full plate. Ensuring that your credit card processing bills are cleared every month can fall to the wayside at times. However, it is important to ensure that you are not overpaying or being dimed or nickeled.
For anyone who is new in the business, or is just starting a business and is looking for essential services such as credit card processing, the merchant services industry can have a very confusing structure model that can actually frustrate you as you struggle to understand fully the costs. The industry can also have an expensive fee structure for you if you are not getting the value of what you are paying for.
To help you navigate through the confusion, we have compiled a list of the things you should look out for in restaurant merchant services to ensure that more of your profits remain with you.
Markups: All Restaurant Merchant Services providers share what we would call ‘the same cost’ for the credit card transactions. This is because the credit companies are the ones that set the rates. However, some providers have a tendency of pulling on extra percentage and average markups so that they can make more profit from your volume. It is important that markups are usually the most negotiable elements in a merchant statement. Any percentage you are paying above ‘interchange’ or ‘costs is simply money down the drain and you should therefore avoid that.
Contracts: You should be able to choose a contract that saves you money the most. Some providers of Florida merchant services have the practice of peppering in long-term contracts with huge cancelation fees that don’t make sense. If your provider were actually doing their job as they are supposed to, then why would they again have to lock you with some kind of handcuffs?
Ancillary Fess: Ancillary fees are all of the toppings on your merchant services statement that you did not order. They can include monthly minimums, PCI compliance fees, statement fees, batch fees, and so on. In fact, the list is too long. You should always be on the lookout for every fees that your provider charges you but are not necessary. You should look at the fees structure and haggle all these down until you reach the bare minimum.
Equipment: Of course, you should be incurring the cost of using your credit card processing equipment. But don’t just pay without understanding clearly if the cost is justifiable. Do thorough research on the exact cost of the equipment and make sure that your credit card processing provider is not overpricing their equipment. They ca usually do this by charging you markups. If you are leasing or renting equipment, or you are considering it, you should weigh out the cost your provider will want you to incur versus the cost of just purchasing the equipment. There is no reason you should pay more than you should just to lease an equipment which you won’t even keep. Find out whether your point of sale accept EMV cards. It is a requirement that all merchants must have equipment that accept chip card technology. Ensure that your provider is concerned about PCI Compliance. They should be compliant with the PCI standards as this gives you peace of mind that your customers’ data is secure.
All these unnecessary add-ons, equipment costs, contract terms, ancillary fees and markups are negotiable pieces with the provider of your Restaurant Merchant Services online.