{"id":7869,"date":"2020-10-25T05:18:51","date_gmt":"2020-10-25T09:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/?p=7869"},"modified":"2020-10-25T05:19:58","modified_gmt":"2020-10-25T09:19:58","slug":"8-tips-on-choosing-a-payment-system-for-small-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/8-tips-on-choosing-a-payment-system-for-small-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Tips on Choosing a Payment System for Small Businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>You&#8217;re&nbsp;looking to grow your business, so you decide to hire employees and expand your payment options for customers. But to do both of those things, you need the right payment system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you don&#8217;t offer the right customer options, you can lose out on sales. And if you don&#8217;t automate employee payments, they may quit when you don&#8217;t give out a paycheck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keep reading to learn how to solve both problems with the right payment system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Taking Customer Payments<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When running a business, you need a payment system for your customers. That way, you can make money to maintain your business and ideally earn a profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are a few tips&nbsp;on how to choose a customer payment system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Determine Where You&#8217;ll Sell<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If you haven&#8217;t already, consider where you sell your products or services. A brick and mortar business will probably take cash and cards. But you can also take digital payments or digital wallets with the right technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the other hand, an online business will need to take payments over the internet. Your best options will be credit or debit card and digital payment gateways, like PayPal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No matter where you run your business, you need to consider what payment methods will work. Taking cash can be great, but it doesn&#8217;t work so well across the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Work With Your Audience<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>You can also turn to your customers to determine what payment system is best for your business. Perhaps you own a local convenience store and most of your customers are low income.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In that case, you may want to accept cash in addition to credit or debit cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But an online business may prefer to take payments via PayPal or Stripe. However, you have to consider if your customers are in countries that use PayPal or Stripe to make sure they can buy from you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With any kind of business, you can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.windriverfinancial.com\/why-you-should-consider-integrated-payment-systems\/\">consider integrated payments<\/a>. That way, you can improve the customer experience, and you can increase your revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. Consider&nbsp;Payment Plans<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If you sell higher-priced items, you should look for a payment system that offers a payment plan. Or you can partner with a financing program to help customers afford your products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A payment plan can help customers save money at first, so you can get more sales. You won&#8217;t have to worry about turning people away with a high price tag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While you may not get every customer to purchase, a payment plan provides flexibility.&nbsp;So consider looking for a way to offer multiple installments as an option for your customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. Research Fees<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Next, you should research the payment systems you&#8217;re considering. Specifically, compare their fees for taking payments. Some card providers charge a small fee based on a percentage of the transaction amount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Online payment gateways also have fees. For example, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/en\/webapps\/mpp\/paypal-fees\">PayPal charges 2.9 percent<\/a> plus $0.30 on all transactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Your customers won&#8217;t have to pay the fee, but it&#8217;s important to think about. Then, you can adjust your prices accordingly to compensate for those fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Paying Employees<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>While you want to have a good payment system for handling customer transactions, don&#8217;t forget about employees. Even if you just have one employee, you need a system to stay on top of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are a few tips for avoiding late payments to your workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">5. Set a Schedule<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>When choosing a payment system for your employees, consider if you want to use a particular payment schedule. Some companies pay employees once a month, while others pay every other week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A weekly payment schedule can be another option. Each schedule has pros and cons, so consider your business and industry to decide which is best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Any type of schedule can keep you accountable, and you can search for the best payment system for that schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you decide how often to pay employees, you can look for a payment system that supports that. Then, you won&#8217;t have to worry about missing payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">6. Checks vs. Direct Deposit<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Checks and direct deposit are two options available with the most common payroll technology. You can use checks for contract work or employees who may not have a bank account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Offering direct deposit is easy, and your employees won&#8217;t have to visit a bank every payday. Whether you want to offer checks, direct deposit or both, you should find a payment system that works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Checks and direct deposit both have <a href=\"https:\/\/academy.getjobber.com\/resources\/articles\/employee-pay-check-or-direct-deposit\/\">advantages and disadvantages<\/a>. So consider how you want to pay employees when choosing the right payroll software for your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">7. Remember Holidays<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>You should also consider if your payment system will account for holidays. For example, if you always pay on the first of the month, consider New Years Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the new year rolls around, consider if you will pay employees early for that month. If so, you&#8217;ll need your payroll system to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And if you pay every other Monday, you may run into problems around certain holidays. Even if your office is open, many Federal holidays are Mondays, and the banks won&#8217;t process payments on those days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So you may want to pay your employees the Friday before to avoid any delays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">8. Different&nbsp;Services<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Basic payroll software can help you manage payments. But different payroll providers may offer unique services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you need help with your taxes, consider if the system you use can do that. Or if you have full-time employees and need to manage vacation time, you&#8217;ll need a system with that ability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whether you have a few employees or a large company, you want to consider your needs outside of paying people. If you need help managing taxes and benefits, you&#8217;ll want to choose a payment system with access to personal assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And if you have a simple payroll, then you won&#8217;t have to worry about that. But you never know when you might hire more people and need more help with payroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Choosing a Payment System Made Easy!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The right payment system can make or break your business. But you probably need two systems, one for employees and the other for customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you can&#8217;t take customer payments, you won&#8217;t have revenue. And if you don&#8217;t pay employees, they&#8217;ll quit. Make sure you choose the right payment system for both income and payroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Did you enjoy this article? Check out our blog for similar content!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You&#8217;re&nbsp;looking to grow your business, so you decide to hire employees and expand your payment options for customers. But to do both of those things, you need the right payment system. If you don&#8217;t offer the right customer options, you can lose out on sales. And if you don&#8217;t automate employee payments, they may quit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7869"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7871,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7869\/revisions\/7871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}