We are being told by our current vendor that we “need to buy a new credit card processing machine”. But the rub is, we don’t really use this machine as we never actually handle credit cards, we just have the information from them. In another business we used a service that hooked up with Quickbooks, but we don’t use Quickbooks here. I’d prefer we not have to buy a new machine just because some guy says ours are obsolete, since we don’t actually swipe cards and the new reco’d machine is $600.
So, anybody else using a software and/or service that they’d recommend?
I’m not sure I’m understanding you correctly Shibb, do you mean that you never use the credit card machine at all? or that you don’t use it to swipe credit cards but you use it to input the credit card numbers manually, or do you have some other way of conveying the relevant numbers to your service?
It makes sense that you should be able to simply input the relevant numbers over the internet via computer, or over the phone line via touch-tone phone, but even if you need a ‘pin pad’ or input terminal you should be able to get one of those for for much less than a card-swipe machine. (Around $100.00, IIRC.)
BTW, we use a company called First Horizon, but we do swipe credit cards, although we sometimes use the keypad to input the numbers if someone gives us their info over the phone of by e-mail. Their prices are decent, and their customer service has been very good.
I don’t use it myself, but I think the answer to your question is that we never swipe with it and but do currently key in card numbers. Our order processing software has some facility for input and storing credit card numbers but we don’t currently utilize it for anything but storage. Since the software kind of sucks I’m sort of reluctant to add on automated processing there, although that may be an option I need to look at. I did find some stuff on line with names like “Take Charge” and “PC Charge Pro”.
Also, I’ll ask our bank for recos but they aren’t open today.
Hmmm… Quickbooks now processes credit cards directly? I’m still using an old version (98, I think) that does all I need it to do, but maybe that’s a reason for finally upgrading. But don’t new versions of Quickbooks and Quicken require you to upgrade every year or two?
Anyway, for processing credit card payments, I’ve used PCCharge Pro for several years, and it’s reasonably easy to use. I’ll admit that I only process a handful of mail orders a month, so I don’t put it to hard use. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, perhaps. But it’s worth looking into.
Quickbooks is fine but it’s not the order processing system or bookkeeping system that we use, so unless we decide to scrap what we’ve got it’s probably not an option.
My bookeeper told me today she probably only processes about 5 transactions a week, on average. Mostly we invoice and get checks (and sometimes nothing :().
I just got my fresh-new business hooked up with US Bank Card Service, which will handle the online processing of all my credit and debit card transactions, as well as the hand-swiped ones taken at vendor events. As part of the startup package, I got software for the website, which will hook into the shopping cart function.
If all you need is software, that may be a good option for you. Since I don’t have a brick-and-mortar business, I didn’t bother buying a terminal. As a home-based business, I get charged $5 per month total for all transactions, unless I exceed a fairly generous amount in a 12 month period, at which point it goes to a discounted percentage of the take.
That’s about the volume I deal with, so PCCharge should work fine for you. I was concerned that if you were doing lots more than I do, you might find some problems I don’t experience. I don’t have experience with any other packages, so I can’t compare, but for the little I do, PCCharge is fine.
Of course, whatever software you choose has to be acceptable to your bank/CC processor. I assume that PCCharge works with most systems, but you should check with the bank to be sure.