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The Dirty Little Secret of Merchant Services Businesses no longer need to be convinced on the merits of credit card acceptance. There is now a general consensus among business owners that accepting credit cards increases the dollar amount of consumer purchases as well as their frequency. With that said, as small businesses now see credit card acceptance as a "must have", they often do not pay much attention to the tiers of pricing, terms, and termination clauses in their processing agreements. The merchant services industry knows that their business customers most often look solely at the "qualified rate" in their agreements, or the rate they will be charged when they swipe their customers' cards at the time of purchase. Merchant beware, how often does the following happen during a sale? 1. Card numbers are keyed into a terminal because the card cannot be swiped. 2. A sale is made over the phone. 3. An authorization is made over the phone with the merchant processor because of a card swipe error message to "please call". What rates are being charged for those authorizations? Sales personnel in the merchant services industry are often incented on selling you one thing: credit card acceptance on a terminal. These days, there are as many solutions for accepting electronic payments as there models of cell phones. Wouldn't a solution that integrates with online accounting software be more efficient for some businesses? Wouldn't a solution that deposits checks into a business account just by scanning them save a business time and improve their cash flow? Would some training for the merchant help them make sure they qualify their transactions at the best possible rates? There is no doubt that electronic payment acceptance has added much value and growth for many business segments over the last two decades. Small and mid-size businesses deserve, as much as the largest national retailers, competitive and transparent merchant services, pricing with fair terms and supportive customer relationships. For more information, or to receive the full article, The Dirty Little Secret of Merchant Services, call or email: Craig Stokum, CPA Sr. Vice President Capital Payments, LLC 631-719-8654 cpa@capitalpayments.com www.capitalpayments.com Buying or Selling Business? If you are buying or selling a business, here are some reasons to have a CPA assist you. A CPA stands for Certified Public Accountant. The term certified refers to
the licensing to carry on business as a CPA and meeting the standards as promulgated
by the American Institute of CPAs and the various state societies. CPA's have
more experience working with other professionals such as attorneys, business
brokers, bank officers, insurance agents than non-CPA's. Most CPA's have experience
with Business Valuations and Financial Statements analysis including evaluating
and verifying asset and liability amounts, financial projections and small business
operations.
Starting A Business Starting a business - it seems basic and easy, but items are often overlooked. To protect your assets, you should consider the form of the business. Choices include a "S" or "C" Corp, or a LLC. This is very important and should be well thought out , since no one knows what the future can bring. Why take a chance, any chance, that can result in the lose of the items you have worked so hard for.
Okay we're going into business - so the question is…how should it be structured? It should be something with no liability to the stockholders, assuming, of course, that it's not a professional corporation. In some states one can accomplish that with an LLC. Another option is to incorporate. However, check the regulations in your state, since they are not all the same. If you incorporate, make sure your attorney enables the stock to yield ordinary losses, not capital losses.
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