Growing Your Profits
In today’s economy, every cent counts and adding them to your bottom line is possible despite the economic doom and gloom reports. These steps will make you increase your profit and decrease expenses, as well as blocking theft so your business can grow much bigger.
In the food service industry, if you’re running a restaurant point of sale system then this tips can greatly help you grow your business!
Checks
They are still widely used, especially among older customers. If you haven’t been accepting checks, start soon. There are many good POS equipments that can scan checks as fast as debit cards, check out and measure them against a nationwide database of bad check writers, electronically deposit the money, and can guarantee that you’ll receive the funds within a few days. In addition, it costs less than for credit cards and can add 10% to 15% of your sales—and possibly more if you have many senior customers.
Accepting All Cards
Of course, you’re already accepting cards like Visa and MasterCard. What about Discover and American Express? Particularly, the latter accompanies larger transactions in general. You might have hesitated because of the high fees, but do reconsider—a 1% difference may not look worthy of consideration for you, and because American Express transactions are often larger than those of other cards, you’ll make it up in gross profit. Furthermore, customers may keep coming back because they’ll know that your business accepts all forms of credit cards.
Do Your Research
Most merchants think their fees are 1.69 percent plus $.19 because that’s their qualified rate on a pricing program tier. Though fewer than 20 out of 100 transactions receive the low qualified rate and all the rest downgrade and cost one, two, or even three percent. Researching alternate programs that offer different interchange rates could end up saving more than you think.
Insist on Understanding
Neither you nor your bookkeeper would have to scratch the back of your heads over complex credit card statements that just doesn’t add up. A few companies have made extraordinary efforts to simplify these reports. You should be able to reconcile your statement and rates without exceeding 15 minutes.
Get Reports Over The Internet
You’ll never have to wait for the post office to deliver a letter disputing a charge. With Internet reporting, you’ll exactly know what’s up within 24 hours, allowing you to aggressively defend against chargebacks. This type of quick action will increase your success rates and reduce your losses.
So you won’t have to scratch a head over a complex credit card statement, as well as your bookkeeper.
Use the Card Validation Value and Address Verification System. These highly effective fraud screens are proven to reduce losses, and by using them the right way, you can achieve the lowest possible discount rate.
Also, you need to avoid computer hackers by being PCI compliant. Hackers can cause merchants mammoth of fines, and they can drive you out of business. Find time to read Visa’s report on noncompliant systems, you need to be alert in order to protect your business.
How To Lessen Chargebacks
If you run an online or phone ordering business, it’s always a great idea to implement the “Verified by Visa” or “MasterCard Secure Code” plug-in on your web site. This will eliminate cardholder nonauthorization chargebacks. The state of being legally obliged and responsible for these chargebacks is shifted away from you to the issuing card bank, and you qualify for the lowest discount rate available. This simple step could eliminate up to 80 percent of all chargebacks and increase your profits.
With over 20 years of restaurant point of sale experience and helping businesses in the food-service industry nationwide increase their efficiency and bottom-line profits, the author of this article is the VP of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants.com.
You may visit POS-For-Restaurants.com for further understanding of how our national network of restaurant point of sale professionals can help your business achieve greater success in these difficult economic times.
Boost your bottom line and make your restaurant grow bigger!
Growing Your Profits
In today’s economy, every cent counts and adding them to your bottom line is possible despite the economic doom and gloom reports. These steps will make you increase your profit and decrease expenses, as well as blocking theft so your business can grow much bigger.
In the food service industry, if you’re running a restaurant point of sale system then this tips can greatly help you grow your business!
Checks
They are still widely used, especially among older customers. If you haven’t been accepting checks, start soon. There are many good POS equipments that can scan checks as fast as debit cards, check out and measure them against a nationwide database of bad check writers, electronically deposit the money, and can guarantee that you’ll receive the funds within a few days. In addition, it costs less than for credit cards and can add 10% to 15% of your sales—and possibly more if you have many senior customers.
Accepting All Cards
Of course, you’re already accepting cards like Visa and MasterCard. What about Discover and American Express? Particularly, the latter accompanies larger transactions in general. You might have hesitated because of the high fees, but do reconsider—a 1% difference may not look worthy of consideration for you, and because American Express transactions are often larger than those of other cards, you’ll make it up in gross profit. Furthermore, customers may keep coming back because they’ll know that your business accepts all forms of credit cards.
Do Your Research
Most merchants think their fees are 1.69 percent plus $.19 because that’s their qualified rate on a pricing program tier. Though fewer than 20 out of 100 transactions receive the low qualified rate and all the rest downgrade and cost one, two, or even three percent. Researching alternate programs that offer different interchange rates could end up saving more than you think.
Insist on Understanding
Neither you nor your bookkeeper would have to scratch the back of your heads over complex credit card statements that just doesn’t add up. A few companies have made extraordinary efforts to simplify these reports. You should be able to reconcile your statement and rates without exceeding 15 minutes.
Get Reports Over The Internet
You’ll never have to wait for the post office to deliver a letter disputing a charge. With Internet reporting, you’ll exactly know what’s up within 24 hours, allowing you to aggressively defend against chargebacks. This type of quick action will increase your success rates and reduce your losses.
So you won’t have to scratch a head over a complex credit card statement, as well as your bookkeeper.
Use the Card Validation Value and Address Verification System. These highly effective fraud screens are proven to reduce losses, and by using them the right way, you can achieve the lowest possible discount rate.
Also, you need to avoid computer hackers by being PCI compliant. Hackers can cause merchants mammoth of fines, and they can drive you out of business. Find time to read Visa’s report on noncompliant systems, you need to be alert in order to protect your business.
How To Lessen Chargebacks
If you run an online or phone ordering business, it’s always a great idea to implement the “Verified by Visa” or “MasterCard Secure Code” plug-in on your web site. This will eliminate cardholder nonauthorization chargebacks. The state of being legally obliged and responsible for these chargebacks is shifted away from you to the issuing card bank, and you qualify for the lowest discount rate available. This simple step could eliminate up to 80 percent of all chargebacks and increase your profits.
With over 20 years of restaurant point of sale experience and helping businesses in the food-service industry nationwide increase their efficiency and bottom-line profits, the author of this article is the VP of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants.com.
You may visit POS-For-Restaurants.com for further understanding of how our national network of restaurant point of sale professionals can help your business achieve greater success in these difficult economic times.