Restaurant Point of Sale: Boosting Sales By Taking Credit Cards And Other Forms Of Payment

Sept. 1, 2009 - PRLog -- Restaurant Point of Sale: Boosting Sales By Taking Credit Cards And Other Forms Of Payment

Taking Charge Of Everything

In today’s economy, every cent counts and adding them to your bottom line is possible in the middle of economic crisis. These steps will make you increase your profit, lower your expenses and protect your business from theft.

Business in the food service industry, if you're running a restaurant point of sale system then this simple tips can greatly help you grow your business!

Taking Checks

Checks may not may not seem appealing to younger customers, but their still widely used by older customers. So if you have not been accepting checks, starting soon would be a good idea. There are many good POS equipments that can scan checks as quickly as debit cards, check out and measure them against a nationwide database of bad check writers, electronically deposit the money, and guarantee you receive your funds within a few days. In addition, the cost is typically lower than for credit cards and could add 10-15 percent to sales—and could even be more if majority of your customers are seniors.

Accept all Cards

If you do accept credit cards, you're probably accepting Visa and MasterCard already. What about Discover and American Express? The latter, in particular, generally accompanies larger transactions. You might have hesitated because of the high fees, but do reconsider—the difference might be a paltry one percent or so, and because American Express transactions are often larger than those of other cards, you’ll make it up in gross profit. Furthermore, it can help keep your customers coming back because your business will be well know of accepting all forms of credit cards.

Do A Research

Most merchants think their fees are 1.69 percent plus an additional $.19 because that’s their qualified rate on a pricing program tier. But often fewer than 20 of 100 transactions receive the low qualified rate and all the rest downgrade and cost one, two, or even three percent. By researching for alternate programs that offer different interchange rates might just help you out in saving more.

Insist on Understanding

You or your bookkeeper shouldn’t have to scratch your heads over a complex credit card statement that just doesn’t fit. There are several companies that have made far more than usual efforts to simply their reports. You should be able to reconcile your statement and rates without exceeding 15 minutes.

Getting Your Reports Online

The post office is slow, don't wait any longer for them to deliver you a letter of disputing a charge. Using the internet, you will know within 24 hours, which gives you the ability to aggressively defend against chargebacks. This type of quick action will increase your success rates and reduce your losses.

So there will be no more scratching of the head for both you and your bookkeeper over complex credit card statements.

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 get the lowest possible rate for discounts.

Also, avoid by being PCI compliant. There are mammoth fines charged to merchants who are hacked, and even drives them out of business. Take the time to read Visa’s report on noncompliant systems, so you'd always be alert.

Reducing 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 can help eliminate the chargebacks on cardholder nonauthorization. Liability for these chargebacks will be 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.

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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 http://www.pos-for-restaurants.com.

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