Making Payments Painless

Card machines have been on the scene for several decades now. While understanding processing fees, running the devices during all hours, and getting the customer service you need can all be difficult, it’s essential to run an effective hospitality enterprise.

Getting better rates on your payments service will save you money every time you use your point of sale device and card machine. Getting a reliable card machine will prevent loss of sales and a lot of bother.

Getting a good deal is worth the work it takes. Even so, finding the best options can be really difficult.

What makes a good deal?

Once you’ve decided you cannot run your business cash-only, you know you’ll need to strike a deal on a card machine, which usually works out for the best. People spend physical money with more caution but will be more impulsive when using plastic cards or e-wallets. This can lead to up to twice as much money spent^[1]. 

There could be a few reasons for this higher spending rate: the abstract nature of electronic money, the idea of spending on credit, or the ease and speed of payment. 

Regardless, given that card-based consumers fall into this big-spender mindset, the opportunity presented by card machines looks too good to pass up.

The flip side comes in paying for the card machine itself. How much that expense will eat into these profits depends on how good a deal you make when setting up. So what should you be thinking about during this process?

• Is it simple? Any prospective payment provider should show you what you’ll be charged. It’s important to feel you understand before you sign, but sometimes, you’ll be provided with long lists of different charges that make it hard to calculate potential expenses and value.
• Are the fees all visible? It can be helpful to ask questions to ensure that you’ve seen and considered all future expenses, both for the near and long term. How much is device rental? Will you be charged a base rate in addition to your % fee?
• How will this expand my service? New payment types emerge all the time. Contactless, customer not present, swipe, and insert should all be options. But what about accepting Amex, Google pay or Apple pay? Is cashback an option? These features can bring trade to the business and improve service.
• What support is on offer? Once you sign with a provider, how long will setup take? What support or replacement service is on offer in the event of issues? Broken card machines can cost hotels, restaurants, and takeaways huge amounts of trade, so support must be considered.

Setting up your card machine

After finally striking your deal, you’ll want to get straight on with making sales on your new machine. So an extended setup can be bothersome. As a result, many POS providers have close partnerships or even an in-house payment provider service. Epos Now Payments is a fantastic example of that.

It helps to have one payment provider for both POS and payments, the benefits of which are never clearer than during the verification process. While this can be a long-winded process, with Epos Now, businesses can submit details using a page added to the Back Office.

Users confirm business (or sole trader) information using those forms, with the guiding hand of a structured graphic ensuring everything gets filled out, and showing what comes next. Using this system, you won’t be caught out by missing data or finish the process having missed steps that will hold you up unnecessarily.

Handily, with Epos Now Payments card machines, users have links in the Back Office to instructions for hardware setup. The same Epos Now support team will be on hand to help with hardware setups for those who want it, or to talk over the few settings choices that need to be made.

Supporting small business

When running into technical problems, a common issue in business finds managers and staff being sent from one provider to another with neither taking responsibility for the problem. If this occurs with a card machine, it can mean struggling to take payments from guests for weeks or even months on end.

No matter how good the rates on a card machine deal are, if your provider allows this to happen, technical issues will eat an enormous chunk out of your profits. Having one provider and one support team to take care of any issues with POS or card machines makes all the difference.

By integrating payments, you can remove the extra party simplifying your system and speeding up problem-solving so you can focus on your guests.

With Epos Now Payments, managers, team members, and customers can rest easy knowing the same support network can resolve any issue. This is a godsend to those who have struggled alone, caught in the middle of a dispute over whose fault this or that technical error is.

Flat rates are better

The most crucial element of your card machine deal remains the rates, which can empower growth or hold you back, depending on the cut your provider takes. 

Tiered rates often look complicated and spotting a good offer can be impossible if you don’t understand the complicated jargon or extended charts the provider gives you.

Therefore, flat rates provide a welcome simplification of the typical card machine offer. Instead of having different percentages for each kind of card payment or account a customer uses, you have one percentage for all.

Distinguishing between a good and bad deal with businesses using flat payment rates becomes a matter of comparing a bigger and smaller number, which then makes payment management a less time-consuming process. Epos Now Payments report contains a single amount, a percentage of your overall payments taken. 

In comparison, tiered pricing schemes will charge more on some card types and less on others. Businesses using tiered pricing providers have a much harder time knowing how much they’ll pay their provider.

Integrate your business and bring payments into your wider system

Managing hospitality businesses means struggling to stay on top of many different tasks, from maintaining inventory, managing shift rotas, and working to improve customer service, marketing, and much more.

Businesses using integrated systems save staff time and the business money by automating some of these processes and streamlining others. Centralized operations help cut out errors and make day-to-day trade easier for all. Epos Now Payments integrations tie in seamlessly with your POS system and take you another step towards a fully integrated business.

Hotels, restaurants, and takeaways can all benefit from a number of integrations available to Epos Now customers. For those offering food services, connecting the front and back of house areas through a KDS can shave time off prep times and free up your servers to attend to clients with greater attention.

If you’re curious about apps and additions you can make to your POS system, here are some examples of other integrations tailored for the hospitality industry from the AppStore:

• simple ERB can help manage your restaurant bookings, take deposit payments, streamline your customer relations and help you acquire more, better reviews for your business
• Sustainably Run can help improve your brand reputation and reduce your business's environmental impact with training, guidance, marketing materials, and more
• Appointedd can integrate your online booking systems and property management software with your POS system, providing guests with more booking options, syncing calendars, and sending out reminders to incoming guests

Take a look in our AppStore or get in touch with our expert team to learn more about how to build your POS system and use it to grow your business.