When you have a business to run, nothing is more important than ensuring you do all you can to keep that business growing and your operating costs down. If you are using the same credit card processing service that you first contracted with 20 years ago, you are most likely paying too much in fees and not getting the service and flexibility you need.
There are good reasons to consider switching payment processing vendors, beginning with new technologies. Payment processing options have transformed as much as electric cars. There are new payment card industry compliance and data security requirements, such as tokenization and encryption, and failure to meet these standards could cost a company hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
Simply put, if you rely on older technology, you are not doing yourself any favors. When looking for solutions, you should consider finding an integrated platform that reduces the number of vendors you use. Often, when you work with an outdated payment technology, you use multiple vendors that handle separate components of the payment process, such as the actual processor and payment gateway.
The extra vendors create added touch points that can make the processing system appear a lot more complicated than necessary. Worse, added touch points not only lead to extra steps that drive up fees, but they can also increase the likelihood of confusion, loss of data and errors while processing payments.
Selecting an integrated payment processing platform means working with a platform that combines the payment gateway with the payment processor in one seamless solution. In such a platform, fewer touch points require less or just one vendor to process a payment from beginning to end. Fewer vendors mean fewer statements that need to be reconciled and fewer failure points.
Unlike multivendor solutions that create a spiderweb of connection points, integrated payment providers can quickly pinpoint an issue, address the problem and implement a solution if needed. This decreases the impact of issues, including potential downtime, and it also saves the extra labor required to research and manage various workarounds.
A key advantage of using an integrated payment provider is the provider’s ability to support new features required by customers, react to changes in purchase option trends and support new initiatives introduced by the payment networks. Rather than waiting for each vendor in your processing chain to support a change, an integrated provider can quickly build and release support. This gives a business the ability to promptly support changes in its environment and be competitive by offering the latest payment options while taking advantage of potential new pricing initiatives provided by the payment networks.
Consolidated reporting and having the ability to reconcile seamlessly from transaction to cash and from a deposit to all the related transactions ensures that a business will spend less time pulling reports from various systems and analyzing each report. Integrated payment providers typically provide a singular portal consolidating the payment gateway and merchant account reports, giving a holistic view of deposits and transactions.
While it may be challenging to switch to one integrated payment provider after establishing relationships and trust with the various providers you have built over the years, not doing so could harm your business overall.
It is also essential to do what is best for your customers. Customer satisfaction is, after all, the key to business success. That means comparing your current system operations to other technology on the market to ensure you offer your customers the best features possible.
When’s the Right Time to Change Payment Processing Vendors?
If you’re experiencing any of the following, it’s time to make the switch:
- Your card acceptance costs have steadily increased over the years
- You have difficulty reconciling cash flow or can’t easily track payment transactions to cash in the bank
- Time-consuming reconciliation or reconciling across multiple payment platforms
- Fees from multiple vendors used for credit card acceptance
- Difficulty finding answers to questions when a problem arises or contacting the right person for help
