For the first time ever, small business owners have the opportunity to interface certain verifone Credit Card machines with their Electronic Cash Register.

The Electronic Cash Register interface (ECRi) offers developers the capability to communicate with stand-alone POS devices. Further, as we certify and maintains the compliance of the payment application loaded on the terminal, additional certification is not required.

Features

Transactions may be initiated by the ECR or directly at the POS. Supported transaction types include:
Reprint of receipts,
All reports and settlement must be initiated on the POS device – no ECR initiation is supported
Sale�Sale (may include tip amount in addition to base amount)
Refund
Offline Sale (Force)
Phone Order
Void
Card types supported:
Credit
Debit
Chase Gift Card
Canceling the transaction must be initiated at the POS
The ECRi will not support additional peripheral devices, such as external PIN pads or contactless readers
Receipt is printed from the POS device
VAR is responsible for providing the cable that connects the ECR to the POS

Merchant/VAR Benefits

• Enables integrated VAR solution without the time and cost associated with a new Class B certification
• Saves merchant time during installation process as the configuration is certified
• Minimizes sensitive card information circulating thru system (truncated when passed back to ECR

)

Terminal Types
This application can be deployed with the Verifone Vx 570 and Verifone Vx 510DC terminals

For many businesses, communication costs are eating up much of their profits. When you go to the phone company, asking for a business account automatically doubles your phone or internet bill. What these communication companies need to realize is that small businesses around the country are struggling and need help. If they won’t give it to them, they will find it on their own. Many times, that means dumping them and paying less for communication services.

In the Atlanta area, on average 1 business telephone line is apx. $100.00 plus taxes etc. If you work in an office where they may need 4 – 8 telephone lines, that would be a cost of $400-$800 dollars per month. For a small business, that is a lot of money and this does not include internet. Internet is another $100.00 per month.

Because of technology, small businesses have a chance to lower their communication costs up to 70%.

Internet
As a small business, you need a secure, fast and reliable internet connection. This is the base of you saving money on your communication costs.

Types of Internet Connections

DSL- (A Digital Subscriber Line) is issued by the telephone company. The father away from your providers hub the less reliable your internet connection will be. In major cities, this is usually not a problem. However, in areas will less population, you should check with your provider to see how far you are from their hub. The maximum distance from a hub to get reliable internet connection from your dsl provider is around 8000 feet.

DSL is a good option for offices or storefront retail locations that need internet and a few telephone lines. DSL comes in either ADSL (Asymmetric digital subscriber line) or the rarer SDSL (Symmetric digital subscriber line). With ADSL, it means your upload speed is lower than your download speed. With SDSL, upload and download speed are the same. ADSL costs less than SDSL.

SDSL is a cheaper alternative to T1 lines.

ADSL apx. costs (for businesses) From $49.00 – $199.00 per month – Depends on speed
SDSL apx. costs (for businesses) From $99.00 – $300.00 per month -Depends on speed

Cable Internet

Cable internet is starting to gain steam. It is internet service delivered through a cable company’s line. Sometimes called fiber optic internet service. Unlike DSL, the distance from your providers hub does not impact speed or quality of service. Speeds are 15x faster than DSL with around the same price,many times cheaper. Like DSL, cable internet’s upload speed is less than download speeds.

Cable Internet Cost (apx. $49.99 – $125.00) for really fast speeds.

T1 Internet Connection
A T1 internet connection is a dedicated internet connection from your provider to your place of business, with the exact same upload and download speed of 1.544 mbs. This speed is faster than residential internet service but slower than cable. For most business, this will be more than enough speed for what you need to do. Most T1 providers offer service guarantees. They promise a 99.9% availability for your internet service. If there is a problem, they will fix it immediately.

With a T1 line, it is broken up in 24 nodes therefore, your provider can split those nodes up. For example, you can have 24 voice calls at the same time, or 10 voice calls and 14 people on the internet. This internet connection is most used with a VOIP (voice over ip phone service). This is the connection most VOIP providers recommend when you are doing VOIP.

Secure, fast, service guarantee of availability.

T1 Pricing From $250.00 – $900.00 per month. This service usually has a 3 year contract, installation fees and cancellation fees. Your provider will install a professional router/modem in your place of business.

Good for small – medium sized businesses who have high internet use or want to use VOIP and have the need for multiple telephone lines and mission critical applications and cannot afford to ever be down.

Also good for those who do not have access to DSL, or Cable internet.

Now is when the savings come in. Once you have your internet connection, you can then add telephone lines that work through your internet connection. VOIP has come a long way and many businesses today are switching to VOIP to save money.

VOIP
VOIP (Voice over IP) means just that. Sending voice through your internet connection instead of an analog telephone line. Many different companies do VOIP. From Vonage to many smaller companies.

VOIP requires a high speed internet connection. Once you have that you can get connected with a VOIP company for your telephone calls.

Please see the VOIP article for additional information.

You read the first article in this series,  How to build a website for your business Part 1. You have your domain name and you have your website host. Now what.

You need to choose what software program you will use to build your site, unless you want to hard code the site yourself.

Website software building programs are called CMS (Content management systems). I am a big proponent of open source software and the CMS market has tons of them. When choosing a CMS to build your website, determine how much time you are willing to spend building it, the purpose of your website, and how often you plan to update it.

Are you building a e-commerce site where you will sell things, will it be a blog that will be updated regularly, or will it be a static website that won’t change much.

At opensourcecms.com you can browse through, try and read reviews of most of the open source cms available today. Try the demo’s, she how the sites look that were built with those programs, and look at the backend configuration portion to see if it is something you are able to learn and use. All CMS programs have a learning curve. Some are steeper than others.

Personally, I have worked with: Continue Reading ->

Hypercom Optimum T4210

The Hypercom Optimum T4210 Credit card terminal is a part of Hypercom’s  new optimum credit card terminal line.  It is a small (3.6 in (w) x 8.1 in (l) x 2.3 in (h)) good looking credit card terminal with a black case, big sliver keys, colorful key overlay and color coded port plugs for easy setup. This terminal also comes with a small, bright LCD screen. The Hypercom T4210 is a sturdy terminal that was built to handle harsh retail environments. It’s small frame packs a lot of punch with a v.32 modem which makes it one of the fastest dial up credit card terminals when processing in a dial up environment. With the T4210 the LCD Screen is graphics capable so you are able to print logo’s and coupons at the point of sale on your credit card receipts.

I am quite impressed with the Hypercom T4210. As a credit card processing service provider, we deal with different brands of terminals everyday. We build the files for them, download, deploy and offer the support for them. Hypercom is a brand that we trust because we rarely have problems with them. The previous T7 series from Hypercom has about a 7 year life cycle, so I will assume the T4210 has a similar life cycle as it feels as solid if not more so than their T7 series terminals.

The Hypercom T4210 downloads fast and processes fast. Transactions were authorized at the point of sale via dialup within 4-5 seconds. Those speeds are approaching Ethernet enabled credit card terminals, for less money.

The Hypercom T4210 also has a lot of memory so you can add different applications as you see fit such as gift cards or check processing in the future. These terminals are also PCI-PED approved. Therefore, you can use the internal pin pad for pin based transactions for years to  come. Merchants today who are using a non PCI-PED enabled internal pin pad terminal will either have to switch to an external pin pad or buy another terminal.

I have not tried this terminal on digital lines (like cable ) but when I do I will report back.

Verdict:

If you are looking for a credit card terminal for your business that is small, sturdy, attractive, powerful and fast, the Hypercom T4210 is the way to go. It is one of the easiest terminal to download and operate. Plus for the price, you can’t go wrong as this is a brand new terminal that will function well for many years to come.

Innerfence Iphone App

I’ve noticed a few bolg posts and even in the latest apple iphone commercial, a credit card terminal app is featured on the iphone. For $49.99 it’s a whole lot cheaper than a wireless credit card terminal out there which run in the price range of $600.00 to about $1500.00.

The Innerfence iphone Credit Card Terminal App promises to process credit cards natively on the iphone tying into the authorize.net payment gateway to run transactions. The demo is very fast even on the edge network and it has intuitive fields such as emailing the customer their receipt as well as asking the customer to opt into a newsletter.

For $49.99 that sounds really good, But who is going to use this app? What are the true benefits? By processing your transactions this way, how much is your processing costs going to be?

Who this App is For?

I think this app is for very small, hobbyist business owners who have the occasional trade show or who occasionally sell there wares via a market. This app is not for the business owner who has many trade shows and processes transactions on a regular basis in the field. Here’s why:

1. Keeping Your Customer At Ease:

With credit card fraud as high as it is now, not many people will be comfortable giving their credit card to someone to enter in that information into their cell phone. It screams of fraud. It may not be, and you may be totally legitimate, but the perception of someone entering their credit card number into your CELL PHONE is scary. The customer will be thinking, is that safe?

2. Cashier Error

I have an iphone. I am on it everyday either texting, twittering, etc. I have gotten much better in typing out what I want. However, how many tries will it take to enter in the right credit card number. What if you make a mistake but don’t know it and it comes back declined. You will have to tell your customer their card declined, when in essence it didn’t. How many times will a customer allow you to enter in their credit card number into your CELL PHONE before they cancel the sale? Cashier error when entering credit card numbers into an iphone will be rampant and will have consequences for the business owner.

3. Your processing fees are going to be sky high.

Firstly you are entering the card number that will downgrade your transaction to a minimum Mid Qual with rates in the range of 2.25% – 3.00% depending on your processor if you are set up as retail (most businesses are). Your transactions will downgrade even more to Non-Qual if you don’t enter information like the customers address, name etc.You may pay $49.99 for this app but would pay apx 3.00% – 4.5% in processing costs for every transaction you accept. Maybe the business owner who makes an occasional sale here and there would be satisfied with this but a person who is running multiple transactions per day, this app would not work.

4. Higher Chargeback Risk.

Let’s say you run the card via the iphone. What protection do you have that you actually sold something to your customer. There is no receipt with a signature line, there is no shipping tracking number to verify that a product was purchased and you as the business owner delivered the product. How would you prove in case of a chargeback dispute that you actually sold and the customer received your product?

5. Professionalism

It’s just plain tacky. It may be cool, but your main concern is to sell your product. “Cool” helps only if it helps you sell more. Customers want to feel as though they are doing business with a company that knows what its doing, entering their credit card number into your CELL PHONE says amateaur. The customers may have concerns about you losing your phone, will their credit card data be stored? Like I said their concerns may be unwarranted may but do you want to explain that as a disclaimer every time you take a payment.

Now there is hope for this app. I do believe there is potential for accepting credit cards via the iphone however more needs to be done. For instance, connecting a card swiper to the iphone. This may need to be manufactured, but it will reduce cashier error and you won’t look like you are entering the transaction into your cell phone. It will also lower your procesing fee. Swiped transactions cost an average of 1.80% verses the 3 and 4% keying it in would cost.

This app also needs a receipt printer. The receipt printer wil allow you some protection from chargeback and will help put the customer at ease because that is normal way they process credit cards. You can still get their email address and send them a copy of the receipt.

A great idea would be a bluetooth enabled cardswiper/receipt printer that would pair with the iphone to accomplish this. If Innerfence can do this and get that working, this would be a great alternative to a wireless credit card terminal.

Depending on the cost of the additional equipment needed, you may be better off sticking with a wireless credit card terminal.

create a website

A website is a necessity for every and all businesses today. Whether you are selling products online or have a storefront business in your local neighborhood, a website can offer you advertising opportunities as well as a communication portal between you and your customers. As a business owner you may not want to spend the thousands of dollars some web designers charge to build your website. Whether you don’t have the funds or would rather spend that money on inventory or expanding your business, you have decided you want to build a website for your business. Here is a step by step guide in building your website.

It’s not as hard as you may think. It takes time, patience as well as the willingness to learn and make mistakes. I will walk you through the basics for creating a web presence for your business.

Step 1 – Choose a domain name. A domain name is your website address name. yahoo.com is the domain name for yahoo. A domain name corresponds to an ip address (a numerical address) of the computer your website is hosted on. You need a domain name so people can find your website. Domain names are used because they are easier to remember than 72.09.0.100 which is a sample IP address. See How to Choose a Domain Name for tips on choosing a domain name.

Step 2 - servers to host your website. They will give you a specified amount of space (around 5GB) which is more than enough for your website. Many website hosting companies will also provide a free domain registration for one year if you use their service. Along with hosting your website, you will be able to create email addresses at your domain. ex. sam@mybiz.com See How to chose a web hosting company for tips on choosing a website hosting company.

Step 3 – Find a CMS Content Management System to build your website. A content management system is a software program that will aide you in building your site. A CMS allows you to write text and import pictures or what ever type of media you want into an online editor very similar to using mainstream word processing programs (Microsoft Word) and once you click save, the CMS program will create the HTML automatically so you won’t have to learn HTML. A CMS also allows you to update your site by editing pages easily. All CMS programs have a learning curve but once you get through that initial state of understanding how the particular CMS program you have chosen works, you will be able to build a simple to advanced website on your own. For tips on Content Manegement Systems click here.