Success in business requires tools. Payment tools, especially, are very important. If you wish to accept and process credit, debit, gift card, ACH and call-in orders, a virtual terminal is something you will most certainly need to have set up.
Virtual terminals are the “facilitators” of sorts of your debit and credit card transactions. They are the digital version of a credit card terminal or Point Of Sale (POS) machine. They safely send and receive information used to conduct sales in your place of business over the Internet or phone.
A virtual terminal allows you to:
- process credit and debit card swipe transactions
- process call in orders or orders-by-mail by manually entering the card information
- process ACH transactions
- receive authorization notifications
- successfully process returns to your customers card or their ACH account
- generate and print receipts for your customers
- upload batch files to your financial institution
- create customizable reports
These are just a few examples of what virtual terminals are capable of doing for you. There are a lot of other features and tools that can be used to further assist and optimize your business.
Do you do a lot of web-based business? Maybe you make, buy, or sell vintage furniture or clothing on Pinterest. A virtual terminal is very important for you. It is the “cash register” for your online transactions.
Let’s say you have a customer call and place an order over the phone. All you need to do is input their information and hit submit.
The virtual terminal will have a payment form with different fields that you can input the customer’s name and billing address into. You will also type in their credit card information to process the payment.
Once you’ve completed these simple steps, you hit the submit button and the transaction is processed. That’s it.
There are some merchant service providers out there that will also provide you with a USB swipe terminal along with the setup of your virtual terminal. All you have to do is plug it into your computer and you can start using it in conjunction with your virtual terminal software.
So what are the benefits for you? Well, ease of use for one thing.
Everything is going digital these days. All the old ways of doing things have (thankfully) been improved on and are far more functional and intuitive.
I remember, as a kid, my Mom making orders over the phone with her JCPenny catalog. It was this long, involved process that took forever to place the order and it took sometimes a few weeks to actually receive the items she ordered in the mail. A lot of times by the time she received it, she would have forgotten she ordered anything in the first place because it took so long to arrive at our house.
The virtual terminal took all of those different paper forms of ordering and created a digital version, cutting away all the unnecessary portions and adding user friendly features.
A virtual terminal can save you time and money. Think of how much less filing and physical records you have to deal with now than businesses before you did.
The sheer amount of record keeping and paperwork necessary to conduct even simple transactions the old fashioned way are enough to give even the most efficient record keeper anxiety.
With a digital terminal system in place, all of that extra paperwork and file keeping is stored digitally instead and can be accessed much quicker and easier than in times passed.
Think of all the money you’ll save on paper costs! Not to mention all the trees you’ll be saving by going “virtual”! As every business owner knows, cutting costs in any way possible is extremely important. All those little costs for things like paper and such add up over time.
In many cases, it’s just necessity to have such a processing capability.
If you have any questions about virtual terminals or other business related queries, give us a call at RedFynn! We can talk you through the specifics of what you need to get started and what the benefits of virtual terminals are. Perhaps you have questions about credit card processing companies or loyalty programs…
We’ve got the answers you are seeking! We’re looking forward to speaking with you. Call us at (888) 510-9871
