Introducing A New Payment Method That Could Make Credit Cards Obsolete

Inside Contactless, a leading provider of advanced, open-standard contactless chip technologies, and First Data, a global leader in electronic commerce and payment processing services, today announced they have signed a three-year agreement to develop contactless payment stickers, which First Data will market as GO-Tag products. With this agreement, INSIDE will supply MicroPass payment sticker prelams exclusively to First Data-qualified card manufacturers for production.

The agreement helps leverage the core technology from INSIDE Contactless and First Data’s issuing and transaction processing power. GO-Tag products will be marketed by First Data to financial institutions, major merchants in the U.S., and other distribution channels in a variety of form factors.

First Data’s GO-Tag Solution represents a very important step into the future plastic cards and fobs, and offers a bridge to the future of mobile payments according to Barry McCarthy, general manager, Mobile Commerce and Point of Sale Solutions at First Data. And that their partnership with INSIDE Contactless enables them to offer consumers a great opportunity opportunity to turn just about any personal item, from a mobile phone to an employee ID badge, into a payment device.

“This agreement highlights the versatility of our MicroPass platform to support a variety of contactless payment applications and form factors, including stickers,” says Charles Walton, executive vice president of payments for INSIDE Contactless.

You might also want to consider updating your restaurant POS system to Contactless credit card acceptance in the near future, because their technology is becoming more and more common in the marketplace. Customer service is all about speed and the faster we can process transactions at the restaurant point of sale terminal the better our customer experience will reflect on the value of our services.

The author of this article is the VP of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants.com with over 20 years experience helping restaurants nationwide increase their efficiency and bottom-line profits using restaurant POS systems.

To learn on how our national POS network of restaurant point of sale specialists can help your business achieve greater success in these difficult economic times, visit POS-For-Restaurants.com.

Taking Charge Of Everything

In our world today, every cent counts so by adding them to your bottom line is also a big contribution. Are are some steps that will increase your profits, by boosting your sales, reducing debit card fees and expenses, and most of all block theft.

For businesses in the food service industry, running a restaurant point of sale system, this can greatly help you!

Take Checks

They are still widely used, especially among older customers. So if you’re still not accepting checks, start soon. There’s equipment that will scan the check as quickly as a credit card, check out and measure them against a nationwide database of bad check writers, transfers the money to your account electronically, and can guarantee that you’ll receive the funds within a couple of days. In addition, the cost is typically lower than for credit cards and could add 10-15 percent to sales—and possibly more if you have many senior customers.

Cards

If you do accept credit cards, you’re probably accepting Visa and MasterCard already. How about cards like Discover and American Express? Particularly, the latter accompanies larger transactions in general. You might have felt hesitated because of the fee, but reconsider—a 1% difference may not look worth it for you, 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 they know that your business is accepting all forms of credit cards.

Researching

Most merchants think their fees are 1.69% plus an additional $.19 because that’s their qualified rate on a tiered pricing program. But often fewer than 20 of 100 transactions receives low qualified rate and all the rest downgrade and cost one, two, or even three percent. Researching alternate programs that offer different interchange rates could end up saving more than you think.

Insist of Understanding Rather Than Having a Conflict

Neither you nor your bookkeeper would have to scratch the back of your heads over complex credit card statements that just doesn’t add up. There are several companies that have made far more than usual efforts to simply their reports. You should be able to come into terms with 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.

You or your bookkeeper shouldn’t have to scratch your heads over a complex credit card statement.

Using Card Validation Value and Address Verification System. They are highly effective fraud screens proven to reduce losses, and by using them the right way, you can obtain the lowest possible discount rate.

One more thing, avoid by being PCI compliant. Hackers can cause you mammoth of fines, and they can drive you out of business. Find time to read Visa’s report on noncompliant systems, so you don’t get caught napping.

How To Lessen 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 helps eliminate the chargebacks on cardholder nonauthorization. The state of being legally obliged and responsible for these chargebacks is shifted away back to the issuing card bank, and you qualify for the lowest discount rate available. Just by following this simple step, you can eliminate up to 80% of all chargebacks and increase your profits.

The author of this article is the VP of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants.com with over 20 years experience helping restaurants nationwide increase their efficiency and bottom-line profits with restaurant point of sale systems.

You may visit POS-For-Restaurants.com for further understanding of how our national network of restaurant point of sale professionals can help your business achieve greater success in these difficult economic times.

Credit card security rules required for restaurants

Hundreds of restaurants have been burdening the credit card industry for not fully protecting their customers’ credit card info from potential theft, with Visa, MasterCard and financial institutions that process electronic payment over the months are sending warning letters and holding seminars. Moves like this aims at forcing restaurants to take additional steps to guard credit card information.

According to companies that process card transactions, there are still tens of thousands of food service establishments that do not comply with the set of security rules of the credit card industry.  So every restaurant that takes plastic is required to follow a set of security regulations instituted by Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover.

Data recorded by Visa indicates that since January 2005, restaurants made up around 40 percent of incidents in which criminals gained unauthorized access to credit card information — provides the largest percentage of incidents for a merchant category.

Separately, there are reports from a Chicago-based data security auditor, AmbironTrustWave, for merchants that with the 62% security violations it witnessed during the prior 18 months are with the restaurant industry.

These violations includes various security lapses such as wireless networks that are poorly guarded — which easily enable thieves to access sensitive information just outside of the parking lot using a laptop — and lax systems that makes it a lot easier for a staff with criminal intention to steal credit card data.

Consumers often are unaware when their credit card information is in danger. Although, not all security breaches produced successful fraud, and mostly, merchants do not recognize these incidents unless there is a significant likelihood that a major fraud will take place or has already been identified. Furthermore, companies that issues credit cards usually don’t close a customer’s account except if fraud has taken place.

Restaurant owners may have a hard time with credit card security rules, since its regulations can be very difficult for small sized businesses. The National Restaurant Association trade group says that it hears from restaurant owners who thought they complied with rules, but found out their systems were not functioning properly and were penalized.

A fine amounting to more than $100,000 in some cases were given to restaurants that violated credit card industry rules by keeping credit card information. Visa fined merchants across all categories $4.6 million for security violations in 2006, an increase from the $3.4 million in fines the previous year.

Visa, believes a merchant group needs additional attention, held special security briefings with several hundred restaurants.

During the same time, companies that process credit card transactions are also turning up the heat on restaurants. These companiesthreatened those who do not follow security regulations that they will end their services.

Since most restaurants uses special software with features such as as tabulating bills, delivering orders to the kitchen and tracking reservations, credit card companies are especially worried because they cannot require software developers to follow their security rules, so they put on the pressure to restaurants. Visa maintains a list on its Web site of software programs that meet its requirements.

But software programmers that even with the best software, restaurants can still be in heaps of trouble if they disregard password protection or firewalls. For software companies, they say that it’s not up to them to let restaurant owners know what they must do to be in compliance with credit card rules.

The author of this article is the VP of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants.com with over 20 years experience helping restaurants nationwide increase their efficiency and bottom-line profits using restaurant POS systems.

You may visit POS-For-Restaurants.com for more information on how our national network of restaurant point of sale specialists can help your business achieve greater success in these difficult economic times.

Have you came across  blogs that tickles your attention beyond the first posting? These blogs are the types that get visited over and over; they get connected without even asking to be linked. What considers these blogs praise worthy for bookmark? Popular blogs do well for various reasons that is why it would be advantageous to know the things to avoid.

• Few uploaded articles.  Your blog site must be constantly updated to sustain people from visiting it because if you don’t they will lack the interest to check on it again even if they like what they see on your webpage.  The more you update it with relevant, interesting content, the more people will notice your blog.  What makes business blogging hard is the portion where you keep it updated and  upload fresh contents to get and keep the attention of your readers.
• Not reflecting on a good design. Your website’s appearance is being considered by most people in viewing its contents. With the creation of the Web 2.0 styles, people are becoming more familiar with clean and easy to navigate designs.  The design of your website must be well thought of. There are various ways on how to make your blog striking to users. SiteGrinder is an impressive way of making your site more interesting as it makes designing easy as if you are just putting something by utilizing Photoshop. The Sitegrinder plugin makes web design simple. The thing is if you pay attention to your blog’s design, it will reflect on the site and your readers will yearn for more.
• Not harnessing the benefit of RSS. Shockingly, some sites today do not even necessitate subscription to RSS (Really Simple Syndication). It simply signifies that readers can be informed of the new content whenever you post it and conveniently read it or a part of it.  It’s always a good practice to create a link to your RSS feed in a place where your readers can conveniently see it.
• Extremely extensive blog entries.  Interesting content does not of necessity means long content.  Chances are huge that you are able to take the attention of the readers longer. It is adequate to make your blogs about two to three paragraphs provided that they are of reasonable length.
• Not placing an “About” page. If your site occupies them, people would be curious to  know more about you. Placing an about page assures people that there’s a real person posting the articles.
• No Blog directories listing.  Bloggers who dedicate a few minutes of their time to create their profile and get themselves listed in blog directories get better hits than those who don’t.  This is a great place in discovering bloggers who belongs to your directed market.

The more admired your blog becomes, the more you’ll see what a great investment it is in promoting your business.

Tips for selecting the right Restaurant POS Software

There’s an increasing number of restaurant and hospitality sector that are turning towards business management software in order to run their businesses more efficiently.

It is very important for restaurants to select the the restaurant point of sale (POS) software suite that’s flexible and easy to use, so it can grow with their business.

While not all business owners are comfortable with restaurant pos technology it can be a usefull and vital to any hotel or restaurant wanting to trade immediately after installation, therefore bringing in more customers. A good restaurant point of sale software will saves money on training time, stock control, payroll and ultimately wages.

can be extremely competitive and by streamlining your business may only lead to one thing, failure or success. In the world of hospitality if you can’t keep up with your competitors you’ll slowly loose your customers through smoothly run establishments that uses POS systems.

Restaurants certainly has no exception from this and having a good hospitality software suite for your restaurant or hotel is vital in being successful.

While there may be times when external factors can make a difference to your success, using the right hospitality software can significantly increase your chances of success and give you the edge over your competitors.

And if you are still searching for that right software suit for your business, make sure you look for a restaurant software suite that is robust, upgradeable, a great value for the price you payed for, and most of all easy to use.

You also have to make sure that the hospitality software you purchase is adaptable to your needs. If the software is is rigid and allows for no flexibility it will be unable to adapt it to suit your business needs as your business grows causing problems in the long run.

A retail POS business software should be easy to install and use, intuitive and not require days of training; make sure it’s fully modular, as well as flexible and upgradeable so it can grow with your business. Additionally, you need to look for restaurant software that will run on your computer systems.

If you plan to use multiple till then you will need a good back up system, a reliable system that will replicate your master data file so you would never have to loose any important data in case of system crashes. It is also important to make sure that the restaurant POS you’re going to use allows multiple hardware configuration, as well as payroll integration and data export to sage or quick-books. Mostly, some restaurant owners will have at one time or another use Windows OS to run their computer, many of the professional scalable point of sales and hospitality software solutions are written specifically with windows in mind.

A final consideration is the requirement that the software will fast and user-friendly.

Mostly, restaurants are extremely busy especially during peak hours, so a POS system that workd quickly and doesn’t crashes easily would be the best choice!Since most good restaurants are always busy, especially during peak times, a POS system that will work quickly and not freeze or crash during constant use should be the one you purchase. A good stable piece of software may not be cheap, but it can really help you to ensure that your business runs smoothly allowing you to concentrate on other areas of your business.

One of the main priorities of any business establishment is support, make sure you have the option of telephone support or virtual network connection support like yahoo and msn messenger this will be an optional extra with any good POS software provider and worth its weight in gold if your systems go down and you are unable to trade.

Don’t forget that software developers know far more about the system than anyone. An overlooked point that many clients have regretted from my experience, make sure that whoever you purchase the software from can offer after- hours support should you need it, also a company in the same time zone is a very useful commodity.

With over 20 years experience in the industry of Point of Sale Systems, the author of this article is the Customer Relations Vice President at POS-For-Restaurants.com, an online information service that helps restaurants through out US by giving competitive bids for hardware, software or a complete restaurant point of sale system.

Pay them a visit at POS-For-Restaurants.com

Industrial blogs are now being carried out by many companies in the internet. The reasons for doing this are numerous. Acquiscence with web standards and validation by default are what almost every blogging platforms already have. On top of the default setting, it would be easier to formulate designs and implement changes. Blogs are not difficult to maintain as compared to manually updating each html file and uploading it on web hosting servers. You only have to have an internet connection and a web browser and you can log into the control panel of your blog anywhere you are in the world since all the programming has already been done inside the blogging platform. A unique software is not mandatory. You can upload photos and texts and configure this any way you want, it’s as effortless as that.

Apart from the ease in updating weblogs, they can also be designed any way that you want them to appear. A well design blog has every the contents falling in the correct places where you want them to be. The design of blogs are made in an instinctive way so that the readers could navigate through it without any difficulty. It’s too simple to make blogs suitable for search engine results. In practical terms, this ensures that your blog appears in the first pages of search engines when people find for terms related to your blog’s content.

A well built and well-designed weblog becomes more effective if promoted well. Advertising your business is the main reason why you write a blog. You may try to hook up with your fellow business bloggers when you visit their blog sites and make a authentic comment on the key points. Be sure in doing so it does not appear that you are spamming their site at your advantage. The aim is to build goodwill with these other blog writers. If you maintain great with them, you  will keep your link with your comment up.

Focusing on other marketing strategy such as driving inbound link to your blog sites would be beneficial. In order to position high on search engine results, this could be the solution. The sole point of concern is getting blogs with lgenuine page ranks to link back to you. Linkvana is one of the services that could take care of that dilemma for you. The Linkvana site works a charm. By saving a pool of websites and blogs with healthy page ranks (2 and above) that are related to your own blog, your blog’s ranking will increased significantly.

It is also just as important to install scripts that can monitor the progress of your blog in terms of the type of linkbacks and readerships you are getting. Equally important is the fact that you should only place contents in your blogs that are prevalent searches on the internet. The possibility of ranking high on search engine results is increased.

Blogs are prevailing tools that can give a humanizing factor to your trade. In times like this, some of the most popular business sites have blogs with content supplied by their CEOs. The benefits would be worth it in the end although it entails a lot of duty maintaining and updating it. Blogs are presently becoming an effective point of communication between businesses and their current and potential customers.

Being a bean counter is a wonderful profession which has increased in popularity in the last decade. Bookkeepers, our bean counters we are more affectionately called, are instrumental in small business owners understanding their businesses on a more frequent basis than once a year when they visit their accountants.

Bookkeeping is not a regulated industry, but it is gaining momentum. There are no minimum set prerequisites that need to be achieved to set your self up as a bookkeeper, so experience at this stage is sufficient. The issue with this is that many people find they can not get employment, without experience and people wont give them the chance to get experience. Fortunately with the increase in the profession, more courses are available which specialize in bookkeeping and also offer work placement opportunities.

Mentor programs are also a good way of getting vital information and skills to become a bookkeeper. It is important in anyones career to have good support and finding a mentor can give you an advantage. If it is suitable, someone at your first place of employment or your supervisor might be a good choice. A good mentor can assist you with your career choices, appropriate work experience, professional development and even with course material if you are continuing your bookkeeping studies whilst employed.

There are a number of courses on offer starting at certificate level to get the foundation knowledge required to be successful in bookkeeping. These courses often involve bookkeeping with an accounting package as well as learning about double entry bookkeeping and keeping manual records.

It is beneficial to undertake a bookkeeping course which is a recognized bookkeeping qualification; this is because of the foundation and training you will receive in fundamentals of bookkeeping and accounting principles. If you just attend a software course, you can learn how to use a software package, but it will not give you the foundation of knowledge required to actually understand why you do certain functions or what the ramifications are.

Most basic bookkeeping software packages have functions like spend money or receive money, but it does not explain why the accounts in your chart of accounts is effected. It only teaches you how to perform a transaction, not what the transaction does behind the scenes.

Ultimately if you want to become a successful bookkeeper who can undertake a full range of services for any employer, you will need to understand the fundamentals of bookkeeping and the best choice to have a long lasting career in the industry is to undertake study to increase your career prospects.

Even with the global financial crisis, some industries are still needed and even flourishing. Bookkeepers, or a bean counter as we are often referred to, are often in demand due to the growth over the last 20 years in small business.

20 Years ago, bookkeeping was not really a profession of its own. It was somewhere between being a secretary and working in an accounts department. As a profession it has taken off over the last two decades and in particular in Australia, with the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on July 1^st 2000, it has really increased in popularity. This is not only due to increasing small businesses, but also in the compliance work which was created with the introduction of GST.

The new tax on goods and services meant that businesses suddenly needed to understand their accounts on a quarterly, if not a monthly basis. Although this is a great business improvement from a management point of view, it did increase the small business owners paper load and compliance.

On a positive note however these changes have increased the demand for bookkeepers and improved the profile of the profession and it is an increasing career choice for people. Instead of being told you can be an accountant or a secretary, bookkeeping suddenly gets offered.

Bookkeeping is also becoming recognized as a quasi profession. It is becoming more regulated and there are a number of professional organizations available for bookkeepers to join. Historically this was not the case as it was only offered to accountants. Now though, bookkeepers can join membership based organizations and improve their professional bookkeeping profile. Additionally these professional organizations also offer professional development and additional education to improve the members skills.

There will always need to be bookkeepers in small and medium business. Many bookkeepers even start their own business endeavors and become their own boss by starting their own bookkeeping business. This is often popular with mothers who stop their careers for family commitments and only want to continue working pat time. Rather than finding an employer they fall into their own business by taking on a few small clients and gradually grow from there.

Additionally, if bookkeepers want to start their own business, it is possible to still be employed part time by an organization and start working for themselves on a part time basis until they build up a client base which is sufficient to sustain their financial commitments and not need an employer.

The SEO industry was born from the exploding commercial and social Internet development movement of the early ‘90s.  Just ten or so years ago, at the time of the ecommerce boom, businesses were only beginning to respond to the obvious need for developing a marketable website – what is now called the seo consultant. No one seemed to talk much about what made for the most effective web sites – outside of easy page navigation, cool design, and fast-loading pages. That’s because few seemed to fully comprehend the depth and grandiosity of the opportunities. And most new web development companies were more than busy enough just building web sites without needing to care much if those sites were actually performing for their clients.

Let’s review a brief Internet history.  As the ecommerce boom rippled out across the world, hundreds of thousands of businesses were literally online within days. Or maybe millions within months. Let’s just say it happened so quickly, nobody could keep track! (I’d be more than willing to revise this statement if anybody out there has a reputable source for precise data on the matter!)  Anyway, it’s safe to say that today, there are millions upon millions of web sites out there.  And today, if your business doesn’t yet have an website, you already know that you can barely exist outside the range of your own home community.

Impressive Industry Development

Back in 1994, the United States had less than a thousand web development companies. Now, there are more than 40,000, and the SEO consultant industry is widely anticipated to grow another whopping 20 per cent over the next two years.  This is encouraging news, despite recent speculation among governments, small and large businesses alike, all bracing for a dramatic recession.  Fueling the incredible growth in the industry, in large part, is the relatively quick development of smaller web development companies, and the continued expansion of medium and large business selling virtually any sort of service imaginable around the globe.  Yet another contributor in the success in the field is the obvious drop in the cost of hosting fees.

The past decade has seen an incredible transformation in communication, with the Internet driving e-commerce, led increasingly by more and more sophisticated web development. With the rise in e-commerce comes a natural curiosity about how to host web sites that can track visitor activity and report on marketing results in much the same way as more traditional forms of marketing. In addition, web site owners also want to increase numbers of random searchers easily targeting their web site.

When a potential visitor uses Google to find, let’s say, a big wrench, Bob’s Hardware wants to be the first company that comes up on the search engine results.  This is where a SEO expert comes into play.  SEO is the science of establishing, for any given website, a higher ranking in the search engine results than their competitors.

A web consulting firm can help small, medium, and big companies improve their search engine rankings, traffic, sales, and overall profit.  These firms can develop professionally customized SEO campaigns that guarantee results.

It’s probable that you will find more data by using Answers.co and/or by checking out Technorati.       

When you hear the words SEO Web Design, do your eyes glaze over in confusion? Feel like you missed an important training session where it was explained what professional search optimization is, how it works, and why it is an essential component to every modern, successful business plan? You’re far from alone. Mainstream marketing professionals are only just recently becoming versed in the benefits and need for a professional seo company. No need to fear. SEO experts have all the knowledge and expertise you need, and then some. You don’t have to become an SEO professional to reap the benefits of our website optimization service. We can do it all for you.

Legitimate organic search engine optimization can become your most powerful ally in these changing economic times when competition for ever-more-scarce time, energy and demands for better and better results creates a pressure-cooker business climate. Your plate is already more than full. Meetings, staff issues, the unexpected, almost daily crisis. It’s all in your day’s work. How can you possibly cram in the tasks and duties of another critical marketing specialty without going back to school for years and spending considerable time staying current with the changing trends and techniques that make SEO Consultants so so valuable to your business, and so integral to helping you reach your company’s future goals?

You don’t need to burden yourself endlessly with learning the tools of the SEO Consultant’s trade. You just need your own SEO Consultant. You need someone with a proven track record of success in helping businesses like yours reach web site traffic goals. You need to know that while you’re busy dealing with your core business, a professional SEO service has got your back and is effectively handling all the web marketing details that neither you, nor your team, have time for.

Seriously – if you aren’t already doing effective SEO work at your company, it’s probably because you:

Don’t have the necessary skills
Don’t want to waste money while you train someone on your staff to learn how to do SEO properly
Don’t have additional, qualified staff available to take on the hefty task of learning SEO
You haven’t fully examined the cost-effectiveness and facts of SEO to understand the reasons why you should be doing it

Don’t let the potential intimidation factor of SEO get in the way of your future success. You don’t have to understand all the ins and outs of what SEO pros specialize in. You just need to give yourself – and your business – an opportunity to examine the results that we are presently earning for some of our clients. Then, we’ll do the same for you. A professional economical SEO firm with experience in SEO isn’t easy to find. SEO experts are in this business and marketing specialty for the long haul. It is their core business, so they can focus on it, while you focus on yours. Their goal is your growth. Call for a free SEO consultation today.

It’s possible to search for additional data using Answers.co or using Hotbot.