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.

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