New Merchant Account Quick-Start Guide For Small Businesses

The process of getting a new merchant account can be pretty intimidating. There's a lot of information out there about merchant accounts and most people don't have time to wade through all of it before getting a new account. If you're that person, this tutorial is for you. If you're pressed for time, here's the vital information that you need to know before, during and after you get a new merchant account.

Merchant accounts are very important and we suggest investing the time to learn about them when possible. But for now - this tutorial will get you started down the right path.

Laying the Ground-work:

There's a lot of competition out there. Use it to your advantage.

The market for new merchant accounts is highly competitive and providers are willing to do whatever they can to get your business. Use this competition to your advantage and get quotes from at least three different providers. Most importantly, don't be afraid to let each provider know what their competitor is offering. Processing rates and fees aren't set in stone. Providers can move things around to try and best their competition. Let each provider know what the other guy is offering and you'll see rates and fees drop.

An online service called CardFellow is a great resource for getting quotes for a new merchant account. All you need to do is create a free account and providers will give you quotes right online. CardFellow will also help you select the best quote by working with you and the provider through their on-site Merchant Message Board. It's great service definitely worth checking out.

Not all contracts have a term.

Technically, all new merchant accounts have a contract - it's the contract term and the cancellation fee that you should watch out for. A contract term is the period in which if you cancel a merchant account, you will have to pay a cancellation fee. Month-to-month merchant accounts without a term can be cancelled at any time without a fee.

Don't disqualify a merchant account just because it has a contract term. Sometimes imposing a contract term will make it possible for a provider to lower rates and fees or lend a piece of equipment free of charge for the length of the term.

If you do end up considering a merchant account with a contract term, here are a couple of things you should be sure to ask about.

Term Auto-Renewal - Some merchant accounts have language in the contract that automatically renews the contract term if the account isn't cancelled within a certain timeframe. The cancellation period is usually about thirty day, but all accounts are different.
There's no guarantee - Merchant account contracts with or without a term don't guarantee that rates and fees will remain the same. Merchant account agreements have out-clauses that make it possible for providers to change rates and fees so long as they give notice of the changes. The notice of any changes will be posted on your monthly merchant account statement - that's why it's so important to read them every month.

You have to pay all rates and fees.

Even though discount and transaction fees account for the majority of credit card processing expense, you still have to pay all the other fees. Keep this in mind when you're comparing new merchant accounts. Providers know that discount and transaction fees are scrutinize the most by prospective providers and you may not find there's much of a difference in these fees between providers. However, fees like monthly minimums, statement fees, and other important but less visible fees may vary greatly. When you're looking for a new merchant account, compare all aspects and fees of the accounts, not just discount and transaction fees.

Equipment doesn't cost a fortune.

One of the biggest misconceptions about credit card processing is that credit card machines cost a fortune to purchase. That's just not the case. Very good terminals with thermal printers and other bells and whistles can be purchased new for $400 or less. Wireless terminals and other specialty equipment may be slightly more expensive, but it's still very reasonable if you find the right provider.

Before jumping into an expensive leasing agreement, shop around for different equipment prices and deals. Many providers even give terminals away with a new merchant account. Sure, you'll have to give it back if you close the account - but you didn't have to pay for it in the first place.

When you're applying for a new account:

There are no hidden fees.

I know it goes against all of the horror stories you've heard - believe it or not - merchant accounts don't have hidden fees. With that said, they do have hard to see, often overlooked fees. Merchant account providers can't charge you anything that you haven't agreed to in the merchant service agreement that you have to sign when opening a new account.

When you're opening a new merchant account, the provider will give you a couple documents to review. The first document is called the merchant service agreement and it's usually between fifteen and twenty-five pages long. The second document is called the schedule of fees and it's usually two or three pages long.

Be sure that you receive and review both of these documents very carefully before signing anything. It won't be the most interesting read that you've ever had, but it will be one of the most important. If you've unsure of anything in either document, ask the provider for a thorough explanation.

Give thought to your processing volume and average ticket.

When you're filling-out your new merchant account application, you'll have to declare a monthly processing volume and an average ticket. The term processing volume refers to the gross credit card sales in a monthly period and average ticket refers to the average dollar value of a credit card sale.

The underwriter at the processor uses these two figures to access the risk associate with your new account. Basically, that means they take these numbers pretty seriously. If you grossly exceed either of these figures once you begin processing, your account may be frozen or even closed.

Declaring processing volume and average ticket is especially difficult if you're starting a new business and you don't have prior processing history to look at. In this case, work with your provider to arrive upon realistic numbers and then pad those by 10 or 20 percent to be on the safe side. But again, every business is different so be sure to ask your representative for assistance if you're unsure.

Once you start accepting cards:

How much you're charged is determined by how you process transactions and the types of cards that you accept.

It's a bit of backward terminology, but when a credit card transaction charges at a higher rate - it's said to have downgraded. The way a transaction is processed and the type of card that's being processed are the two main reasons why transactions downgrade.

The main types of credit cards that downgrade are:

Business or corporate cards
Rewards credit cards
Government cards
Foreign cards

There's not much you can do to limit downgrades due to card type because card issuers have strict regulations that bar merchants from discriminating against cardholders because of the type of card that they're using. The good news is that you can limit downgrades that are a result of processing errors. Two common and easily corrected processing errors that cause downgrades are:

Failing to clear your credit card batch daily

Credit card batches must be sent to the processor within 24-hours or every transaction in the batch will downgrade. Failing to clear your batch every day can be a very costly mistake. For example, imagine that you've processed $8,000 worth of credit card transactions and you forget to clear batch. The next day you send the batch to the processor, but instead of being charged the qualified rate of 1.7%, the transactions downgrade to 2.5%. That's a difference of $64 just for not clearing your batch in the allotted time. Providers offer something called auto-batch close. As the name implies, this feature will automatically close credit card batches when there are transactions that need to be settled. There's no charge for this service and it will help you avoid expensive downgrades.

Punching-in transactions on a card-present merchant account

If your merchant account was issued under the assumption that you'll be processing transaction when the credit card and the customer are present, you were given what's called a card-present account. Card-present accounts have lower rates when you're swiping credit cards, but all transactions that are manually entered will automatically downgrade. This is a common problem for retail businesses that also process catalog of Internet orders through the same machine. All keyed-in transactions will downgrade to a higher rate. The solution to this problem is to open a card-not-present merchant account.

Chargebacks are serious business

A chargeback occurs when a cardholder contacts the issuer of their credit card to dispute a transaction. When this happens the merchant that made the charge will get a notice regarding the dispute. If and when a chargeback happens to you, it's very important to deal with them quickly. Merchants are given a limited amount of time to respond to a chargeback dispute. If the window of opportunity passes, the cardholder automatically wins the dispute.

Ignoring the fact that chargebacks are very costly, excessive chargebacks may result in your merchant account being terminated.

The best way to protect you business from chargebacks is to stop them before they happen. To do this, create a chargeback prevention plan and be sure to follow it for every transaction. When you do receive a chargeback notification, deal with it immediately.

Scrutinize your merchant account statements

For many businesses, credit card processing charges account for a significant portion of monthly operating expenses. This is reason enough to read your processing statements every month. Statements are confusing and it takes time and effort to learn to read properly - but you can't afford not to!

If you throw your processing statements in a pile each month - stop! Open the statement every month and scrutinize the charges. If you're not sure how to decipher the statement, call you're provider and ask them to explain everything in detail.

Don't forget your processing volume and average ticket

This can't be stressed enough. Grossly exceeding the processing volume of average ticket amount that you declared on your merchant account application can result in your account being close and your funds being frozen. If you need to, write these figures down and post them where you can see them when charging credit cards.

Merchantcouncil.org offers new merchant account information as well a wealth of additional unbiased merchant account information to help businesses make an informed choice about their processing solution.

READ MORE - New Merchant Account Quick-Start Guide For Small Businesses

Merchant Account Hold - What it Is, Why It's Done & How to Avoid It

An extremely important but seldom talked about topic regarding credit card processing is that of merchant account holds. One of the most financially devastating things that can happen to a business is for a processing bank to freeze its merchant account. If this happens to your merchant account, you won't be able to access the account and your funds from open authorizations will be held without deposit for an undisclosed period of time. This means that you can't accept new credit card transactions and the income from recently processed transactions will not be deposited for days, weeks or longer.

Merchant account holds are behind many of the horror stories that you may have read about online or heard from friends. Merchants are often portrayed as the victim in these stories, but there are two sides to every coin. In this article I'll discuss why processing banks hold merchant accounts, how you can avoid having this happen to you and what you can do if a hold is put on your account.

Suspected fraud is often the basis for a merchant service provider putting a hold on a merchant account. In a typical situation providers are the second line of defense against credit card fraud behind the merchant. In an atypical situation where someone opens a merchant account with the intention of using it to defraud cardholders, providers become the first line of defense against fraud.

Merchant processing fraud is a big problem that merchant service providers are obligated to take action against. Providers continually monitor all of their business clients for signs that a merchant account is being abused. If indications of fraudulent activity are detected, the offending merchant account will be held until an investigation can be conducted to determine what triggered the alarm. Such investigations result in the release of the merchant account hold or the termination of the offending account.

If an investigation ends with the termination of a merchant account, additional actions may follow depending on the reason for the account closure. In the case of deliberate misuse or fraud, the offending merchant may be added to the terminated merchant file (TMF), face fines or even have criminal charges brought against them. These fraud detection systems serve a vital purpose in the fight against fraud but they're not perfect.

Sometimes innocent merchants have their accounts flagged and held; the affects of which can prove devastating.

There are two basic reasons that cause a merchant service provider to apply a hold on a merchant account. I'll list them here and then discuss each in detail in the paragraphs that follow. The first reason is breaking terms agreed upon in the merchant service agreement. The second is suspicious processing behavior.

To open a merchant account a business must sign a merchant service agreement. This agreement outlines the rules, fees, and limitations in respect to processing volume and average ticket size for the merchant account. If a business breaks any of the provisions in their merchant service agreement, the processing bank can hold or even terminate their account. In the case of an account being held, it will be unusable for as long as it takes the processing bank to investigate the breach of the agreement and make a ruling on whether or not to reinstate or terminate the account.

The following is a list of common reasons why businesses are found in violation of their merchant service agreement. Study these reasons so you can avoid making the same mistakes yourself and having your merchant account held.

Excessive chargebacks - Chargebacks are taken very seriously by processing banks, and excessive chargebacks are a leading cause of merchant account holds and closures. A common misconception regarding chargebacks is that if they're won they don't count against you. That is simply not the case. Win or lose, a chargeback is a chargeback, and too many will lead to your merchant account being held, closed or worse.
The best defense against chargebacks starts with a good offense. Be proactive in stopping chargebacks before they occur and develop a chargeback prevention plan for your business.


Processing in excess of declared processing volume and average ticket - When you apply for a merchant account, you have to declare your business's average monthly processing volume as well as your average ticket. Many people forget about these numbers when they begin processing, but rest assured that processing banks don't. These two figures are far more than a formality. Processing in excess of your declared volume or average ticket can lead to your account being held or terminated.


Using a merchant account to accept payment for undisclosed goods or services - Merchant accounts aren't a free pass to accept credit card payments for whatever you're selling on a particular day. When you applied for your merchant account, you would have had to provide a basic description of the goods or services that you're selling. Using the account to accept payment for anything outside of this description would leave you in violation of you agreement and open to recourse by the processing bank.


Using a merchant account to accept payment for other businesses - Merchant accounts are issued to individuals or businesses for use by that party only. Using the account to accept payment for another person or business is strictly forbidden. Once discovered, this behavior will almost certainly lead to the account being terminated.




Suspicious processing behavior is another leading cause of merchant account holds. Holds for this reason are especially tough because they typically applied by the processing bank without notice to the merchant. Merchant usually realizes that their account has been held when they try to charge a credit card or when they stop seeing deposits from credit cards sales on their checking account ledger. Preventing holds due to suspicious processing activity means avoiding behavior that will trigger a processor's fraud alert. Being aware of a few general guidelines while you're processing transactions will help you to accomplish this.


Contact your processing bank's risk department, not your sales representative, prior running unusually large transactions.
Attempting to process a single large transaction beyond what is normal for your account will almost certainly lead to a hold.



Keep your processing bank informed on changes in your business that will affect your processing behavior.
For example, if a bait shop that has been selling only small bait and tackle items for years begins to sell deep sea fishing equipment, their average ticket that has been $15 may spike to $500 or more overnight. This drastic change may lead to their processing bank holding their merchant account until the reason for the ticket increase can be investigated.
Notifying your processing bank of changes in your processing behavior will allow them to adjust the ticket and volume figures for your account before there's an issue.


Don't process excessive card-not-present transactions with a card-present account.
Aside from the expense of mid and non-qualified surcharges that you would incur, keying-in too many transactions on a merchant account that was set up for mostly swiped transactions will lead to a fraud alert. If you're business has a decent amount of card-present and card-not-present transactions, opening multiple merchant accounts will help to avoid any fraud alerts and it will save you on processing expenses.

If your account does end up getting held by your processing bank, there's not too much that you can do except let the process run its course and focus on damage control. The process will need to conduct their investigation and this will take time. In extreme cases where the cause of the hold is not deliberate and a substantial amount of funds are being held, seeking legal council from an attorney that specializes in bankcard law would be an advisable step.

More information about a merchant account hold is available at MerchantCouncil to help you find the best merchant account

READ MORE - Merchant Account Hold - What it Is, Why It's Done & How to Avoid It

Why the Lack of a Merchant Account Could Be the Death of Your Business

You may not realize this, but the absence of a merchant account can seriously hurt your business. To understand why merchant accounts play such an important role in the achievement of online success, you have to understand what a merchant account is and what it offers.

First, let's talk about what a merchant account is. A merchant account is a "bank account" that provides you with the ability to accept credit cards from your customers. When you have a merchant account, your customer pays you with a credit card, the credit card information is then processed and the funds from successful credit card transactions are deposited into your merchant account. Once the funds from a credit card transaction are in your merchant account, you can transfer them from the merchant account into your checking account.

In today's technology-driven world, fewer and fewer people are paying with cash and the ability to pay with a credit card isn't just preferred by online customers, it's outright expected.As we all know, if you can't offer a customer what they want, they'll go elsewhere to get it. If your customer wants to pay with a credit card and you don't have a merchant account, they won't be happy. If you don't eventually get a merchant account, the question won't be whether or not you'll lose business, it will just be a question of exactly how much business you'll lose.

Once you realize how important a merchant account is, it's not hard to see that you need to get set up with one. However, you need to understand that not all merchant accounts are created equal and need to figure out which one is right for you.

When selling on eBay, the chances of a customer and the customer's credit card being in front of you at the time of the transaction are slim to none. Because of this, you need a "card not present" merchant account. This type of merchant account allows you to accept credit card payments without the actual credit card being present during the transaction.

When you sign up for a merchant account, make sure you deal with a merchant account provider experienced in working with online merchants and "card not present" merchant accounts. This will ensure that you get a merchant account tailored to your business and that you are working with a provider who understands your business's needs.

MY RECOMMENDATION....

First, if you don't have a paypal account, you should get one now. You can't be serious about starting an ebay business and not sign up for paypal. Most ebay buyers will want to use paypal.

Paypal works like a merchant account, but doesn't have all the features of a real merchant account. For instance, you can't process a customer's credit card unless they have a paypal account. Some ebay buyers will refuse to open a paypal account, but will want to pay you with their credit card directly.

For these buyers, you will need a traditional merchant account. This will allow you to take credit cards directly, even if your customer doesn't have a paypal account or refuses to get one. I process over 75% of my transactions on my personal merchant account.

Good Luck with your Business,

Brent Crouch is the owner of Jillian Entertainment and author of Why the Lack of a Merchant Account Could Be the Death of Your Business. He has spent the last 3 years teaching others how to buy and sell wholesale dvds and showing how he took his startup business to over 1.5 Million Dollars in revenue selling CDs and DVDs.

READ MORE - Why the Lack of a Merchant Account Could Be the Death of Your Business

Types of Credit Card Merchant Accounts

To accept credit card payments, you need to hire a merchant account service provider responsible for processing the credit card transactions. This service provider has to offer you a processing solution with features, rates, terms, service and incentives that are best suited to your business needs. A good place to start, prior to selecting your credit card processing solution, is to know the different types of merchant accounts available. Understanding the different merchant accounts and their features will enable you to understand the type of credit card processing solution you should go for.

Two-types of merchant accounts

They can be separated into two main categories:


Card-present merchant accounts
Card-not-present merchant accounts
Rates and fees applied to these accounts are determined on the basis of a simple rule:

Higher rates and fees are charged to merchants who accept credit card transactions that are considered to pose a higher risk.

Given this information, one can immediately deduce that rates charged on card-present merchant accounts are going to be generally lesser than those charged on card-not-present merchant accounts.

Card-present merchant account

Let us look at card-present merchant accounts a little further. The only way to qualify for a card-present transaction, which requires both the credit card and the customer to be physically present at point of sale, is to swipe the credit card in a terminal (a magnetic strip reader) that captures the data electronically. Hence, a card-present merchant account holder must invest in some form of hardware that enables the process of electronic data capture.

Card-present merchant accounts can be further sub-categorized into two, based on the selected processing solution:


Non-portable processing solution
Portable processing solution

Non-portable processing solution is often preferred at retail locations. Credit card processing hardware is connected to phone lines or modems. When credit cards are swiped through the hardware, data is captured and real-time authorization is obtained. The costs involved are usually less than those incurred by a portable processing solution.

Portable processing solution may or may not be able to obtain real-time authorization. For example with a wireless merchant account, you enjoy real-time authorization with a portable magnetic card reader. However, as you may guess, it involves higher hardware costs and monthly rates.

A store-and-forward merchant account also provides a portable processing solution. The hardware used is often a similar portable magnetic card reader too. However, it can store the credit card data at point of sale and the merchant can forward these transaction details for processing at a later time when a phone line is available. The rates charged on this account is less than those charged on a wireless merchant account. A store-and-forward merchant account is also more affordable than card-not-present merchant accounts as it involves less risk. It is suitable for business on the move with large sales volume and smaller ticket sales.

Card-not-present merchant account

Usually, the cheapest card-not-present merchant account is the mail order merchant account (MOTO). All you need is hardware to manually key in information of the customer's credit card.

With an internet merchant account, you can start to accept credit card transactions over the net. The credit card processing software required for this purpose is usually affordable and comes with security features. It is essential for an online business.

The last card-not-present merchant account employs a latest innovation and is referred to commonly as telephone merchant account. It is probably the easiest to use as it requires only your mobile phone or a telephone. It gives you portability and you can accept payments on the go. With no hardware cost involved, it is truly value for money. Every business is unique and you must recognize your specific business type and needs. Find the most suitable match in merchant account and hire a merchant account service provider which will not only help you make money but also to save money. Ensure that the increase in sales brought about by your credit card processing solution is greater than the costs incurred by investing in the solution.

Most Americans own at least one credit card. And of the seven in ten who do, an amazing 34 percent do not know the interest rate of the credit card they use most often. It is very easy to get a credit card. But it's very difficult to pay back your bills in full. Our expenses are increasing month after month. Whereas our income increases only year after year. So, it's very important for us to understand what credit card means to us today. Visit our Website to get all facts and Information about?Credit and Credit Card.

READ MORE - Types of Credit Card Merchant Accounts