Millions of transactions take place every day in retail and hospitality businesses across the world. In the days when cash was king, this was a simple process. A business advertised goods or services, a customer presented cash, the business handed over items, and the transaction was done.
Those days are mostly gone and electronic point of sales systems (EPOS or POS) have taken centre stage. While the majority of these systems still accept cash, more and more customers are switching to card payments.
Considering how quickly these changes have happened, it can be difficult to keep track. This blog is here to help. We’ll explain what POS payment means, the benefits of POS payments, and some of the tools your small business can use to take advantage of these advances.
What is POS payment methods?
POS payment methods are exactly what they sound like. The term refers to the numerous different ways that a POS system can process a payment. As a business owner, it’s important to offer as many payment options as possible as this will improve the customer experience.
Taking the Epos Now Complete Solution as an example, customers can pay with online payments, contactless, cash, debit cards, and credit cards. By offering a wide range of payment options, you’ll improve your customer service and encourage more business from new customers.
What is payment processing?
Payment processing is something you’ll hear a lot in relation to payment methods so it’s important to have an understanding of what it is. The seemingly magic process of payment processing is behind each and every POS transaction and without it, you wouldn’t be able to trade.
All card transactions, like surgeries, come with a bit of danger. Cards could be stolen or skimmed and customers could be using their card knowing they don’t the credit. Payment processing secures the transaction with a fool-safe process that ensures the transaction is safe.
When using a POS device the payment must be processed with the following steps:
- Authorisation - The customer inserts their chip card into the card machine and enter their pin. Their bank is alerted to the transaction and verifies the card as legitimate. This is done by checking the details on the card against the data the bank has.
- Authentication - Once the card details are verified, the bank then checks the transaction is authentic. The bank will then authorise the release of credit to the business’ merchant account.
- Settlement - At this point, the transaction concludes, the receipt printer will print a receipt, and the money is transferred into the merchant account. Depending on the system and banks involved, this can be instantaneous or take a day or two.
Now that you understand what payment processing is, it’s time to think about specific providers and what they can offer your business. We believe that Epos Now Payments offer the best service on the market.
Payments made easy
Epos Now Payments is a piece of POS software designed to meet the needs of businesses in both the retail and hospitality industries. It allows business owners to access everything they need from a single system and pay flat rates on card transactions.**
The goal of this programme is to make things easier for business owners. Epos Now Payments seamlessly integrates with your system without requiring a lengthy setup and orientation. The onboarding is as simple as validating your details with our security check.
Understanding how your business is doing on payments and other financial aspects is vitally important. The Payments integration provides you with real-time payment and point of sale transaction reports that give you a better understanding of your business, removes human error from your accounting, and saves you time.
Security is king here at Epos Now and we work diligently to ensure you and your customers’ data is secure. To this end, all data we receive is held in off-site secure servers that eliminate the risk of theft or loss. We also encrypt our cash registers to the latest industry standards to protect our customers.
