Credit Card Processing Terminal

When preparing to accept credit cards for your business, you will find that a credit card processing terminal is a necessary piece of equipment.  You can buy a credit card processing terminal online by searching for it on the Internet, or buy one from a local distributor.

A credit card processing terminal is the machine that you see at many retail stores and restaurants.  Typically they look a machine with a lot of buttons, a display and a place to swipe a credit or debit card.  Often they plug into a phone line or the internet but you can also find some portable credit card processing terminals. 

In order to process a credit card or debit card charge, you must make sure that your credit card machine is connected with a merchant account which means that a company agrees to process credit cards and deposit money into your bank account for a certain percentage fee.  Ideally you want this percentage fee to be as small as possible since it cuts directly into your gross revenues.  When you set up a merchant account, they will typically give or rent you a credit card processing terminal, or if you already have one, they can help reprogram it to work with their systems.  To use one of these terminals, you swipe the credit or debit card and then often type in the last 4 digits of the card number to confirm.  Then, you type in the amount of the charge.  Usually two copies of the receipt are printed - sometimes they are identical and some times they are different. Usually your customer will sign one copy and may add an amount for tip.  Then, the customer keeps one copy of the receipt and you keep the other for your records. 

When processing the charge, your credit card terminal will call your merchant services account provider and check to make sure that the credit card is good and that it has available credit.  If it does not, the charge will come back as rejected and you should tell the customer this and not give them the product they are buying since you will not get paid for rejected cards.  They can either try again with the same card or choose to use a different credit card. 

Processing a debit card charge with your terminal is similar.  Usually your customer will need to enter their secret PIN number before the transaction can be processed.  The debit charge can also come back rejected which means that their account does not have enough money.  In most cases, it's not necessary for the customer to sign the receipt for a debit charge because they entered their PIN number.  For many merchants and restaurants, a debit charge is preferable because the fees charged by your processor may be substantially lower.  This is because, unlike a credit card they are not taking any risk that the customer won't pay their bill since the money is directly pulled out of their bank account when the purchase occurs. 

It can be exciting for a business to have a credit card processing terminal because it can really feel like you are a real business now.  Just remember that cash and checks are still preferable because you don't need to pay anyone a percentage for that income.