Credit Card Processing Washington DC

Whether you conduct business online, offline in Washington or both you will at some point consider accepting credit card payments from your customers. The decision to allow credit card payments may be a simple one; however, selecting a merchant account provider is complicated and can have a real impact on your business not to mention your bottom line. Unfortunately, not all merchant accounts are alike. You’ll soon learn that providers have different approaches to rates, fees, limits, not to mention customer service – and finding the right match for your business is critical. The remainder of this guide will break down the process and key considerations to enable you to find the right solution.

Without getting too detailed and caught up in all the possible exceptions, here’s what happens when a credit card is processed:

1. Merchant processes card with a point of sale unit or via software if online.

2. Data is transmitted (card info, sales amount) to the “acquiring” bank.

3. Acquiring bank requests authorization from the “card-issuing” bank.

4. If accepted, acquiring bank processes the transaction and sends approval back to the merchant.

5. The merchant reviews the transactions and transmits confirmation to acquiring bank for deposit.

6. Acquiring bank then requests and receives funds from the card-issuing bank.

7. Acquiring bank then deposits funds into the merchant’s account.

Needless to say, all parties involved in this process benefit (take a cut). Here are the primary fees to consider:

Set-up fee – one time fee for getting started

Transaction fee – merchant pays a fee for every transaction

Discount rate – flat % charged to merchant for every transaction

Chargeback rate – rate of monthly sales “held” in reserve to offset any fraudulent transactions

Chargeback fee – there is often a fee for charge-backs