Flexible payment systems
for small business

To accept credit card payments in a retail location – like a café or store – you need a merchant account and point-of-sale (POS) system with a card reader or a card machine.

What card machine you need should depend on where your want to serve your customers. That could be at the counter, on the move, over the phone or over your website. You should also consider what cards you want to accept.

Countertop card machines stay in one place, so they're perfect for shops and stores. A wireless card machine is handy for businesses where you need to move around, like restaurants. You can accept cards anywhere, using your mobile phone, through mobile payment processing apps like Elavon Mobile: this is 'pay as you go' and also great for on-the-go sales.

Modern systems, such as Elavon electronic points of sale (EPOS), include hardware and software that let you process both card and cash transactions.

Any business that wants to sell online will need a payment gateway as well as a merchant account. Virtual terminals are through a computer and are great for businesses taking orders over the phone or online. You don't even need a website – Virtual Terminal lets you generate a secure, specific payment URL, which you can then email or text to the customer to make the payment.

A merchant account is a type of bank account that allows you to accept electronic transactions such as debit and credit card payments. All businesses that want to accept electronic payments need a merchant account.

Be sure your card machine takes all kinds of cards like credit and debit. It should also work with contactless payments like Apple Pay and Google Pay. Some of the major card networks that businesses should accept include: Visa, Mastercard, Discover, JCB and American Express.

The best card reader for small business will offer a versatile and affordable way to take payments from customers. Whether you run a retail store, a restaurant, pop-up shop or any other type of small business, you’ll need a way to take card payments.

Mobile devices take all major payment types and offer reliable connectivity, so you have the flexibility to trade wherever your customers are. Other things to consider include faster payment options, security of payments and where your customers are.

Fees incurred for processing card payments can be roughly split into two types: fees incurred for each specific transaction and monthly or one-off costs charged for the payment services and hardware.

Compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) can help companies protect cardholder payment account data. PCI DSS compliance is an industry mandate. For that reason, you should consider PCI compliance one of your critical payment system features. The easiest course of action is to find a partner that handles this for you.

There are four levels of business classification that the PCI assigns based on the number of transactions a business makes.

Level 4: Fewer than 20,000 card transactions per year
Level 3: Between 20,000 to 1 million card transactions per year
Level 2: Between 1-6 million card transactions per year
Level 1: More than 6 million card transactions per year

When someone pays by card, a request gets sent to their card issuer by the payment processor to check the transaction and authorise it. They send a code back to the till so the payment can go through. It all costs money for the payment processor, and that gets passed on to you, the merchant, as a fee. You might see it shortened to ‘auth fees’.

A card scheme or card brand are those companies that provide the payment networks allowing for card payments. The most common are Visa and Mastercard, but you’ll also see American Express, Discover, JCB and China UnionPay. They also set the rules to keep the system running and safe.

Card issuers are the organisations that gives (or issues) debit or credit cards to cardholders. It’s often, but not always, a bank which manages the account. An example would be your current account debit card. Most card issuers are not card schemes, but some card schemes work as card issuers as well.

Not to be confused with a refund. If someone questions a payment on their card statement and then claims the money bank through the card-issuing bank or credit card company, that’s known as raising a ‘chargeback’. It’s often because they suspect fraud which will then trigger an investigation into whether it really was fraudulent and, if so, who should pay back the money as well as any fines. A refund is between you and your customer but, because it leaves you out of pocket, the two terms are often mixed up.

A 'batch' is the way lots of different payments get grouped together to make it easier to process and settle those payments. So, a restaurant might combine all the payments they take each day and submit the combined batch to us rather than sending us each individual payment.