I do the books for a partnership who manufacture display cabinets and sell via mail order. They currently use Transax Merchant service but are being charged £41 per month even if no transactions go through. I thought this was a little on the high side and wondered if anyone had dealings with other companies and what they charged. I looked on the net and they all want your details and will call you back.
Our one through Streamline is around £18/month if I remember rightly. Have they been on the same contract for a long time? Sounds like it's time to change to a newer, cheaper contract!
One of my clients uses two card terminals at two different premises. One is rented by Streamline and transaction charges are paid to Streamline as well. The rental is £15.00 + VAT per month. Transaction charges for debit card payments are .31p per payment, credit card payments are charged at 1.960%. The other terminal is rented from Cardsave at £57.60 inc VAT per quarter and the transaction charges are paid to Streamline. Not sure about the charges for this as she hasn't received the first invoice yet, but would expect them to be about the same.
I'm sure there are other companies who do terminal rentals and I'm sure there will be others on here with experience of them.
Such companies look at card turnover and average transaction values and the nature of the business you are in when setting their charging structure so for new businesses they will work on forecasted usage that someone must have given them when they opened the account. Their overall costs also included 'risk' pricing (not only chances of the business going bump but will include potential chargebacks and very importantly 'cardholder not present' type transactions, with that element usually (but not always) within the % charge section. Streamline are one of the biggest companies providing such solutions but there are new companies bringing out products all the time with no set up or monthly fees but higher percentage fees - Its always worth shopping around for something more suitable to you and/or trying to re-negotiate the contract just as you would with any suppliers.
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
