Money from membership billing and payment collection

 04/04/2017

3 Things Membership-Based Businesses Can Do Today to Step Up Cash Flow

With all the different types of payment processors and ways to accept payments, it’s important to figure out what is right for your business. Here are three things you should know about payment processing to help secure your business and step up cash flow.

1) Set up automatic, recurring payments.

Setting up recurring, automated payments has many benefits for your business and members. First, members don’t have to remember to pay you. Payments deduct automatically from their savings accounts, checking accounts, debit cards, or credit cards of their choice for the amount and frequency you have agreed upon.

You also can provide members with an online payment portal to update profile information, payment information, and make payments on past-due accounts 24/7. You’ll receive real-time alerts of delinquent payments so you know as soon as a payment fails. And best of all, you can harness the power of Member Solutions full-service customer call center to personally follow up with declined and disputed charges on your behalf if you choose.

Capturing recurring payments is crucial to your business. You can be away on vacation or in the middle of a family emergency, and payments will continue to go through without you having to collect or to process them manually.You will have reliable month-to-month cash flow deposited directly in your bank account. Recurring payments also help guarantee future purchasing of your members. If you do not have a way to accept automated, recurring payments, there is no guarantee all of your members will return next week, month, or year, which puts your business at risk.

2) Take credit cards at your business.

If you do not currently accept credit cards at your business, you should start. It is important to give your customers payment choices. If you are only accepting cash or checks at your business, you are missing out on immediate cash flow.

Close to 50 percent of Americans carry $20 or less each day, including nine percent who don’t carry any cash at all. “Consumers prefer to pay with plastic, debit, or credit or some other type of mobile technology,” says Greg McBride, Chief Financial Analyst for Bankrate.com.

Those with credit cards tend to purchase more as well. Setting up a merchant account for your business is easy and less expensive than losing potential clients because you cannot take their money.

3) Take mobile payments.

Whether at the gym, at a park, or anywhere outside of your physical location, you’re in business when you are able to collect and process payments right on your phone. Instead of getting a payment application for your phone that is separate from your day-to-day payment processing business, you can harness the power of a merchant account, along with a mobile application, to accept payments anytime and anywhere.

With a merchant account, you can accept credit, debit, and ACH transactions through your front desk software, through a physical terminal at your location and through an application on your iPhone or Android device. All of the payments are processed through the same account so all of your financial reporting is in one place for all of your one-time payments. Through Constellation Payments, Member Solutions’ sister company, you can set up a merchant account easily to accept secure transactions 24/7 at your location.

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