Virtual Terminal app !!

Jay Dee

Hi,

I have a small business and I'm looking for a virtual terminal type of system/app to suit.
I will only process face to face credit cards.
Nothing more nothing less.

Ideally I'm looking for an app type set up to use on a tablet.
Trying to avoid monthly fees and if possible avoid the Card reader units, ( which also have a purchase price).

I would appreciate any information, or " from experience " suggestions..

Thanks

Jay.

jimmii

I use Syspay and SumUp. Syspay is cheaper for transactions >€25 and SumUp cheaper for transactions <€25! SumUp is good if you don't do many transactions as there is no monthly fee just a once off up front for the terminal and I think its only €79. A good few on here use SumUp there was a big thread about them not so long ago.

Jay Dee

Hi Jimmi,

Thanks for the info.
These readers are € 80.00 and € 199.00 as one off's.

I was ideally looking for an app type solution, where you entered the
card name, number expiry and ccv,
press " charge"
Authorization code given.
and the transaction was complete.

Any other thoughts

Thanks

Jay

jimmii

Paypal. Without a machine the rates are way higher because obviously the fraud risk is a good bit higher. Over the course of the year it will probably work out more expensive to not have a device than to have one.

Chip & Pin also comes across as a lot more professional if someone gives you their card and you start putting the numbers into a tablet one or two people might be a little wary.

Jay Dee

Hi Jimmii,

Thanks for the reply.

My business is seasonal,, March to October'ish.
Not a full year.
This is why I was trying to have it as cheap as possible.

From what you say, Sumup seems to be the best of what is available, but still with a card reader, which I do not need.
Although I do take your comments on "security" on board.

I'll keep looking for a Tablet only type, and if anything else comes to mind, please come back to me.

Thanks

Jay.

jimmii

There aren't many app card processors like that so you would probably have to go with a random company you would have no idea you can trust or use paypal and it cost quite a lot. I think SumUp is by far your best option you have a relatively big name and it gives you a device that customers are going to be more trusting of and you aren't having to pay a monthly fee.

Say you process 200 €10 payments a month from March to October using a deviceless option like Paypal it works out at €1104 (69c/transaction) if you went with SumUp it would cost €399 (20c/transactions+€79). Big difference in the short term let alone the long term!

Jay Dee

Hi Jimmii,

Thanks for the info.
I would be looking at 3 or 4 a week @ € 70.00 - € 90.00

I saw a taxi with an app that took credit cards.
It charged you .40 cent and the fare.
I thought it jut took the card info, Name, number expiry and ccv only.
There was no card reader.

This is where I got the idea from.
I did not know if it is solely for taxis or if it is adaptable,
or indeed if there ate similar variations available ??

Thanks

Jay.

jimmii

The driver probably gets charged a % rate and then the passenger pays an additional 40c fee. Work out how much it is going to cost the app only options will all be about the same. Typically you are looking at 3.4%+35c and then compared it to just paying 1.95% it won't take long to make up the €79 you pay for the C&P device.

4 €90 transactions a week would cost €13.41 & with SumUp €7.04 so you're looking at making up the difference by the end of June if you are starting in March.

Would this be for a B&B?

Jay Dee

Hi Jimmii.

I understand what you are saying.
There does not seem to be any way around it...

I was against the card reader/ C&P options as I did not want
another piece of equipment " that can go down/ have no signal/doesn't work "
From experience, I found that less is better.

I appreciate your time/effort.

It's Sumup by the look of it...

Thanks

Jay.

Jay Dee

Hi Jimmii,

Forgot - Would this be for a B&B?
Yes ...

Jay

jimmii

The device is pretty reliable only downside is it is pretty sensitive and works on battery. If you do find an app let me know as I would like that sort of thing too!

Jay Dee

Hi Jimmii,

Two things I did not want to hear
" it is pretty sensitive and works on battery "...........

I'll let you know if anything comes up


Thanks

Jay

jimmii

Lol! With your usage I would have thought you will get a long time out of them! All the app based systems have small terminals they're all quite small and a bit fiddly! Theyre not as sensitive as a tablet screen though.

Buttercake

Realex give a virtual terminal to process cards through a browser, can be use on tablets

Jay Dee

@ Buttercake.

Thanks for the info.
I know they do, but unfortunately they charge € 30.00 + per month fee.
I was hoping to avoid this.

Thanks for the response, all welcome.....

Thanks

Jay

Sam Mac

Stripe is another option. I use them without issue, along with PayPal. The only reason I still use PayPal is because the majority of my customers prefer to use them. PayPal are known to limit accounts without reason and ask for quite alot of private information from you. I have had this happen to me twice, and they kept my money for 180 days before releasing it to me. Stay away from them unless you absolutely have to use them.

http://www.stripe.com/ie

Buttercake

Jay Dee wrote: »

@ Buttercake.

Thanks for the info.
I know they do, but unfortunately they charge € 30.00 + per month fee.
I was hoping to avoid this.

Thanks for the response, all welcome.....

Thanks

Jay

Are you looking for a service for free?!

Jay Dee

Hi,

No, I do not expect to get this service for free.
I am looking for a Tablet based app or similar download, which will accept credit card payments.
This is all I need, no need for refunds, receipts, monthly analysis etc.
I do not want to pay a monthly fee, but I do expect to pay a transaction fee, on each transaction.
Sorry if I gave the impression I was expecting it for free!!


Thanks

Jay

jimmii

There just isn't anything exactly like what you are after you're going to have to compromise in some way.

Sam Mac

Jay Dee wrote: »

Hi,

No, I do not expect to get this service for free.
I am looking for a Tablet based app or similar download, which will accept credit card payments.
This is all I need, no need for refunds, receipts, monthly analysis etc.
I do not want to pay a monthly fee, but I do expect to pay a transaction fee, on each transaction.
Sorry if I gave the impression I was expecting it for free!!


Thanks

Jay

Stripe charges fees per transaction, nothing more. Use them I'd say.

jimmii

Sam Mac wrote: »

Stripe charges fees per transaction, nothing more. Use them I'd say.

Do they have an app where you can process payments via the app by entering the card details in? I keep on meaning to look into what they offer more but never have the time!

Jay Dee

@SeanMac,

That seems to be along the lines of what I was looking for .
Thanks for that.

Anybody using Stripe ??

Thanks

Jay

Sam Mac

Jay Dee wrote: »

@SeanMac,

That seems to be along the lines of what I was looking for .
Thanks for that.

Anybody using Stripe ??

Thanks

Jay

Yes, Me - on a daily basis. and it's Sam :cool:

Sam Mac

jimmii wrote: »

Do they have an app where you can process payments via the app by entering the card details in? I keep on meaning to look into what they offer more but never have the time!

They definitely have an app, don't know what it does though - have only used the website so far. You could easily just use the website on the tablet though.

And, if you have a website, you can add Stripe to your online stores payment methods.

jimmii

This screenshot bodes well! Might be exactly what we are looking for here!

jimmii

Jay Dee - stripe is exactly what you (and I!) were looking for! I have just tried it out its really nice and simple. You don't do it via app you can log in and do it via the mobile site. Sign up is nice and easy too which is good!

Damien360

jimmii wrote: »

Jay Dee - stripe is exactly what you (and I!) were looking for! I have just tried it out its really nice and simple. You don't do it via app you can log in and do it via the mobile site. Sign up is nice and easy too which is good!

How does it work with customer facing payments. Buddy is a plumber and has to chase people for cash constantly. A customer payment system through iOS that they would be comfortable entering their CC details into would be nice. Looked at the site but it offers a lot of apps and back end security but very little explaination of the front end system.

jimmii

Damien360 wrote: »

How does it work with customer facing payments. Buddy is a plumber and has to chase people for cash constantly. A customer payment system through iOS that they would be comfortable entering their CC details into would be nice. Looked at the site but it offers a lot of apps and back end security but very little explaination of the front end system.

Yeh it doesn't give much away beforehand! Basically from the dashboard you have when you sign up you click create payment and it just pops up with a screen to enter the card details and you click make payment it thats easy! You have to give up more info to be able to transfer money to your account but the whole sign up process is really quick and straight forward. I will only be using it for non face to face payments not sure how I would feel if someone processed a payment for me where I didn't have to enter my pin etc I might be a touch concerned! I think for your friends case SumUp may be a better option.

Jay Dee

Hi,

Thanks for the info, everyone.
Apologies to Sam Mac, Misread your name, and kept going with it..... Sorry

I was looking at Sumup, but now with Stripe showing up, it's research tine again...

Thanks

Jay

jimmii

Jay Dee wrote: »

Hi,

Thanks for the info, everyone.
Apologies to Sam Mac, Misread your name, and kept going with it..... Sorry

I was looking at Sumup, but now with Stripe showing up, it's research tine again...

Thanks

Jay

Its hard to really get an idea of how simple it is without signing up! At first glance I thought the site seemed like it was going to be insanely complicated but once you have your account set up its a super straight forward process. Even verifying your ID is a lot easier than normal all you do is hold your passport up to the webcam on your computer no faffing around scanning and emailing copies etc! I can't believe after looking for so long and it ended up being a couple of Irish guys who had the solution the whole time!

ir555

http://www.aibms.com/products-and-services/pogo/

€100 one off cost.. €10 per month and the fees on credit and debit card are competitive...

does not appear to require a merchant account but could be wrong on that one..

D

jimmii

ir555 wrote: »

http://www.aibms.com/products-and-services/pogo/

€100 one off cost.. €10 per month and the fees on credit and debit card are competitive...

does not appear to require a merchant account but could be wrong on that one..

D

Its an AIB merchant services product it requires a merchant account looked at it before. If you have a read of the thread you'll see OP has already written off SumUp which has a lower start up cost, no monthly fee and has a lower transaction fee so I am guessing Pogo might not be what they are after!

elastico

Anybody used retail merchant services, retailmerchantservices.ie

Quoting a rate of 1.4% credit card €35 per month for terminal and 18c. per debit transaction.

This rate seems very impressive when others are about 1% higher?

jimmii

elastico wrote: »

Anybody used retail merchant services, retailmerchantservices.ie

Quoting a rate of 1.4% credit card €35 per month for terminal and 18c. per debit transaction.

This rate seems very impressive when others are about 1% higher?

They would want to be a good bit lower charging €35 a month! They would need to offer some service as that looks a pretty poor deal.

elastico

jimmii wrote: »

They would want to be a good bit lower charging €35 a month! They would need to offer some service as that looks a pretty poor deal.

Its the 1.4% charge that caught my eye. If volume is high enough then the €35 is small change surely?

jimmii

elastico wrote: »

Its the 1.4% charge that caught my eye. If volume is high enough then the €35 is small change surely?

Its a good headline rate but at the volume necessary most companies would be more than happy to offer a vastly reduced rate than their list price. Most companies seem happy to be a little flexible as long as the volume is good someone posted not so long ago that they were getting 0.95%! That was with very high volume though I think.

LordNorbury

Jay Dee wrote: »

Hi Jimmi,

Thanks for the info.
These readers are € 80.00 and € 199.00 as one off's.

I was ideally looking for an app type solution, where you entered the
card name, number expiry and ccv,
press " charge"
Authorization code given.
and the transaction was complete.

Any other thoughts

Thanks

Jay

I have this set up on my mobile website, actually very easy to implement if you have done it before. You have to integrate with Realex though and you'll need a merchant services account with your bank.

jimmii

LordNorbury wrote: »

I have this set up on my mobile website, actually very easy to implement if you have done it before. You have to integrate with Realex though and you'll need a merchant services account with your bank.

What are the rates? Might be worth looking into stripe you can cut out the merchant account that way!

LordNorbury

jimmii wrote: »

What are the rates? Might be worth looking into stripe you can cut out the merchant account that way!

2.5% I think for Visa Credit & Mastercards and 12 cent or something like that for Visa Debit cards. It's great though, no arsing around with "the cheque is in the post" and "I'll catch you next week", it either authorises or declines the transaction immediately in real time and the funds land into your business bank account in 3 days time. Any of our staff out on the road now can pull up our mobile site on their smartphone, they just login, press one button, bang in the amount they want to authorise, hit a button, then they are brought to the Realex payments page, put in the card details and get a yes or a no back within seconds in relation to the successful charging of the card.

jimmii

2.5% is really high and 12c is very low! Debit card seems to be the card people use the vast majority of the time these days so that would be a good option! Shame you need a merchant account though. Sounds like the same process as stripe just more expensive! If you use a lot of credit cards you should look at sumup its 1.95% and again no merchant account needed!

LordNorbury

jimmii wrote: »

2.5% is really high and 12c is very low! Debit card seems to be the card people use the vast majority of the time these days so that would be a good option! Shame you need a merchant account though. Sounds like the same process as stripe just more expensive! If you use a lot of credit cards you should look at sumup its 1.95% and again no merchant account needed!

You have a realex account charge of around 35 Euro a month and a bank merchant charge of 50 Euro a month. These costs are easily covered once you have the turnover and are making money at it. The code to run this isn't that hard to knock together, there is a bit of encryption you have to set up when passing information to Realex and you need to know how that all hangs together.

If you have a client who will pay you 5% commission or something upwards of that, it is just a matter of pushing as much money as you can through your account. You can negotiate & haggle the 2.5% downwards when you have volume on the merchant account, etc...

jimmii

LordNorbury wrote: »

You have a realex account charge of around 35 Euro a month and a bank merchant charge of 50 Euro a month. These costs are easily covered once you have the turnover and are making money at it. The code to run this isn't that hard to knock together, there is a bit of encryption you have to set up when passing information to Realex and you need to know how that all hangs together.

If you have a client who will pay you 5% commission or something upwards of that, it is just a matter of pushing as much money as you can through your account. You can negotiate & haggle the 2.5% downwards when you have volume on the merchant account, etc...

If I was paying €85 a month before taking a payment I would be wanting a lot better than 2.5%! If it was 1% that would be good but when you can get €0 monthly and 1.95% they would want to be offering something else ssoecial service wise on top of that!

LordNorbury

jimmii wrote: »

If I was paying €85 a month before taking a payment I would be wanting a lot better than 2.5%! If it was 1% that would be good but when you can get €0 monthly and 1.95% they would want to be offering something else ssoecial service wise on top of that!

Well if you were making 3K a month through the website by taking payments and making a margin on the payment, or else by making profit on what you were taking payments for (assuming you were selling goods), then 80 Euro a month wouldn't be a problem at all, assuming all other considerations were equal (rent, etc) and could be easily covered with your 3K profit a month.

If I understand you correctly, you are not thinking of selling goods, buying them at X and selling them online for Y, your idea is to take payments online on behalf of other vendors/sellers and charge them a commission of a certain percent per transaction?

jimmii

LordNorbury wrote: »

Well if you were making 3K a month through the website by taking payments and making a margin on the payment, or else by making profit on what you were taking payments for (assuming you were selling goods), then 80 Euro a month wouldn't be a problem at all, assuming all other considerations were equal (rent, etc) and could be easily covered with your 3K profit a month.

If I understand you correctly, you are not thinking of selling goods, buying them at X and selling them online for Y, your idea is to take payments online on behalf of other vendors/sellers and charge them a commission of a certain percent per transaction?

No I'm regular retail I thought you were selling things on for commission! It just seems like an unnecessary cost there is no point paying that much if you don't have to. The OP was looking for a low cost card processor for occasional payments face to face we're moving a little off topic here now!

Silverbling

Hi I use sum up without the reader I just put in the customers phone number, they get a text and put their own credit card details in

LordNorbury

jimmii wrote: »

No I'm regular retail I thought you were selling things on for commission! It just seems like an unnecessary cost there is no point paying that much if you don't have to. The OP was looking for a low cost card processor for occasional payments face to face we're moving a little off topic here now!

You used to have to buy the hardware/handheld device from a payment processing company such as a bank but smartphone technology has done away with the need for that now. I'd say there are a few companies who do this now, where you just open account and trade away, I prefer having control of it myself so it runs off my own website in conjunction with Realex, horses for courses I suppose...

jimmii

LordNorbury wrote: »

You used to have to buy the hardware/handheld device from a payment processing company such as a bank but smartphone technology has done away with the need for that now. I'd say there are a few companies who do this now, where you just open account and trade away, I prefer having control of it myself so it runs off my own website in conjunction with Realex, horses for courses I suppose...

Yeh good to have that control I prefer the convenience of letting someone else take care of it! If you are handling it yourself is there much you have to do to be PCI compliant?

Silverbling

jimmii wrote: »

Yeh good to have that control I prefer the convenience of letting someone else take care of it! If you are handling it yourself is there much you have to do to be PCI compliant?

yes, jump through hoops! I gave up the monthly payment terminal and responsibility for my own pci. On my websites I have paypal and stripe, for face to face customers or over the phone I use the sum up text an invoice, a combination of the 3 works really well

jimmii

Silverbling wrote: »

yes, jump through hoops! I gave up the monthly payment terminal and responsibility for my own pci. On my websites I have paypal and stripe, for face to face customers or over the phone I use the sum up text an invoice, a combination of the 3 works really well

Yeh similar set up for me use Paypal and Stripe for non f2f and then SumUp and Syspay for f2f. Have you tried the SumUp device? Its a good addition to their service I am hoping they will make a new slightly larger slightly less sensitive one!

Silverbling

I don't like the sum up device and my customers are happy enough to key in their own details, AIB have a new one out called POGO that looks very interesting as it can take different currencies but it is €10 a month and so new I have not had any feedback but I will keep an eye on it

jimmii

Silverbling wrote: »

I don't like the sum up device and my customers are happy enough to key in their own details, AIB have a new one out called POGO that looks very interesting as it can take different currencies but it is €10 a month and so new I have not had any feedback but I will keep an eye on it

You need a merchant account with that and the rates are pretty high had a look into it myself. The response to the device for us is mostly amazed at how small it is! They can definitely improve it anyway the SysPay device is a lot better can't beat SumUp for low value transactions though! The text function doesn't work for me any more though it was one of the reasons I got it then about a week after the device arrived the option disapeared!