How Can I Accept Payments Online?
It is important to understand what pay online means. It means different things to different people.
There are electronic invoices. This is when you email an invoice to a customer and they can click on the invoice and it will go to a web page and give the customer the option of paying that invoice by credit or debit card. Your merchant services provider, QuickBooks and/or PayPal include this function. That is easy to set up. These invoices can even be set up as recurring invoices.
Another method of paying online is to make a pay your bill web page on your site and install a PayPal payment button. These are easy to make and install on any webpage. This gives customers a way to pay you money.
Your business banker will love you if you sign up for ACH transfers. This gives you the ability to debit customer’s bank accounts electronically. Also many of the accounting software programs such as QuickBooks include this functionality.
How is an online payment portal different than email invoices, PayPal PayNow buttons, and ACH transfers?
Eventually people figure out that what their business actually needs is an online payment portal. This gives customers the ability to choose their user id and passcode, login, view previous invoices, view the amount due, view the past due amount if any, view their payment history (To see if all their payments have been credited) and to pay with a credit/debit/prepaid card or via direct debit, or PayPal, or print an invoice and find an address to mail a paper check if they choose.
Think about logging into your credit card account. That is a payment portal. There is additional functionality beyond the payment part, but that is a payment portal.
If your business is looking for help building an online payment portal and connecting it to your accounting software call. We would love to help.
