Mobile detailing and online/card payments

[DonnyHacker]

I'm considering starting up my mobile detailing business and obviously I want to be able to take credit cards, debit, Apple Pay, etc. I've been researching various tools/providers for doing this such as Square, Pay Pal, etc. and was wondering what everyone on here is using? I was leaning towards Square, but I've seen a lot of complaints of them holding funds for one reason or another, same thing with Pay Pal. Do any of you just use a dedicated merchant account instead?

Regards,

Donny

[Billy Baldone]

URable and Stripe

[DonnyHacker]

Thanks, I had not heard of URable before, but I have heard of Stripe. They all seem to have their pros and cons, but I'm hearing/seeing a lot of negative about some of them. Do any of you use Quickbooks or anything like that for your businesses or have any recommendations for free or "lite" version software? Any sort of mobile apps or anything like that?

[sudsmobile]

I'm considering starting up my mobile detailing business and obviously I want to be able to take credit cards, debit, Apple Pay, etc. I've been researching various tools/providers for doing this such as Square, Pay Pal, etc. and was wondering what everyone on here is using? I was leaning towards Square, but I've seen a lot of complaints of them holding funds for one reason or another, same thing with Pay Pal. Do any of you just use a dedicated merchant account instead?

Regards,

Donny

Unless you're doing a ton of business and I mean like $15k a month, merchant services are not cost effective. Remember thar 1% savings is easily eaten up by the cost to rent the equipment.

Square all the way period. Those people complaining are doing something wrong. Chargebacks, scamming, violating square's tos, etc. Period. I processed $72k in 2018 and $96k in 2019 and I can count on zero hands how many issues I've had. In fact, square is probably the only company that I've ever done business with for three years or more that I've never contacted one time. Never. Not a phone call, chat, email, nothing. I charge my customer, deposit the money at the end of the day and 1-2 days later the money is in the bank. People always blame companies for their self inflicted problems.

[DonnyHacker]

Thank you, I appreciate it. I was wondering about that since most small vendors that I've worked with all used Square, so I figured it couldn't be all bad.

[Sharply Dressed]

I use Square. Never an issue although I don’t do a bunch of sales thru it as I’m part time. Fees hit you like any business but I like Square.

[sudsmobile]

I'll give you an anecdotal story about bofa merchant services. I used to run an online golf business, one of the first actually. I sold ping fully customized where you could completely configure it online and order it. Ping decides that they want to eliminate my business model so they say you can only sell online if you're a green grass facility. I end up placing my orders through a friend's account instead. Ping places an online order with me and then traces the order they get from my friend to figure out who's selling to me. They wait until right before Christmas and then they cut him off. I had about twenty orders placed with him, almost all Christmas gifts. He assures me they're shipping because ping doesn't tell him he's cut off. Long story less long ping doesn't fill my orders, I can't get any answers because they're closed over the holidays, customers start charging back. BofA panics and freezes my bank account. They make me post a $5000 bond to cover any future charge backs even though all customers were made whole immediately. They held that money for six months in addition to some other petty punitive measures they put in place against my business.

[Ed Abbondanzio]

Never used a merchant account but I've had good luck with Square. The app loads fast, and the fees are reasonable. They haven't withheld any funds from me before either.

[Billy Baldone]

URABLE invoices and tracks your customers. I’m a one person operation, So the $50 per month option is what I chose. It works with all payment options including Square. So, check them out for your invoicing needs. Their app is specific to mobile detailers

[Passpartu]

You'd better look for local providers so that there are fewer problems because if there are problems with transactions, you can always personally visit the office of this company. I personally did just that when I started my new small business

[Mike Hoekstra]

I have Clover. It has lesser fees than the normal over the counter card payments. I also got it worked with Fiserv to deposit directly to my business account the next day. It also accepts all major credit cards, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Tap to pay. I love it. I bought the Clover unit and base through the Apple Store because it's the cheapest there.

[sudsmobile]

I can't think of anything I'd rather do less than visit the office of my local mom and pop credit card processor. Oh wait, going to the dentist. I was wrong. But seriously what kind of problems were you envisioning when choosing this local provider? What problems did you think hey if this happens luckily I'll be able to march right down to their office and demand satisfaction. I just don't get it or the advice which is not good advice. Pick the one that suits you financially, not the one that on the very, very off chance you have a problem, you can drive over there versus picking up a phone like a normal human being. Five years, never called Square once, never had a need to.

[sudsmobile]

I have Clover. It has lesser fees than the normal over the counter card payments. I also got it worked with Fiserv to deposit directly to my business account the next day. It also accepts all major credit cards, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Tap to pay. I love it. I bought the Clover unit and base through the Apple Store because it's the cheapest there.

You must be doing a lot of volume because when I looked at Clover I determined that I'd have to do $15k in cc per month to make it cheaper than Square. I'm pretty close to that now but not enough over to switch yet.

[Passpartu]

You'd better look for local providers so that there are fewer problems because if there are problems with transactions, you can always personally visit the office of this company. I personally did just that when I started my new small business

Well, I think it is much more convenient and functional if you use payment systems of the type


Spam link removed -Mike Phillips :nomore:


with which you can increase the turnover of money in the company thanks to convenient transactions. This will be convenient if you immediately connect such a system to your stores, for example, where you sell products. Such payment systems are considered very secure and popular because they have 30 + bank partners

[sudsmobile]

Well, I think it is much more convenient and functional if you use payment systems of the type


Spam link removed -Mike Phillips :nomore:


with which you can increase the turnover of money in the company thanks to convenient transactions. This will be convenient if you immediately connect such a system to your stores, for example, where you sell products. Such payment systems are considered very secure and popular because they have 30 + bank partners

OK, even though the sentence you typed contains words that are easily recognizable as conventional words, they make absolutely zero sense when strung together in the manner that you have arranged them AND they don't answer the question about how a "local" credit card processor would be advantageous in the event of a problem. Because that's exactly what you said:


You'd better look for local providers so that there are fewer problems because if there are problems with transactions, you can always personally visit the office of this company.

Please explain the above and how it relates to what you originally said. I mean you realize that I use Square and I just transferred my money out of Square a few minutes ago and I will have it in my account tomorrow? Maybe you didn't realize that's how all credit card processing works. Many times the availability of you money is at the discretion of your bank, not the credit card processing company. For example, I carry an average daily balance on my business checking well into the five figures with a major bank I've been banking with for 30 years and when I deposit a customer's check, the money is not available to me until the next business day even though the checks I deposit are typically a small fraction of my balance and I've never had an issue with a customer's check not being honored. My employee will deposit the check I pay him with and he has immediate access to the money. Different banks, different policies.