Why Payment Integration Is Important For Retailers

What is payment integration? How does it help retailers and businesses? If you’re new to the world of payment integration, you’re in luck; this article is written just for you. We’ll provide you with information on how payment integrations work, and exactly why they’re so important to retailers and businesses the world over. Keep reading to learn why.

Never Heard Of It…

If you’re entirely new to payment integrations, they go something like this: normally, when you accept a credit card payment, your payment processing software processes the payment, and then it must be entered into your accounting software manually at some other point.

This can be time-consuming, create needless amounts of paperwork, and is prone to error or miscounts. With integrated payments, your POS software works together with your accounting software, meaning that every payment you process directly updates your books. How’s that for convenient?

By integrating the two systems, you’ll save time and thousands of dollars in accounting and labor fees to balance the books. Errors will be reduced as well, making tax time all the more simple and less stressful. Who can’t get behind that?

Reducing The Workload

Matching paper sales receipts and reports with the day’s transactions can be exhausting, and often prone to error, especially when you’re exhausted. After a long day in customer service, who wants to slave over sales reports to be sure all the numbers match up?

Of course, you can always have another manager complete the task, but you’re still costing the business money by having to pay someone with an accounting degree to work more hours to ensure everything is correct. Integrated payments make things easier by syncing payment processing and accounting…so you don’t have to.

Your team will be grateful for successful payment integration. It will help everyone leave on time, and we think all of us who’ve had the privilege of working in retail can appreciate the days where we could actually leave the store at the end of our shifts.

Reducing Error

Besides time and money, errors in financial reports carry one other impactful consequence; compliance. Tax errors can end up costing your business further time and money, and leave you in bad standing with the IRS. That’s a place no one wants to end up!

When your financial reporting is full of errors, you’ll likely have to pay someone to find and fix your mistakes. You could be held liable for reporting the wrong amount of income to the IRS, which will put your business at risk for fines or greater penalties.

The best POS software can help you integrate payments easily, reduce errors in both inventory and financial reports, and grant you access to detailed sales reports. The more you know, the better you can manage your business and reduce errors across all sectors.

Increased Security

Let’s not forget that making errors in your financial information can expose your business to outside threats. A manually managed system leaves room for vulnerability, exposing yours and your customers’ information exposed to possible threats.

Many modern POS systems operate on a cloud-based system, which synchronizes instantly and is more secure than a manual system could ever be. The ability to access your information from anywhere with an internet connection or business intranet software means you’re always aware of any changes, and able to locate errors quickly.

It’s safe to assume that a cloud-based POS system has better security than your average small business’ network. Many small businesses simply can’t bear the extra cost of upgrading their security, but with a POS system, they won’t have to.

Money Management Is No Joke

For a small business, even the slightest error in money management can be devastating. Your business most likely runs on a fixed budget, dependent on the accuracy of sales numbers and as few errors as possible.

Don’t leave something so essential to chance; or in the hands of human employees. This sounds strange, but truthfully, humans are prone to error. When there’s software out there specifically designed to perform a single task, it’s best to trust that software to do the job.

Getting Paid ASAP

An integrated payment system will help eliminate that gap between receiving a payment and it showing up in your account. When you use an integrated system, you’ll be paid as soon as the payment clears in the processing software!

The ability to move money quickly, or increase your cash flow, will help your business to flourish by freeing up cash sooner. That way, you can allocate monetary resources to problem areas much quicker, solve issues in less time, and give your business an overall sense of financial security.

Not to mention, the faster your payments processing, the easier it is to manage your expenses and get them paid. Falling behind on expenses like utilities or unpaid accounts is not good for a small business. Keep yourself paid on time using integrated payments, and never again worry about manually entering payments into your books.

Conclusion

We hope this article has provided you with the necessary information to help you better understand integrated payments. This system is incredibly advantageous for retailers and should be a consideration for any small business owner. The ability to receive your payments quicker, eliminate errors, and, of course, save time and money should be all you need to make the switch. Ditch your manual process for something better and more accurate.