Think Outside the Square

Since it came on the scene in 2009, Square has gained a lot of popularity with small business owners because it’s easy to use and really convenient. However, Square, Stripe, PayPal, and other payment aggregators are best suited for individuals or businesses with low or sporadic sales volume. As a franchise that has the support of an entire franchise system, your business model is better served by traditional payment processing. Payment processing can be a difficult and complex concept to explain, but bottom line, here are three reasons to use a merchant account vendor — such as CardConnect Pro and Worldpay — over payment aggregators.

Cost

This seems to be the most important reason, right? Payment aggregators, including Square, typically don’t have a monthly fee, and you pay a flat rate per swipe no matter what the interchange fee is. This means you’ll pay the same fee for swiping a Visa card as you would for swiping an American Express card. If you’re sales are low-volume, then this model might work for your business. However, higher sales volume businesses like yours will actually pay a lot more over time than they would with traditional card processors.

Worldpay and CardConnect Pro are “interchange-plus” programs, which means you pay interchange plus a small percentage of the amount you are swiping. This can actually save you money since interchange fluctuates by card type.

Plus, another reason our merchant processing vendors save you money is because of the programs PTN has negotiated with them:

• With Worldpay, you pay interchange plus $.10 + 10 pts per swipe. And there are no additional fees – PCI, batch, setup, monthly, etc.
• With CardConnectPro, you pay interchange plus fees, but you get a nice rebate on everything but interchange.

Integration

Plain and simple, Square does not integrate with the brands’ platforms. Through either direct integration or via authorize.net, both Worldpay and CardConnectPro can work with ServiceTitan, Mainstreet, Smartware, or BPro as well as Cleo once it launches.

Support

Like with any PTN vendor you use, our merchant processors have a designated contact for PTN and our members. You can always reach out to them about your account if you have a question or an issue. In addition to the vendor contact, you also have the PTN team. If you have a question about or run into an issue with a non-PTN vendor, there’s not a lot we can do. But we are always available to assist you, advocate on your behalf, or answer questions about PTN vendors.

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If you don’t believe us, let us test it out!

Send your franchisee relations coordinator at PTN a monthly billing statement for your current credit card processor, and we’ll show you how much money you can save!