Every ambitious business has customer satisfaction and experience as a priority. One of the ways your business can enhance customer satisfaction is by having a simplified payment system. However, providing a simple interface that customers can glide through requires extensive effort in the backend for the best experience.
One of the ways businesses can improve customer experience and grow their bottom line is by using integrated payment solutions as the cornerstone of their systems. These systems help ease payment processes and keep your business running smoothly simultaneously. As a merchant passionate about products or services and making money, you must incorporate as many payment systems as possible, including credit cards.
Integrated systems effectively maintain that seamless user experience at checkout while maximising the payment options you can provide for your customers.
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What are Integrated Payment Systems?
Integrated payment systems are a way to connect various payment processing functions with other systems and software within the business. A merchant can easily accept payments from multiple options when the systems are compatible and consolidate critical data.
With integrated payments, manual accounting processes that are usually time-consuming work together seamlessly. By automating payment acceptance, merchants can accept credit payments directly using their existing software. It saves time, reduces human intervention, and eliminates data entry errors.
Integrated payment systems enhance existing features already available while adding additional capabilities. The solution also adds technology to the business, allowing the business to evolve its operation with time.
Benefits of Integrated Payment Systems
Integrated payment solutions are a technology that every business should jump on. Although simplistic, they can transform how you do business and make you more attractive to customers looking for seamless payment solutions. Some of the benefits that come with an integrated payment system include the following:
Streamlined operations
An integrated payment solution can automate most of those tedious and time-consuming accounting processes that you would typically have to do manually. You can bypass the process of entering and reconciling transaction data. It saves you time and minimises human error in data entry.
Using integrated payments, payment information is entered automatically and posted at the time of sale. The ledger displays the transaction history in real-time. As a result, accounting is made easier, more accurate and readily available when you need the data and insight.
Better customer service
The human attention span is growing shorter, and patience is closely following. Having your customers wait in line comes with a cost. Most customers would rather walk out of a store or abandon a cart than deal with a frustrating checkout process.
By reducing the time-consuming tasks that come with the manual completion of tasks, you can shorten the checkout process.
Alternatives like self-checkout and mobile checkout go a long way in busting the lines and moving everything along faster. Also, staff can focus on providing better one-on-one customer service if they’re not worried about the long lines and the accompanying pressure.
Integrated payments are a more customised solution
Integrated payment solutions are not one-size-fits-all. They can be customised to suit the business’s needs now and in the future. You can set up the solutions to work with other software like CRMs to provide insights on customer purchasing trends or even designed to track inventories, deliveries and sales.
Whatever your business goals are, you can tailor integrated payments to help you achieve those goals. The system can provide the information you need to improve any area of your operation, from accounting to marketing.
Improve your cash flow
Conventional payment systems are slower and can delay payment transfers to your merchant account. Human error can also redirect funds to the wrong accounts leading to losses. With an integrated payment system, the payments are automated and faster. Everything is handled automatically with no human intervention. No more wrong entries and rejected payments because of incorrect entries. You maximise sales and receive payments for services and products in record time.
Ensuring payment security
One thing about automated systems is how much attention they pay to safety. Manual accounting is not only tedious but also vulnerable to many security risks. Through IPS, merchants can process global transactions using a cloud-based payment gateway.
With cloud-based accounting, merchants can better secure their payment information than manual options. Also, merchants can access the data anywhere and anytime with an internet connection.
Also, integrated payment systems have to be compatible with various regulation standards. They go to extreme lengths to safeguard sensitive customer data from data breaches. On average, most integrated payment systems have multiple security levels to safeguard data and complete payments securely.
Cost-effective software
IPS software is a cost-effective solution for various reasons:
- It minimises human error when processing payments allowing merchants to spend less time fixing mistakes and focus on more productive tasks.
- IPS can complete many tasks at a time instead of the employees. The range of tasks completed can range from data entry to accounting services. Businesses can save money by hiring fewer employees to get the job done and remain efficient.
- An IPS can drive sales because it handles transactions more efficiently and smoothly. It has a higher satisfaction rating from the customers.
- Maintaining one software solution that links the business’s operations into one ecosystem is cheaper and more efficient than handling multiple programs in every department.
Simplified accounting
Manual accounting is a tedious and challenging task. It requires businesses to handle paper ledgers and invoices. Data entry mistakes are almost unavoidable. Even worse, those mistakes can go unnoticed. When noticed, they need money to fix them.
When using an IPS, merchants don’t have to do the accounting and data entry by relying on human labour. The payments are registered directly in the accounting software and applied to the general ledger.
Using an IPS is more reliable. Unlike paper records that are more vulnerable to theft, the IPS is more secure with backups in case you lose data.
How Does an Integrated Payment System Work?
An IPS’ purpose is to streamline and automate payment acceptance. The system eliminates traditional and tedious processes like storing and compiling transaction information.
IPS also does away with the need to connect written copies of transactions with digital invoices to match the payments to the correct invoices. An IPS can eliminate your need to keep manual ledgers and constantly update them as payments are made.
An IPS automatically processes and posts every payment to its associated invoice or sale. You no longer have to worry about manually entering the same payment information into different systems. Your payments go through as soon as they are processed in real-time. It’s simpler and more efficient.
How to Find a Reliable Integrated Payment System
Going for an integrated payment system is huge for any merchant – big and small. Now that you know the benefits and its potential in scaling your business, the choice to have an integrated payment system isn’t one you should take lightly.
You must find a reliable partner that provides you with an IPS with the right features and service for your business. Some of the features you should pay attention to when choosing a reliable integrated payment system are:
Security
Never compromise on the security features of an IPS system. The security of your customer’s financial and credit card data when processing payments is utterly essential. The IPS has to be PCI DSS compliant to ensure it has the right level of security. Some options offer additional layers of security, but PCI DSS compliance should be the bare minimum.
Also, ensure the selected solution can be paired with a PCI DSS-friendly cloud-based payment gateway.
Client reviews
Client reviews are a surefire way to tell what an IPS can do. The more positive reviews, the better, especially if the reviews are on a global scale. They contribute to the reputation of the integrated payment partner’s trustworthiness.
Simplicity of use
Just because the IPS is designed to handle complex payment and accounting processes doesn’t mean it should be complicated to use. The ultimate goal of integrated payment is to optimise and simplify business processes. Therefore, they should have a simple user interface and onboarding process that doesn’t take much time or resources.
Time in the market
Integrated payment solutions that have been in the market longer have had more time to troubleshoot and fix minor bugs and performance kinks. The partners have also built a reputation as reliable global partners within the integrated payments circles.
Custom solutions
You can make the most out of your IPS if it offers full customizability. You can better match it to your business needs. Seek partners that offer tailored solutions over fixed service packages.
Scalability
Merchants seriously thinking about an IPS are also serious about their business growth. Your integrated payment system must grow with you. Pay attention to partners with the resources to process large volumes of global credit card payments and other benefits you might need as your business grows.
Build Better Payment Experiences with Pay iO
As highlighted above, choosing the right integrated payment solutions partner is crucial for your business. The right partner needs to fit like a glove. At Pay iO, we have the experience and integrated payment features to help your business fight fraud, cut costs, and increase your cash flow.
We keep things simple, with rapid onboarding to help you start processing payments within 24 hours. Our robust open banking platform helps you integrate next-generation payments into any application. We not only grow with your business but with the financial trends as well.
