You might have noticed that recently I’ve been writing about the payment methods accepted by local stores and restaurants. This might seem like a different topic than accounting automation. But it’s actually very important to know about payment methods if you’re planning to create or use an app that automates accounting for a small business or even for a larger one. Here are some reasons why you should consider which payment methods a restaurant accepts.
The App Developer’s Perspective
If you’ve developed a new point-of-sale app that processes payments, you might be trying to convince local store owners and retailers to sign up for your app. Before you do that, though, you might want to know which payment methods they accept at their store. It might help you make the sale. But you could also lose the sale if your app doesn’t meet their needs.
For example, if a restaurant does not accept Apple Pay but your payment processing app can process Apple Pay transactions, then switching to your app could result in increased business for the restaurant. Many diners prefer to use Apple Pay and will search for restaurants that accept this payment method. And the same thing is true for Google Pay and Samsung Pay because some diners prefer to use those payment methods. Support for contactless payments is important as well.
On the other hand, if the restaurant currently accepts a payment method and your app doesn’t support that payment method, that’s a possible dealbreaker. For example, a Chinese tourist might be looking for restaurants that accept UnionPay if the tourist doesn’t have a US credit card. And a restaurant in Southern California might get many visits from Chinese tourists. So even if your payment processing app offers lower interchange fees or more convenience, if the restaurant will lose paying customers by switching to your app, the trade-off may not be worthwhile.
The Restaurant Owner’s Perspective
You can get free advertising by supporting additional payment methods, which is one reason why restaurants have acceptable payment method stickers on their storefront windows. This doesn’t just include additional traffic from customers who walk past your restaurant. There are also websites, such as this one, that post articles about the payment methods that restaurants accept.
So even if your current customers aren’t using Apple Pay or PayPal to pay for their meals, you might be able to pick up additional customers just by announcing that your restaurant supports these payment methods. Prospective customers might even be searching for this information on Google right now.
If you plan to accept additional payment methods, though, you’ll need to make sure that your payment processing software can handle them. And if you’re using other accounting automation apps, such as apps that calculate your sales taxes, they’ll need to be compatible with this payment processing software. Both of these factors are very important, which is why many accounting automation app developers talk about their integrations on their websites.
Accounting automation software can save you time and money, but it relies on connections with other payment processing apps, so it’s important to know which payment methods those apps support.
Conclusion
Many accounting automation apps don’t process payments directly, but they do rely on integrations with payment processing apps to obtain their data. Accounting automation apps also have integrations with point-of-sale terminal software and again, these apps collect data from the payment processing software on those devices. So an accounting automation app will be more useful if it has an integration with a payment processing app that supports a wide variety of payment methods.