Dear Valued Merchant,
As a business owner, you likely use technology — such as the telephone, fax machine or internet — every day to run your business. This issue of Payments Insider details how the latest technology — including portable point-of-sale systems, Address Verification Service, age verification systems and check management programs — can help reduce fraud, increase convenience for you and your customers and make running your business easier.
Read on to find out how to go green with Heartland by considering "greener" paper and printing options — at your business and home.
As always, if you have any questions about payments — including payments technology — please call your relationship manager, account manager or your Heartland servicing team at 888.963.3600. Feel free to also email us at Heartland@e-hps.com.
Best regards,
Heartland Payment Systems
In today’s information age, state-of-the-art technology can provide streamlined business solutions and increased convenience for you and your customers. Technology can decrease fraud and data compromise, increase sustainability, help your organization “be greener” — and do more. Here are some technologies that can help enhance your operations:
1. Protect your customers’ data with portable, handheld point-of-sale (POS) devices.
A hot trend overseas — and one gaining in popularity in the United States — is offering customers the ability to settle their bills at the point of service using portable, hand-held POS devices. Restaurant patrons can pay at the table, and retail shoppers can pay for merchandise anywhere within a store — always retaining control of their credit or debit cards. With products such as Heartland TablesideSM, your customers simply swipe and go — keeping their cards in-hand. This lowers the risks of identity theft and “skimming” — which occurs when card information is stolen — often by a cashier or server who takes cards from patrons during legitimate transactions. It can also decrease fraudulent charges customers dispute and you ultimately have to write off.
2. Reduce fraud on card-not-present transactions.
With card-not-present transactions — such as sales made over the phone or online — it’s difficult to confirm customer and cardholder identity. To reduce fraud, card security features such as the expiration date and three-digit code printed on the back of Visa®, MasterCard® and Discover® cards — as well as the four-digit number on the front of an American Express® card — can help you verify the buyer has the card in hand. These security features don’t prevent purchases made with a stolen card — but you can take an extra step to verify cardholder identify with Address Verification Service (AVS).
AVS is an optional — but recommended — security feature which functions through your terminal. AVS offers additional security verification by checking the customer’s address against the card’s billing address on file. AVS verifies the numeric portions of a cardholder’s billing address such as the house number and zip code — information a cardholder would know. Checking this information can decrease fraudulent charges and the associated chargebacks. You receive different status codes alerting you to discrepancies — for example, a partial match when the house number matches the address on file, but the zip code does not. This may require additional attention at the point-of-sale, but it’s worth it to ensure legitimate transactions.
3. Deposit checks without going to the bank.
Save yourself a trip to the bank — or multiple banks — with check management solutions that incorporate desktop check scanners. With programs such as Heartland Express FundsSM, you can scan checks at your convenience, access your money faster and track funds coming into your business. With real-time reporting, you can see which checks have been cleared for payment and retrieve check images anytime. You can also use an automated program — like Heartland Auto RecoverySM — to recover funds from returned checks. And, as a last resort, Heartland Stop LossSM allows a check that has gone through an automated recovery process to be filed directly with your prosecuting attorney — in select counties — for efficient handling.
4. Confirm a patron’s age in seconds.
The easiest way to avoid fines and penalties associated with selling or providing restricted goods and services is to use a POS-based age verification system or barcode reader. The barcode on a driver’s license contains information such as date of birth, license number and expiration date. You can quickly swipe a license or ID card through the system to verify age and determine if the license is valid — so you don’t unknowingly serve alcohol or sell restricted products such as cigarettes to minors.
A barcode scanner records customer information quickly by “reading” the license as it’s passed over the scanning device — much like the checkout procedure at any business. A POS-based age verification system or barcode reader also allows for special reporting — proof that a specific license was checked if authorities request this information later.
5. Use the internet to reduce transaction times and costs.
If you’re using a dial-up terminal to conduct credit and debit card transactions, you can decrease both transaction times and costs by establishing internet connectivity within your business. Installing a single internet connection for all of your POS devices decreases the amount of time it takes to process a transaction — so your customers spend less time waiting in line to make a purchase — and you eliminate the cost associated with multiple dial-up lines.
6. Change your phone service without interrupting your payments processing.
Thinking about switching your phone service? Digital and voice-over-internet protocol phone services offer attractive pricing options and the opportunity to eliminate your regular phone service. To avoid an interruption in service, be sure to contact Heartland before changing your carrier or switching your service.
7. Add e-commerce to your business and offer secure, online payments processing.
Perhaps you’re considering expanding your business to include e-commerce. Or, maybe you would like to accept payments over the web, via mail order or telephone order. If so, the technology you select should provide you and your customers with a secure payment process that’s easy to use. Heartland Connect, for example, is a “virtual terminal” that quickly processes credit and debit card transactions — as well as recurring billing — over the internet using any PC or laptop. And, authorizations are done quickly — usually within two to three seconds. Since all transactions are processed by Heartland on our proprietary technology platform, you pay no gateway fees and save money on every transaction. All card numbers are encrypted, and each transaction is protected by Heartland’s state-of-the-art security systems. You’ll get fast access to your funds, too — within one to two days.
Heartland WebConnect provides all of the features of Heartland Connect — with the added benefit of enabling customers to order directly from your website. It’s an easy, fully integrated, economical way to provide your customers with a secure, online payment experience. Heartland WebConnect’s user interface is simple to customize, so the payment screen matches your website’s look and feel. The redirection from your website to Heartland WebConnect is seamless — so your company’s branding remains intact.
8. Keep an eye on your business, even if you’re off-site.
In today’s digital age, you no longer need to wait for statements or other account information to arrive by mail. Many organizations — from banks to credit card companies to utilities — offer customers the ability to view account activity online, and Heartland is no exception. With Heartland’s Online Merchant Center, you can get the latest account updates — such as your last and recent deposit dates or daily batch activity and history — 24/7/365 from any computer. You’ll have the most up-to-date information all in one place — secure and password protected. Since your transaction data is archived on the site for as long as you process with Heartland, you reduce the need to store paper statements. And, by signing up for e-mail notifications instead of physical documents, you’ll reap the added benefit of being “greener” within your business.
Using these latest technologies can enhance your operations. You’ll benefit from added convenience, increased data security and the satisfaction of taking steps to “go green.”
Did you know you could save money on supplies while helping the environment? Consider “greener” paper and printing options — at your business and home.
- Print smarter. Whenever possible, print documents double-sided — and reuse the blank side of old documents for faxes, scrap paper or printing drafts.
- Make the most of your toner. To print with less toner, select “draft mode” — most likely listed under your computer’s “printing options.” Also, set your computer to automatically print in black and white — and be selective about printing in color.
- Use recycled and alternative paper. Look for chlorine-free paper that contains a high percentage of recycled content. Consider using a lighter paper stock or paper alternatives made from bamboo, hemp or organic cotton — and buy remanufactured toner and ink cartridges.
- Avoid “trashing” toner. Your office supply company likely has a recycling program for toner and ink cartridges. Find out about recycling options — and be sure to inquire about program incentives such as merchandise discounts.
- Make your own recycled “Post-it®” notes. Instead of throwing away your old paperwork, cut it into smaller, scrap paper pieces. Write notes on the unused side and use a piece of tape if necessary — just be sure the printed side does not include sensitive business or customer information.
