Payment on Website

I would like to begin accepting payments by letting clients go to my website and pay there by credit card and debit card. I'm pretty sure with paypal, etc. there is a coded link that can be set up on the website that will allow payment by credit card. How do you get set up to accept debit cards? Any suggestions on any of this would be appreciated!

Do you currently accept credit cards? If not, have you looked at Square? You can send an e-mail with a link for them to pay and also set up recurring invoices, which is useful for bookkeeping or payroll clients.

No, I have not been accepting credit cards. I do not collect payment until after client has reviewed tax return and e-file is finalized. I have a time and billing system and usually bill on the 1st and 15th of the month through the mail. I am just getting a few younger clients that would prefer to pay on-line, so wanted to look at setting something up that they could pay through. I have looked at square as well as paypal. I really don't want to have to e-mail client with an invoice or a link, as that would just be one more thing for me to do. If I had a place where they could just go to pay, that would work great!

As for your question with debit cards, if they have the Visa or MasterCard symbol, I do not think there is anything special you would need to do, once you have the link set up. I should imagine your first stop would be your website host. To be honest, I haven't done that yet and I am not sure I will. Communication between my website and Square is one more thing I would have to control.

My young clients paid me through zelle directly to my company's bank account. You only need to link your bank account with your email. It is easy and fast. I will receive notice immediately. There is no extra banking charge or credit card charge.

I use cash, check, Paypal or Zelle. I've considered cc but none of my clients have pushed for it.

Same here. I use PayPal and Zelle. I have noticed that a lot of banks are now offering the Zelle as a free service to their customers.

Take a look at bill.com or billergenie.com, depending on what accounting software you use.

I send out maybe FOUR paper invoices a year, and same number of checks--everyone pays me electronically. Clicking an e-mail button is a heck of a lot simpler than printing, folding, putting in envelope, and stamping said envelope.

Thanks all for the replies! My bank has mentioned Zelle, so I will definitely look into that. I tried to call PayPal a few times, but seems I wait on hold forever and eventually hang up. Really want to get more info there.

Cornerstone, I would love to be able to email my bills. However, a lot of my clients are older. Some don't even have email; the older ones that do seldom check it. I don't want to have to be sending part of my bills through email and part through USPS. Too hard to keep up with who needs what.

I do invoicing out of QuickBooks and use QuickBooks payments.

It allows me to email the invoice to the client and a "pay now" button is included in the email where they can then make a credit card payment. If they do it that way, the eventual payment will even be associated with the invoice in QB automatically.

We always used Square for emailing invoices, but Square doesn't have the option to just have a link for clients to independently submit a payment. We've switched to CPACharge and posted a link to our website (and include the link in our tax return wrap-up instructions), and a number of clients really liked it. The only issue we ran into was that it wouldn't accept cards when the client was out of the country.

I don't use QuickBooks so that would not work for me. Jesella, I think I looked at CPACharge at one point. Can clients also pay by debit card with that link? It seems that one had a monthly fee, which I did not like (if I am thinking about the same one).

I tried to call PayPal a few times, but seems I wait on hold forever and eventually hang up. Really want to get more info there.

I had an issue with a PayPal payment and use their voice line and basically gave up after a prolonged hold. Then I used the website to submit a payment contest and within a week it was resolved.

I don't use QuickBooks so that would not work for me. Jesella, I think I looked at CPACharge at one point. Can clients also pay by debit card with that link? It seems that one had a monthly fee, which I did not like (if I am thinking about the same one).

Yes, debit cards and ACH are both accepted, in addition to credit. CPACharge does have a monthly fee, but it was negligible. It seems like we paid for a year up front at $9/month or something. We may have had a discount code or something. Their website today says they'll waive a full year of monthly fees as a 'Black Friday' deal if you sign up in the next week.

CPACharge does have a monthly fee, but it was negligible. It seems like we paid for a year up front at $9/month or something. We may have had a discount code or something. Their website today says they'll waive a full year of monthly fees as a 'Black Friday' deal if you sign up in the next week.

It looks like CPACharge also has variable costs per transaction according to their website?

I pay somewhere around 3% of the DC/CC transaction for processing through QuickBooks payment system. I also offer e-check as a payment method and don't pay processing fees for that method, although it can take up to 7 business days for an e-check to deposit...

Is the PCI compliance included by CPACharge what's required to meet your regulatory obligations triggered by accepting payment through your website? Looks like CPACharge is probably the lower cost option if you have the volume.

We're paying a bit under 3% as well for debit/credit (2.76 average on our last statement). For ACH we pay a flat $2 per transaction, I believe, which is high for ACH but cheaper that debit/credit. I think the lag in depositing e-checks is standard, because it was up to a week with bill.com and is with CPACharge as well.

We're linking to CPACharge from our website, not collecting the information on our website, so I believe we're good from a PCI Compliance standpoint.

I need to really get busy on this! I think, with volume, CPACharge would work well. However, initially, with very few people using it, it would not be. Nice they are offering a special!

Now to decide what I want to pursue! Thank you everyone!

According to my bank, Zelle cannot be used on a business checking account. Are the ones of you that are using this linking it to a personal account?

Zelle is not what you're looking for. You need something like CPA Charge, Bill.com (they can handle receivables), Biller Genie, etc. Ideally, one that integrates with whatever accounting system you use.

I would like to begin accepting payments by letting clients go to my website and pay there by credit card and debit card. I'm pretty sure with paypal, etc. there is a coded link that can be set up on the website that will allow payment by credit card. How do you get set up to accept debit cards? Any suggestions on any of this would be appreciated!

Paypal will accept both credit and debit cards. First you have to set up an account with Paypal. You can include and customize a link to their portal from your website, but even directly customize and email invoice links to your clients. The latter I used mostly, sending the link directly from my Paypal account page which also serves as an database for payments and repeat client contacts. You can also cut and paste the link directly into your email (some clients had the Paypal email end up in spam, so they say!) No monthly fee, just the merchant cc fees.

Might as well mention this: in previous posts, maybe on TA, this topic has come up, and I recommended Punchey as a in-office swipe reader with no monthly fee. Beware this company (used to be a Boston startup, now in NY and customer service in the toilet.) Without authorization or advance notice they started charging monthly fees, complaints found on Yelp and Google.