Clouds and Subscription: Impact on Your Business Model

We all know the cloud has become one of the greatest disruptors in our business world today, with large enterprise technology companies reporting substantial profit increases driven by cloud operations, and smaller businesses feeling the impact of cloud computing on everything from supply chain management to pricing and sales models.  Business models, hardware sales, and workflows are all shifting considerably to the point where many existing rules of the tech business are no longer relevant. The trend is most noticeable in the shift in tech business models away from hardware and proprietary software sales models, and toward subscription-based revenue models, where users pay for the right to use technology, but don’t ever actually own it.

Use Sage 100 level 3 credit card processing when accepting credit card payments to significantly reduce processing fees.

It's easy to accept electronic payments, it's more challenging to reduce fees.  Our team at APS works diligently to get you the lowest credit card processing rates. We offer integrated Sage 100 Level 3 credit card processing in addition to our other level 3 ERP integrations. Our Sage 100 PCI-compliant security solutions feature point-to-point encryption (P2PE), tokenization, and our APSPAYS Vault, eliminating card data that typically would be stored on a local server. 

We also walk our merchants through the PCI Compliance Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ), eliminating the Non-PCI Compliance Fee most merchants pay every month. 

According to posts on the internet and information gleaned from our Channel Partner Network it would appear that on May 2^nd, 2018 Sage 100 versions 4.5 and prior, formerly MAS 90 and MAS 200, could no longer process credit cards through Paya, formerly, Sage Payment Solutions.  Most companies on these versions of Sage 100 mentioned they had a processing blackout for over 24 hours, some even longer.  It is currently unclear whether the companies using these versions have abruptly been forced to stop processing or whether they will be forced to stop processing as of June 30, 2018 the last day the card brands will allow transactions to flow on any TLS lower than TLS 1.2.   

There are a few main types of credit card processing rates with their own advantages and disadvantages. There are flat rates, tiered pricing rates, interchange plus rates, Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 processing rates. 

Read this article before switching merchant service providers.

Switching merchant services providers may seem like a hassle if you are switching to save money it’s worth it and your new provider should make it as painless as possible.  However, there a few important items to consider when making the switch.  Credit card processing is a commodity, companies usually switch for a few main reasons; to get better rates, enhanced integration, superior support and/or to ensure PCI compliance. 

New research from Kaspersky Lab shows that the average cost to small-to-medium sizes businesses in the United States and Canada has reached record highs.

The company found that data breaches now exceed $140,000 for SMBs (up 36% from 2017). Most of the cost comes from the need to quickly upgrade infrastructure and software, but there are hefty fines if the data that was compromised included credit card data. For enterprise companies, the costs are even greater, with the average data breach cost being $1.75 million on average.

Credit Card Processing PCI Compliance:  What can you do to protect cardholder data and meet security standards?

There is no easier way to become PCI Compliant than working with the experts at APS Payments.  Back in the old days, criminals would rob banks and trains full of cold hard cash.  These days, criminals try to steal credit and payment card data from exposed networks among other modern-day tactics that leave companies and card holders vulnerable.  They are constantly searching for victims.  Thankfully, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) was developed in accordance to credit card processing PCI Compliance standards with several layers of protection against theft. Here are 12 steps you can take to protect your cardholder data and facilitate the broad adoption of consistent data security measures on a global scale.

How to Make Down Payments or Split Payments with Acumatica

Processing a partial down payment or splitting a bill among several credit cards on an order may seem like a hassle if you don’t do it every day. If you’re in the business of making it convenient for your customers to do business with you, then you’ll most likely encounter one or both of these requests often.  In fact, one of the most popular questions our Acumatica integrated payments customers ask is, “How do I apply a down payment or a split payment to an Acumatica sales order?’  Click below to watch a video with step by step instructions for processing split payments and down payments.

Hidden PCI Compliance Fees:  Is your company at risk?

Have you noticed any PCI compliance fees on your merchant statements? Unexpected and hidden fees are a risk for any business processing credit cards and there are ways to eliminate or reduce them with a little extra diligence. If you’ve been processing credit cards for the last few months or years, the topic PCI compliance has probably surfaced. Credit card processing statements are already confusing and many merchants aren’t sure how to pass the grade with PCI compliance.

Our team works diligently to help keep our merchants’ data safe. For merchant processors, this means we need to ensure all our customers are following the PCI-DSS Regulations.

PCI compliance security standards are technical and operational requirements set by the PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) to protect cardholder data. The standards apply to all entities that store, process or transmit cardholder data – with guidance for software developers and manufacturers of applications and devices used in those transactions. The Council is responsible for managing the security standards, while compliance with the PCI set of standards is enforced by the founding members of the Council, American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc.