Ian: Welcometo the Business Coach Podcast, an advice-oriented series that tacklesthe hot issues and opportunities facing Canada’s small businesses. I’myour host, Ian Portsmouth, the Editor of PROFIT Magazine and we’vedeveloped this podcast in cooperation with BMO Bank of Montreal. Well, every company likes to get paid for their product or service ofcourse and the more promptly you are paid, the better. That’s whatmakes payment processing so important to your business. Now joining meto discuss the whys and the hows of the card-based payment tools thatare available to Canada’s small businesses is Brian Green, the SeniorVice President of North American Marketing and Gateways Services forMoneris Solutions Corporation. Brian, welcome to the Business Coach. Brian: Thanks so much for having me. Ian: So Brian, I know a lot of the retailers in our audience are familiar withvarious card-based payment tools available to them but why don’t yougive us a brief overview. Brian: Sure, I would be happy to Ian. AtMoneris Solutions, we are in the business of enabling the acceptance ofcredit, debit and gift-card privately-owned card payments for reallyany business. Although certainly the most traditional business toaccept cards are retailers and restaurants, increasingly businessesthat serve other businesses are also offering cards as a way to pay. Ian: Now, can you give us a sense of whatpercentage of businesses in these various categories, and I am thinkingspecifically of business-to-business situations are using card-basedpayment systems? Brian: Well, I can’t tell you an exactpercentage, there are so many different types of sub-categories thatfall into business-to-business. You know, it’s everything from theprinter to the gravel quarry. What I would tell you is thatbusiness-to-business is our fastest growing segment and with increasingspeed, these businesses are seeing how acceptance of payments speeds upthe way they get paid and provides a valuable service to theircustomers, I would say a service that is increasingly in demand bysmall business. They really want to see their vendors provide cardpayments as a way to pay for a number of reasons. Ian: So it makes it easier for the customer, itshortens your accounts receivable. Do you have any numbers on how muchfaster companies tend to get paid when they accept more direct forms ofpayments? Brian: Well a lot of companies do offercard-based payments because of the speed of getting paid, it is allabout getting cash flow into their business faster, it is a hugeadvantage over cheque-based payments let’s say which often require youto wait 30 to 90 days to receive your funds. By accepting credit cards,you better manage your cash flow gap between receiving funds fromcustomers and paying your suppliers. You also save money on eliminatingcollection service fees and write-offs and the numerous communicationssometimes you have to have with customers in order to get them to pay.Did you know that for every $1000 of sales, small businesses on averageloose $5 to collection agencies and $15 to write-offs? Certainly, thatis going to vary from business to business but that is a pretty goodsort of rule of thumb average. When you offer the option of credit cardpayments, you can clear a path to receivable faster and approve cashflow. Ian: What about the paper trail thattraditional invoice and cheque process generates? Do you preserve thatin the card-based payment process? And a secondary question to that is,is there any other additional data that this process allows you tocollect and analyze? Brian: Ian, also a great question. I think alot of small businesses don’t know about the functionality that theycan get with credit-card solutions. I think for a lot of us, asconsumers anyways, our experience is simply to see the data that endsup on a statement. But a small business person now has tools that areavailable to them at a very low-cost basis that delivers, you know,essentially almost a client management system for payments. MonarisSolutions has just such a product, we call it eSELECTplus and demos ofit are available on our website at www.moneris.com. And eSELECTplus isdesigned specifically for business-to-business and trained businessesare more consistent on time payments ffrom their customer plus fasterand more reliable access to their funds and real time online reporting.It is a web-base system so businesses don’t need to take packagesoftware and they won’t need assistance setting up the software. Theyjust log in through the web, log into eSELECTplus and they are up andrunning. It also allows for recurring payments. So if they are in, ifthey are providing let’s say steady service to their clients such as,let’s say those that are in premises management, lawn care or uniformservices, they can set up their customers on a regular billingarrangement and essentially notifying their customer of requirement topay, let’s say monthly or whatever frequency they serve their customerswith. Ian: Now speaking of lawn care, my lawn caresupplier still drops off an invoice in my mailbox and I take a littlewhile to get around to it and I pay it and there is a big delay therewhere as if they were allowing me to pay at the door, they would getpaid really quickly. You want to talk a little bit about mobile paymentservices? Brian: Oh indeed Ian, I am glad you mentionedthat because mobile payments are much more affordable and reliable nowthan they have never been. They are more reliable for two reasons, oneis, we all experience mobile phone users, the networks have a muchbroader reach now and are much more reliable. A mobile payment solutionis essentially just a payment served over the phone embedded in it.It’s designed to be a little bit smaller so it is, you are able tocarry it around. Onsite business-to-business services organizations areknocking on our door in large numbers looking for long-range mobileterminals. Essentially, it has all the functionalities of a point ofsale terminal but you can bring it to your customer and you can acceptany form of card-based payment with this device. It is easy to use,very easy to carry and durable. Ian: Now what fees are involved in card paymentsystems. Obviously there is a set up fee, it probably rangesdramatically depending on whether you are looking for somethingstationary versus mobile, but there is also the on-going fee. So whatcan a business expect to be paying here? Brian: Well there are all the fees componentsthat you mentioned, we have set up fees which will range in aneighborhood of let’s say a $100 to $150 depending on the complexitiesof the business and then there is also solution fees. So for example,our long-range wireless terminal costs $75 a month per device howeverthat does include air time, so there is no additional air time billedfor those devices. And then accepters of card-based payments will alsopay a merchant discount rate for their credit card payments which is-essentially a percentage of the amount of each transaction and thatcan range anywhere up to let’s say 3 or 4 percent depending on thenature of their business, how much financial risk is inherited in theirbusiness. At Moneris, we have people on the phone who are ready tospeak with any interested parties and provide them with a price. Thedebit transactions are charged a per-transaction fee which would belet’s say up to $0.15 per transaction. Ian: Brian that’s great information. Thanks for taking time out for the Business Coach. Brian: Ian thanks so much for the opportunity. Ian: Brian Green is Senior Vice President of North American Marketing and Gateway Services for Moneris Solutions. That’s it for another episode of the Business Coach Podcast. You candownload other installments in the series from BMO.com, profitguide.comor iTunes. And as always, I’d love to hear your feedback andsuggestions for future topics. Send them to feedback@bmo.com. Until next time, I am Ian Portsmouth, the Editor at PROFIT Magazine, wishing you continued success. END OF RECORDING