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CenPOS Will Conduct Live Demos of their Payment Solutions Platform at NADA 2012 in Las Vegas

CenPOS, a payment processing technology provider will be conducting live demonstrations of their CenPOS Payment Solutions Platform at the 2012 NADA Convention to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada February 3-6th. The demos will take place at the company’s booth (#2890) twice daily at 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.

CenPOS provides innovative payment solutions to dealerships, whether a single dealership or a large multi-brand, multi-location dealership group. CenPOS has created a dynamic payment processing solution to meet the unique challenges of a dealership’s payment ecosystem.
Dealership groups have problems creating payment uniformity throughout their group due to inefficient, and often times costly legacy payment systems. CenPOS solves this by creating standardization across the group and eliminating inefficiencies.

“We encourage members of the trade media and dealership managers to stop by the booth and let our representatives show you what the CenPOS intelligent platform can do for your dealership,” said Jorge Fernandez, President & CEO, CenPOS.

The CenPOS intelligent payment network provides essential solutions for every department in the dealership:

Auto Parts

CenPOS Mobile Solution: Empower drivers on the road with smartphones to collect payments with signatures. Because CenPOS is an intelligent platform, anyone can accept payments without worry of errors. ( They do need to enter the correct sale amount!) The CenPOS mobile platform lowers costs associated with risk, exposure to chargebacks, and converts historically manually entered transactions into card present swiped transactions.
Tokenize payment information for repeat customers: Creates and electronically stores credit authorization forms. Mitigates PCI burden of storing traditional paper authorization forms, which contain sensitive cardholder data that is typically not stored properly.
Real-time AVS: Prevent fraud through the use of real-time AVS to reject transactions based on merchant specific risk parameters.

Auto Service

Increased pin-based debit conversion: Limits the dealership’s exposure to chargebacks, so customers cannot charge back on the basis of “services not rendered” or “not to satisfaction”. There is a 14 day window for customer disputes with pin debit vs 180 days for signature debit.

CenPOS Mobile Solution: Allows Service Advisors to be more hands-on with customers, handle the payment transaction and reduce the need for cashiers.
Interchange optimization: Properly qualify business, corporate and purchasing cards which can make up a bulk of service transactions. CenPOS can provide a savings of 60-95 basis points depending on card type.

Auto Sales / Finance

Collect quality data: CenPOS captures customer data at the point of sale that salespeople typically do not document, thus ensuring compliance and quality data collection.
Streamline and simplify check acceptance process: CenPOS dynamically routes check transactions to the appropriate vendor depending on routing rules determined by the dealership. Reduce the risk of losing a claim on a guaranteed check by ensuring the cashier provides all of the information specified by the provider.

About CenPOS

http://www.cenpos.com/

“Creating efficiencies through payment innovation”

Founded in 2009, Miami-based CenPOS is a payment technology provider. CenPOS is committed to providing its customers and partners with innovative solutions for today’s rapidly evolving consumer payment choices.

CenPOS is an intelligent payment-processing network that streamlines the payment experience for businesses and consumers by using state-of-the-art technology to replace inefficient, outdated payment systems. The network reflects the core values that drive the experienced and innovative CenPOS team: Simplicity, Scalability, Security and a holistic approach to payment processing strategies.

CenPOS provides solutions to a range of organizations including but not limited to retail, card not present merchants, automotive dealers, professional services and academic institutions; special programs are also available for non-profits. Call us: (305) 630-7960, or toll free: (877) 630-7960.

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CenPOS Automotive sales: Christine Speedy direct (954)942-0483. Christine brought in the first CenPOS automotive client after the official launch, Rick Case Automotive Group, and continues to lead the company globally as  a top producer.

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I previously addressed salon solutions with multimerchant terminals. Is that still the best choice today? Let’s explore the pros and cons of various merchant account options for the salon environment, where most workers are independent contractors renting a chair or a ‘booth’.

Under new IRS reporting requirements, credit card receipts are now reported to the IRS by the credit card processor on schedule 1099k. * This indicates gross proceeds so your tax returns will need to match accordingly or it will result in an audit. This can also result in fines from the IRS over whether the other stylists are employees of the salon or independent contractors. Separate merchant accounts may help prove there are no employee relationships.

Credit card processing options:

1. Single terminal, one merchant account:

• PRO: Contractors can easily be commissioned on product sales since everything is tracked
• PRO: Salon owner always gets their rent on time since disbursements are net
• CON: software is typically required to track sales to an contractor
• CON: Contractors must wait to get paid
• CON: Contractor may not have transparent reports, thus leads to discontent and higher turnover.
• CON: See IRS reporting requirements

2. Single terminal, one merchant account, with CenPOS:

• PRO: Easily track sales by contractor; optionally assign sales to type, including service, product, tip
• PRO: Automatically qualifies transactions for lowest cost, reducing processing fees
• PRO: Add/remove users and contractors on demand
• PRO: contractors can see their sales and estimated proceeds remotely any time
• PRO: 7 years records stored
• PRO: ensures the operation PCI Compliant
• CON: See IRS reporting requirements
• CON: Contractors must wait to get paid

3. Contractors bring their own terminal:

• PRO: Contractors get their money sooner- may reduce churn.
• PRO: Simplified bookkeeping
• CON: How many phone lines will be needed?
• CON: Potential rent collection issues
• CON: Contractors not likely to push high profit product sales without commissions, which cannot be integrated. Customers will have 2 charges if they want to buy products.
• CON: If a contractor has a terminal that is not PCI Compliant, or there is a data breach, can the owner be held liable?
• CON: Space – a wall of terminals takes up space you may not have

4. Multi-merchant Terminal:

• PRO: A multimerchant terminal eliminates need for contractors to invest in hardware.
• PRO: Contractors get their money sooner- may reduce churn.
• PRO: Simplified bookkeeping
• PRO: Owner is in control of hardware PCI Compliance
• CON: How many phone lines will be needed?
• CON: Potential rent collection issues
• CON: Everytime a contractor leaves or comes on board, new programming has to be downloaded
• CON: the terminals start at $499 and new regulations may require future replacement to support NFC

5. CenPOS with multi-merchant:  (signature capture terminal or card reader plus a receipt printer.

• PRO: eliminates need for contractors to invest in hardware.
• PRO: It’s host based so owners and contractors never have to download terminal updates.
• PRO: Contractors get their money sooner- may reduce churn.
• PRO: Simplified bookkeeping;
• PRO: PCI DSS (data security) Compliance for all contractors mitigates risks
• PRO: Mitigate risk of IRS issues
• CON: Unless their next salon has CenPOS, the contractor will have to either buy equipment or sign up for a CenPOS account, an additional monthly fee to bear.
• CON: Each contractor will have a login. Reception can login all users at the start of day, but to switch between accounts, the password will need to be re-entered.

BEAUTY SALON MERCHANT RECOMMENDATION:

The salon must take into account several factors including turnover and overall sales volume to make the best choice. My recommendation is #5, CenPOS with multi-merchant. The overall benefits for the salon owner and the contractors far outweigh any potential annoyance on the  switching.

• Owner can remotely view via web overall sales for the entire operation, including all contractors.
• A sales incentive program can be implemented for products by using a drop down menu to enter sales into ‘buckets’ for tracking.
• No extra phone lines needed, just one high speed internet line.

• 

PIN DEBIT COMMENT:

Pin debit requires an encryption key unique to each processor. Since not all merchants are likely to use the same processor, pin debit should not be used for multi-merchant. The main impact is risk from customer disputes is 120 days vs 14 days. This may not be an issue in the salon environment. Under 2011 law, regulated debit fees are now the same for both pin and swipe so this is no longer an issue.

PRODUCT SALES COMMENT:

Regardless of how you choose to sell products, you’ll want to provide some incentive to involve contractors. The receptionist can be key, but when a stylist tells their customer to buy a product, it carries a lot more weight. A program can be as simple as a chart with each stylists name and then add a check or sticker for each time their customers bought something. The person with the most stickers gets a $100 gift card.

Other articles you might like:

IRS Link  Cash Intensive Businesses Audit Techniques Guide – Chapter 10, Beauty Salon Defined
Salon merchant account solutions SPECIAL DEAL (older)