Everybody likes cash. It’s green, it’s convenient, and it’s full of instant, no-frills guaranteed purchasing power. Yes, compared to the abstract world of cards and terminals, with their fees and fraud potential, cash has got to be the safer bet, right?
Not always. According to research, cash carries with it inherent risks, including theft from a member of staff, which 29% of organizations polled said they had experienced. Human error is also huge, which 37% of businesses reported that they have lost cash to. The risks of keeping a large amount of cash around should be weighed against any perceived risk that accepting credit cards for small business poses. For most every situation, if updated technology is in place, the merchant is protected from covering the costs of fraud. Try to find the same protections in the unfortunate even that you lose track of your cash…
Cash is also a pain even when it stays where you put it. Every single day, cash demands that the books be reconciled, with 30% of businesses reporting that they have to spend 2 hours or more counting it. Then you’ve also got to ensure that somebody can make it to the bank in time to keep your business’s cash flow going. It’s true that as long as you accept cash, there will be cash to count. Still, a move to accept and encourage other payment methods can dramatically shorten the time you spend each day counting cash to reconcile the books after your doors are closed. No matter how you look at it, managing that cash has an associated cost.
87% of customers, according to the survey, said that they think it’s important to have payment options. This is probably because the other 13% didn’t understand the question right. It is almost universally preferable to give your customers more payment options, not fewer. Customer perception of your business can cost you. It is difficult to quantify that cost, but seeing the benefit when you switch over is easy. If even the dingy donut place in that strip mall by the freeway is offering a variety of payment methods, what’s your excuse?
Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and the other most common forms of NFC (or near-field communication) payment options, has begun to encroach on cash’s previous position of dominance. Experts are anticipating that as adoption of NFC payments continues its upward trend, that it will be eclipsing cash in popularity within the next 5 years.
In summary, this post should show how it doesn’t quite add up to assume that accepting credit cards for small business carries added costs that cash, which doesn’t carry charges, allows you to avoid. Holding on too tightly to cash costs you too. And while you should probably hold off from putting up the “NO CASH” signs in your window, the ways you can save by accepting cards and other payments makes now the perfect time to contact Moolah.