Spenda 15 November - 7 min read
Selling online is an excellent way to grow your business as it allows customers to access your store 24/7. Setting up a well-designed online store for your customers is one part of this process, but you also need a reliable payment gateway so your customers can pay easily and securely. A payment gateway is an online application service provider that authorises credit card and other payments processing. Used by a range of businesses including e-commerce retailers, online businesses and bricks and mortar companies with an online store, there is a range of payment gateways available in Australia.
As we’ve seen throughout the COVID-19 restrictions in 2020, those businesses that can collect payments in several ways are best placed to pivot when there’s a need to change to operations quickly, which is why it’s important that businesses have the infrastructure to sell and accept payments online. In this article, we take a look at payment gateways and how these systems work.
The information passed between the merchant, customer and banks are processed by a payment gateway. When you initiate a transaction, the payment gateway collects and transfers the company’s details to the customer. Throughout this process, the payment gateway effectively acts as the “middleman” allowing businesses to get paid while ensuring information is collected and shared securely between all parties.
Generally, the payment journey on an online payment gateway follows nine steps:
Choosing a payment gateway
If you’re taking payments online, your business needs a secure and reliable online payment gateway. Australia is home to many technology companies that focus on payments alone. However, you can realise more value from the technology in your business by ensuring it integrates with other solutions. These solutions include alternative payment methods and financing options, stock management systems, shopping cart integrations and fraud detection.
How do you set up a payment gateway?
Understanding payment gateways and integration can feel daunting, but we’ve designed our platforms to be intuitive for your business and, most importantly, your customers. From getting set up on our platform with the assistance of our technical team, through to accepting payments smoothly every day, Spenda’s products make accepting and providing payments a breeze.
Chasing late invoice payments is a burden for any business, and still, more than half of B2B payments in Australia continue to be processed late, costing businesses, on average, $115 billion every year.
When you’re running a large operation with hundreds of invoices processed each month, the resources required to manage your payments grow quickly, especially when ageing receivables become a problem. While customers may not pay their invoices for various reasons, it happens too often, causing a range of challenges and increased risk.
Digital payments helped businesses get paid safely and efficiently throughout the COVID-19 lockdowns and associated restrictions. But as economies reopen many challenges still face businesses including supply chain disruptions, the ‘great resignation’, rising inputs such as fuel, and the expense of reopening. These business challenges make now an opportune time to build on the processes optimised throughout the pandemic, especially across B2B trade.
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