Is your catering company processing at a B2B or B2C level?
Since catering companies provide food that would mean they should be processing their credit card transactions the same way as coffee shops, right?
Well…
It is not dependent on the type of product the catering company is providing, but rather who they are providing services to. Many catering companies are serving businesses, therefore their payment transactions are with other businesses rather than with direct consumers, like in the case of coffee shops.
If this is true, it means your catering business should be processing payments at a different level since you are providing services to businesses, therefore, operating with B2B transactions. Being able to process credit cards at a B2B level means lowering fees and saving money.
When a company accepts a credit card payment from a business, they receive significantly more information, such as the product/service ID and description, freight amount, etc., while business to consumer (B2C) transactions typically only collect basic information, such as the credit card number, expiration date, billing address, and zip code. Since B2B transactions, also referred to as Level III payment processing, collect more information it reduces the risk of fraudulent activity, therefore it decreases the number of associated fees.
By processing your credit cards at the correct level, it can significantly change the number of fees that accompany your credit card transactions. For catering companies processing at a B2C level, they are often paying unnecessary fees if they qualify for B2B payment processing.
Enhance your customer experience
Catering companies processing at the correct level will also enhance the customer experience through automated and direct transactions. Instead of requesting paper or written information for transactions, it opens the capacity to process payments online. This makes it not only easier for the catering company, but significantly improves the customer’s interactions with the business.
Besides, what catering company enjoys the continuous struggle of trying to read difficult handwriting only to get the credit card information incorrect causing a fiasco of delays?
Use only one merchant account (yes, only one!)
Streamlining your payment processing with an efficient and comprehensive system further reduces costs by saving time and resources needed to collect, organize, and process transactions.
For example, when a catering company has a single merchant account for all their platforms, it simplifies their responsibility for storing and tracking all the information since it is already in one place. This means all point of sale locations, such as a restaurant, mobile stations, food trucks etc., are using a single merchant account making management simple and reliable. In addition, oftentimes the single merchant account has the ability to integrate directly with accounting programs to maximize efficiency.
Case Study: D'Amico Catering
Evolve Payment saved D’Amico Catering over $100,000 per year by reducing unnecessary fees and costs!
D’Amico Catering is a Minneapolis and St. Paul-based catering company that has been operating for over 25 years orchestrating more than 70,000 events. One of D’Amico’s primary customers are businesses, such as companies hosting corporate events or celebrations.
Once Evolve Payment reviewed D’Amico Catering’s payment processing, we noticed that D’Amico Catering qualified for Level III payment processing since they were servicing business to business (B2B) transactions.
Evolve Systems assisted D’Amico with transitioning to the correct payment processing that eliminated costly fees which ultimately saved D’Amico $100,000 per year!
In addition, the new process simplified D’Amico’s method of accepting payments which saved their team 4 hours per week which was previously spent on collecting payments.
Evolve Payment offers merchant processing services that enhance business operations while saving a significant amount of money! If you are a catering company, or any other business that processes credit cards, get in touch with our team to find out the added fees our services can eliminate.