Taking the pain out of contactless payments for business owners

The way consumers choose to pay is evolving fast in Ireland, with cash being displaced by cards at a rapid rate. Card payments have grown by 24 per cent over the last five year with debit transactions doubling in the same period. This year alone debit card transactions have grown by 22 per cent with contactless payments rising by a startling 500 per cent year-on-year, with 1.9 million transactions a week.

On the other hand, payments can be a pain point for modern businesses. While they should be spending time on customer service and sales, business owners are dealing with cumbersome and time-consuming payment systems, such as cash lodgement to the bank and lots of reconciliation.

This leads to frustration for business owners and customers alike. After all, no customer wants to wait in line to pay at a restaurant while their food goes cold or while their lunch hour ticks away. Meanwhile, business owners want to spend less time on administration and more time on actually running the business.

Indeed, research carried out by Elavon Merchant Services has shown that while 87 per cent of business owners love running their own business, 65 per cent of them worry about their cash flow and 58 per cent spend more than 14 hours a week on administration.

They also have to meet the challenge presented by rising customer expectations when it comes to payment solutions. Technological advancements have left customers expecting a hassle-free and quick payment experience. Never before has it been so important to offer the best payment services to customers, whilst also simplifying the underlying business systems and processes.

Fortunately for those hard-pressed business owners, the next generation of electronic point of sales (ePOS) solution is now here. The new solution from talech, in association with Elavon, offers retailers and cafes/restaurants a combined ePOS and card payments system in one.

Savvy businesses can benefit from an integrated ePOS system that will allow them to manage all aspects of the business – from inventory to employee tracking, to payments and reporting – that is actionable to help manage the business.

With this system, not only can businesses accept card and cash payments they can also:

• Take orders
• Manage your inventory
• Track employee hours
• Run customer promotions
• See what’s selling and what’s not selling each day
• Access insightful reporting anytime and from anywhere

In addition, business owners will get peace of mind as the system is:

• Safe and secure
• Installed by an engineer
• Easy to set up
• Simple to use and train staff
• Backed up with 24/7 customer service

Independent art gallery and design shop, The Jam Art Factory, was one of the early retail adaptors of the talech solution. Established by brothers Mark and John Haybyrne in 2011, it showcases the best in Irish art and design, including ceramics, textiles, jewellery, street art and a whole lot more. Prior to talech, all reconciliation was manual and time consuming – matching sales to artists and payments.  With talech, all that changed. All stock is now uploaded onto the system and with a simple tap it is easy to see sales by an artist at any given time.

“Because we can access talech in the cloud – at home and at night – we can focus on customers during the day rather than trying to figure out the books”, says Mark Haybyrne. “Talech has changed what we do at the back end of our business an awful lot, especially how we pay artists and designers. Before this we were paying manually, using page after page of receipt books which took a lot of time. Talech means it’s all just there and you click on dates and times. It helps out brilliantly.”

The Lighthouse Café in the busy Cherrywood Business Park in South Dublin is another talech user with all orders and payments taken and processed via an iPad. "Simple to use, easy to update.  I can access the comprehensive reporting from anywhere,” says owner Michael Clarke.

Elavon also offers for businesses:

• Next day payment for all card transactions to help with cash flow
• The latest card machine technology with contactless capability helping to speed up payments at busy times
• Comprehensive online reporting and reconciliation tool
• 24/7 customer service from our team based in Arklow  

Stay ahead

Talech, in association with Elavon, enables businesses to benefit from new cloud-based technology at an affordable price with all the added benefits of card processing. This total ePOS solution gives businesses valuable insights gained from real time reporting and the ability to spot emerging trends in their business quickly and easily. This means business owners can be ready to avail of new opportunities in today’s fast-paced world.

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To learn more visit:

www.elavon.ie/payments
www.elavon.ie/talechrestaurant
www.elavon.ie/talechretail

Elavon Financial Services DAC, trading as Elavon Merchant Services, is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.