How Integrated Payments Can Make Your Life Way Easier

Money, man. It’s kind of important. 

Seriously. You can’t do much without it. You could try to get your staff to accept payment in bottle caps or pizza rolls, but odds are they won’t be able to pay their mortgages with that.

(PSA: We like money as much as anyone else, but we maintain that a pizza roll-based economy would be a happier place for everyone. However, we as a society are not there yet.)

So, what happens when a customer pays you? If you’re using Fullbay, money just sort of happens and ends up in your account. If you aren’t using Fullbay, and you’re just using your local credit union as a payment processor…well…you might be missing out. 

Yes, folks, it’s time for another shameless blog in which we discuss all the amazing stuff Fullbay and its integrated payments can do for you.

THE REAL COST OF USING YOUR BANK FOR PAYMENT PROCESSING

Lots of shops lean on their local credit union for payment processing. And while those banks shine in plenty of areas, being a modern payment processor isn’t usually one of them. Their smaller, often older systems just don’t play well with shop management software, which leaves you juggling checking account statements, merchant services statements, shop software records, and bookkeeping files.

We can hear the plaintive cry now: Fullbay, why has my bank betrayed me?

It’s probably not on purpose. You, friend, are just a victim in an ongoing battle of technological advancement (or lack thereof). Getting these systems to work together usually means your office team (or you) is stuck reconciling records across multiple platforms — a lot of extra paperwork and a lot of jumping between applications. Even if everything goes smoothly, you and/or your office staff are still losing time platform-hopping and dealing with data entry instead of customer calls.

Let’s not talk about the perils of human errors.

(Editor’s Note: Suz, we’re supposed to talk about that.)

Oh, we are? Okay. Well. You are already well aware that manually keying in a ton of stuff just opens the door to mistakes. I made (and had to correct) three typos in the last sentence alone; imagine what kind of errors you might get from typing in payment amounts, dates, invoice numbers, and customer information. And what if you don’t catch those errors? Mismatched books and canceled deposits are what await you — plus all the delays that come with them.

And not to pile on, but…older bank systems rarely update instantly. You won’t see payment failures, partial payments, or chargebacks in real time. Those pop up after the fact. Fun, right? This, in turn, leads to the three traditional nemeses of the heavy-duty shop: delayed invoicing, lost time, and slower cash flow.

THE SOLVE: FULLBAY!

This wouldn’t be a shameless article if we didn’t tell you how Fullbay solved those problems, right?

Let’s say you set up shop with Fullbay. Here’s how its integrated payments saves the day:

• Duplicate work is significantly reduced because Fullbay automatically syncs with supported processors like QuickBooksⓇ.
• Fullbay auto-populates data fields for credit cards (number, address, invoice value) and ACH (account and routing number, along with address and invoice value) — no need for you to invite error by typing in numbers over and over again.
• Fullbay shows you immediate payment confirmation. Failures, partials, and chargebacks show up when they happen, so you’re instantly in the know.

BANK-BASED PAYMENT TERMINALS CAN CLASH WITH MOBILE REPAIR

Not all terminals are created equal. Lots of them, in fact, present issues when out on the road…which is not a good thing for the mobile tech trying to get paid.

(Before we go any further, let’s clarify something: Yes, the major banks have solid terminals and mobile options. They’re ahead of the game in that regard. Most of the shops we’ve worked with, though, were doing business with local credit unions, which can be…well…inconsistent when it comes to technical capabilities.)

What happens when a tech can’t collect payment on-site? Everything else slows down. “I’ll invoice it when I get back to the shop” turns into “oh, I have a stack of invoices; I’ll get to them tomorrow,” which turns into “Oh…maybe next week I’ll get on those.”

You get the idea. The invoices languish. The accounts receivable balloon. Suddenly there’s no money. 

THE SOLVE: FULLBAY! 

You can bring Fullbay just about anywhere on a smartphone or WiFi-equipped tablet. Helping a driver stranded in the middle of the Mojave? Your mobile tech can still take payment. Up in the northern wastes of Alaska? Yep, your mobile tech can still take payment. They may be cold, but they can get paid.

And when payment is taken sooner, jobs close out faster. The cash hits your account that much quicker, and you know what you can do with that money? Run the heater. 

WANT TO STORE CUSTOMER PAYMENT INFORMATION? YOU’RE OUT OF LUCK

Here’s a big issue heavy-duty repair shops can run into: your bank doesn’t save payment methods. Preauthorized work? Too bad. You still have to type in all that customer information. Yes, even if it’s for recurring maintenance. 

If every transaction requires you to re-enter card and customer details, well…that’s time you’ve got to take out of your day for each transaction. 

THE SOLVE: FULLBAY! (AGAIN!)

Are you tired of hearing about all the ways Fullbay can improve your operation?

(If so, you probably shouldn’t be on our blog…just sayin’.)

Fullbay securely stores customer information and cards in the cloud. This means fewer required steps during the checkout period, and faster checkouts overall. 

HOW ELSE CAN FULLBAY HELP ME WITH PAYMENT PROCESSING?

Fullbay’s integrated payments can help you cut way, way down on administrative time and errors, but maybe you’re curious about what other options are out there. Maybe you want a payment processor that does even more?

We’d like to direct you to Fullbay Payments, which includes all the perks we just talked about and can help you with the following larger issues:  

CARDHOLDER NOT PRESENT? MORE PAPERWORK FOR YOU!

Far too many shops deal with this problem: they’ve got trucks in the shop, but the actual owner — and credit card holder — is three states away and not easy to track down. The driver may be able to authorize and sign for the work, but sometimes that becomes a problem. And then there’s the question of whether the cardholder is actually who they claim to be.

Shops have tried various tactics to get around this over the years; we even heard of a shop owner who sent out Docusign agreements so work could get started.  

THE SOLVE: YOU GUESSED IT…FULLBAY PAYMENTS!

If you’re using Fullbay Payments and the cardholder is not present, our Quick Charge feature allows you to collect any documents and supporting evidence you need for card-not-present transactions in an email link. We call it The Quick Charge Packet. 

(By the way, you can put together a Quick Charge Packet for any kind of transaction. We’ve just found that folks are very concerned about card-not-present situations, so we’re zeroing in on those.) 

You’ll send out an email to the cardholder in question. “Hey Aragorn, Boromir’s Independent Shop wants you to complete this payment. Here’s the URL to my authorization form and my refund/return/cancellation policy.” The cardholder can click the link and open the packet to review these documents; once they have, there are line items in the email for them to check off indicating that they agree with these policies. 

You can also ask the cardholder to upload pictures of their IDs to prove their identity. Once the packet is signed and the photos are uploaded, then the cardholder is allowed to begin the payment process. 

Does this sound like a lot of work? Yeah. Is it still less work than chasing down an absent cardholder? Definitely. And does it help protect your shop from fraud? Oh gosh, yes. And by the way, the contents of that packet are stored permanently with that method of payment — one and done! 

The contents of the Quick Charge Packet, by the way, are exactly what you need to fight chargebacks. Speaking of which, let’s get into those. 

GOT A CHARGEBACK? WITH BANKS, YOU’RE OFTEN ON YOUR OWN

It happens to the best of us: a chargeback arrives. Maybe it’s due to an innocent mistake: something got entered incorrectly. Or maybe you’re a victim of fraud. Either way, it has happened and you need to deal with it.

When you’re dealing with a bank, you need to collect a lot of evidence to fight a chargeback. This generally involves a lot of downloading, compiling, and exporting estimates, authorization forms, and invoices. That experience, quite frankly, already sucks, and if your bank has an older, clunkier system running…well, good luck. Not to mention they might not know what they’re looking at. 

THE SOLVE: FULLBAY PAYMENTS! 

If you use Fullbay Payments, everything we just listed above is already on the app. You can export the evidence by grabbing your initial estimate and authorization, the completed SO, and the invoice, all of which are easy to snag. Then you follow the directions of the disputing party’s financial platform to upload them. Bam! Done.  

You also have the full force of the Fullbay Payments Support Team, who we’re told are kind of like The Avengers, but better-looking. They can guide you through the chargeback process and make sure you have all the documents you need to fight back. 

Chargebacks suck. But when you use Fullbay Payments, you’ll have people on your side to help you fight back. 

READY TO MAKE THE SWITCH?

Want to get paid faster? Switch to Fullbay. That’s it, that’s the article.

The repair work your shop does is incredibly important. A quick, accurate way to take payments is what gives your shop the ability to keep doing that work. If you’re typing in things over and over again, you’re losing time and prone to making mistakes. If you’re using Fullbay, you don’t really have to worry about anything ever again.

Okay, you probably will still need to worry about some things. But Fullbay takes a lot of the busywork out of the payment process. It also helps you get paid faster. And if you go up a step and turn to Fullbay Payments, you can accept alternative payment options like Google Pay and Buy Now Pay Later, all while being protected from the bad actors of the world. 

What’s not to love?!Want to learn more about Fullbay Payments? We’ve got you covered. Interested in seeing what else Fullbay can do for you? Give us a holler.