What is the best way to accept electronic payments?

[slappy]

For a small community preschool, is there a cost efficient way to accept electronic payments? I have recently been assigned as treasurer of my son's school (because of my mustachian tendencies ;)) and I would like to see if I can improve this aspect of the school. Any ideas? I'm not familiar with Paypal, etc, so I'm not sure if there is a reasonable option.

[YttriumNitrate]

Are you asking about point of sale / fundraiser type payments, or recurring tuition type payments?

[slappy]

Are you asking about point of sale / fundraiser type payments, or recurring tuition type payments?

Recurring tuition

[myrrh]

Square and Paypal are two common options. As treasurer of a small non-profit myself, we use these two. PayPal's rate is 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction, which we use for keyed transactions. We also have a Square card reader for swiping, which costs 2.6% + 10 cents per swipe.

I recently looked into Venmo, but it is for person to person only, no businesses (including non-profit.) I also looked into high-interest savings accounts but Ally, Capital One, and Discover are all individual only, not business. Sigh.

If anyone has experience with something else I'm interested in learning about it.

[slappy]

Square and Paypal are two common options. As treasurer of a small non-profit myself, we use these two. PayPal's flat-rate pricing structure is a base rate of 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction, which we use for keyed transactions. We also have a Square card reader for swiping, which costs 2.6% + 10 cents per swipe.

I recently looked into Venmo, but it is for person to person only, no businesses (including non-profit.) I also looked into high-interest savings accounts but Ally, Capital One, and Discover are all individual only, not business. Sigh.

If anyone has experience with something else I'm interested to learn about it.

Do you pass on the cost or do you absorb the cost? Does it allow the parents to pay with a credit card?

[myrrh]

Mostly we eat the cost, especially for donations. For member transactions I've asked members to add on around 3% to cover the fees and most have been very generously doing so. I feel conflicted doing this as many of our members aren't high income, but I'm not sure how to be more fair.

[myrrh]

I do remind members that checks and cash have no fees though!

[myrrh]

Yes, PayPal allows you to pay by credit card without a PayPal account. If you have a PayPal account, you can link a credit card and/or your bank account to it, and money will come out of that. Hope that makes sense.

[Metalcat]

For my very small non profit, I let members make donations by e-transfer.

[Proud Foot]

What kind of a business bank account does the non-profit have? With the right kind of account you can initiate ACH pulls and then you would need the parents to give you their bank information (void check) and then agree to letting you pull the tuition payment directly from their account. Your bank will give you a fee but this will almost 100% of the time be less of a cost than accepting credit cards. The other option would be to pass the processing fees on to the person making the payment if using a card.

[slappy]

What kind of a business bank account does the non-profit have? With the right kind of account you can initiate ACH pulls and then you would need the parents to give you their bank information (void check) and then agree to letting you pull the tuition payment directly from their account. Your bank will give you a fee but this will almost 100% of the time be less of a cost than accepting credit cards. The other option would be to pass the processing fees on to the person making the payment if using a card.

This is a good idea. I need to make a list of ideas and see if the parents are open to any of them, I guess.  I definitely don't want anything that will cost the school money that is not passed on the parent. I'm guessing there are other parents that are mustachian like me and won't want to pay fees, but I guess those parents would take advantage of the 5% discount for paying in full at the beginning of the year. (I definitely did that!)

[YttriumNitrate]

Are you asking about point of sale / fundraiser type payments, or recurring tuition type payments?

Recurring tuition

I'd suggest trying to find something like Cozy.co, a rent collection system, that can also be used for tuition collection. While it is set up for landlords, you could probably use it to collect tuition for your preschool with a bit of creativity. The great part is that it can be set up for automatic monthly ACH withdraws from the tenant's (or parent's) back account. There are normally no fees to use it, but they do charge the tenants/parents a fee if they pay by credit card. There also is about a 5 day lag between when payment is submitted and when it gets to your bank account.

[slappy]

Are you asking about point of sale / fundraiser type payments, or recurring tuition type payments?

Recurring tuition

I'd suggest trying to find something like Cozy.co, a rent collection system, that can also be used for tuition collection. While it is set up for landlords, you could probably use it to collect tuition for your preschool with a bit of creativity. The great part is that it can be set up for automatic monthly ACH withdraws from the tenant's (or parent's) back account. There are normally no fees to use it, but they do charge the tenants/parents a fee if they pay by credit card. There also is about a 5 day lag between when payment is submitted and when it gets to your bank account.

Thanks! I will definitely look into it!