Card machines for all kinds of businesses

Any business that wants to sell online will need a website with a payment gateway, as well as a merchant account. Or you can use a virtual terminals, which works through a computer and is great for businesses taking orders over the phone or online. You don't even need a website, as the virtual terminal lets you generate a secure, specific payment URL, which you can then email or text to the customer to make the payment. You can use it on any device that’s online, instead of needing to use a physical card machine.

Be sure your card machine takes all kinds of cards like credit and debit. It should also work with contactless payments like Apple Pay and Google Pay. Some of the major card networks that businesses should accept include: Visa, Mastercard, Discover, JCB and American Express.

Compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) can help companies protect cardholder payment account data. PCI DSS compliance is an industry mandate. For that reason, you should consider PCI compliance one of your critical payment system features. The easiest course of action is to find a partner that handles payments security for you.

There are four levels of business classification that the PCI assigns, based on the number of transactions a business makes.

Level 4: Fewer than 20,000 card transactions per year
Level 3: Between 20,000 to 1 million card transactions per year
Level 2: Between 1-6 million card transactions per year
Level 1: More than 6 million card transactions per year

When paying with a card and it all goes through, it’s been ‘authorised’. A 'batch' is the way lots of different payments get grouped together to make it easier to process and settle those payments. So, a restaurant might combine all the payments they take each day and submit the combined batch to Elavon, rather than sending us each individual payment.

It's a card machine that’s in a fixed location, like a restaurant or shop counter. This is where cards are swiped or tapped by your phones and watches for Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Whether you're not currently accepting card payments, or maybe you're looking to upgrade, Elavon has a diverse range of solutions available to fit your business needs. We'll get you taking payments securely and simply – and we fund you fast, so you get your money into your account. Just get in touch with us.