Mark Fenton-Jones, Australian Financial Review - Wednesday 19 March, 2008
Small businesses that cannot afford the time to send out invoices or pursue outstanding payments and don't want to lose potential customers are turning to wireless-enabled portable payment systems to speed up their cashflow.
Motorcycle clothing importer Simon Siounis, who established Shogai Imports three years ago, says his cashflow has increased dramatically since he started using a portable payment system (PPS) at industry trade shows.
Previously when he only accepted cash, he often lost interested customers who walked away promising to get cash from an ATM, but never returned.
Since 2006, he has used a Mint PPS at trade shows and he can take in $A12,000 to $A25,000 over a three-day weekend.
"It's definitely improved my cashflow," Siounis said.
"As soon as we started using it, money came in so much faster than at other trade shows where we had only accepted cash."
The main advantage is he can accept payments by credit card, or Visa and MasterCard debit cards, at the show, get an immediate authorisation on the transaction and print out an itemised tax invoice for the customer.
Portable payment systems that incorporate smartphones are expected to become more widely used as the popularity of smartphones, including the BlackBerry or Microsoft Windows-based mobile devices, grows.
US research firm In-Stat predicts smartphone numbers will increase at an annual compound growth rate of more than 30% and take a larger share of the overall phone market.
Some predict they will become a replacement for laptops.
PPS can be used in many situations. For example, a plumber is called in for an emergency but a customer may not have enough cash. The plumber then has to issue an invoice and sometimes chase up payment.
If the customer writes a cheque or makes a credit card transaction that is manually swiped, funds are not transferred into the business account straight away. And the cheque or credit card could be fraudulent.
Using a wireless payment system, the transaction is entered on the BlackBerry, for instance, on which price lists, invoicing data and customer information have been downloaded.
The customer signs the invoice with a stylus on the BlackBerry's touch screen and the information is transferred to a Bluetooth-enabled card reader.
The reader not only swipes the credit card to authorise payment, with funds immediately settled into the plumber's bank account, but also prints out a signed tax invoice if approved.
Since November, Optus and Telstra have offered bundled portable payment systems.
Optus partnered with Mint Wireless which allows small business users to get an Optus-approved personal digital assistant (PDA) or BlackBerry with connection and data plans wrapped up with a Mint pack that includes hardware, software and subscription.
Telstra launched its T-Pad using card access services software that makes on-the-spot credit card payments.
Elizabeth Aris, executive director in Telstra's Maxi Manager division, said it could be used on Windows and Java-based phones, and as smart and normal phones.
The hardware and authorisation process was similar to Mint's, although the T-Pad did not print an invoice, but sent it to the customer by SMS [short message service]. |
