The Audit... Our Favorite 5-Letter Word in Business...

Immediately upon reading the word "audit", many of you involuntarily winced. I get it. That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean an internal audit of your pieces and your own system. Boom, some people still winced. Don’t. Think of how many self-audits you do daily. Do you check the fuel gauge? Audit. You’re making sure you have what you need to get where you are going. This is paramount on the road, but we take it for granted.

Every once in a while, stopping and having your system audited (often at no cost) is one of the best things you can do. You track your income. You track a bunch of stuff. But how can you depend on the data without a check? Without an audit? We knew a dry cleaner that had not checked their machine that did their cleaning in 3+ years. New management took it over and found a nightmare.

Your merchant account, being both a receptacle and a portal for all your income that people pay you via plastic, should be monitored and audited regularly. You don’t know how much of the hard-won monies you have coming in are lost due to leaks. Most often, it’s not the gaping wound that kills businesses, but more of a "death by a thousand pinpricks." I know that sounds like some ancient curse, but it happens.

Recently, our team had a dentist that came in, as they wanted to support their charity, which is of course what we do. However, rule #1 is: Make it good for the business. As we say, “First, let’s see if we can make this a blessing for your business. If we can, then please consider using us to help your charity.” That helps businesses feel at ease, and it’s what we want.

The dentist was not small. He had 35 employees and did a killer business, but as most were copays, not a huge income via plastic. Still, when the team found they were paying a whopping 6.6%, our CEO nearly lost his lunch. They should be under 2%, and they were paying 3x that. They just didn’t know. Business was good, clients were happy, the Point-of-Sale System was specific, so that chased a lot of people off. We work with every major processor, so the POS system was a non-issue, and they're saving $10-12,000 a year from us doing 45 minutes of background work.

The audit can be your friend.

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Doing Good Is Good Business

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