What Every Winery Should Know About ACH Payments

We are asked this question very often by prospective winery clients who have a management software system they rely on to run their business. Sometimes their provider integrates to enable ACH processing, sometimes they do not. That lack of integration causes our soon to be clients to wonder if it is “worth it” to go ahead and start using the ACH rails for their transactions.

That question of value without integration causes us to look at why we want to use ACH Processing in the first place:

For Processing Your Wine Club Members’ Payments –

• ACH is far better than waiting on checks to be sent after invoicing
• ACH removes the worry and stress of expired credit cards and the declines (no one enjoys making those calls…or receiving them)
• ACH payments uncover a greater marketplace for the winery (no credit card required)
• ACH payments are far less costly to the winery than credit cards and their fees (What if you could save 30% of your credit card cost right now?)
• For recurring transactions, ACH payments allow you to set it and forget it, increasing Wine Club member retention

Do any of these jump off the page at you? How would it free up your life, or make more profit, or both by having ACH payments in place?

For Processing Your Winery’s Payments to Vendors –

• By using the ACH payment system you can control your cash-flow
• The cost to ACH your payment is less than the cost of a postage stamp
• Never lose a check in the mail
• Transactions take place in a secure environment
• Payroll and expenses are so much easier when processed by Direct Deposit
• Pay your winery’s bills the same way you do at home

Aren’t these just better ways to manage your Payables?

So, How Can You Make This Work?

For your Club Payments, remember that not everyone will immediately adopt this one form of payment. This is an option and some folks will take a little time to start paying this way. Let me give an example:

Let’s say you have 500 clients on a regular quarterly recurring buying 
plan, and you want to offer ACH payments to them for all or some of the 
above reasons. We know that in most industries 40-50% will eventually 
adopt ACH payments to pay their bills.

So immediately let’s say 50-75 Club members say “Okay, I like this idea!”

It will take about 1 minute each to enter the information needed, you will be ready in about one hour’s work. Then, you will only enter a few each day after that, taking hardly any time at all. In fact, we tell our clients to sit down with a cup of coffee and enter just a couple a day, then look at the daily deposits from the ACH activity. It makes it a very enjoyable break.

What Does This Mean

So, if you want to adopt ACH payments into your winery’s business practices (Wine Club sales, Payables to vendors), you do not have to wait for your Management Software company. In fact, the longer you do wait the less profit you are making, and the greater frustration you are experiencing.

Let’s get this going for you

Dave Kirk ACHWorks 916.638.8811 ext 1009