payment method for wedding photography

<p>hello i have a question regarding collecting money from clients for wedding photo shoot. Most clients pay by checks. However, If client insist to pay by credit card, what are the better options to process the payment? and I mean if client don't have paypal account.</p>

<p>thank you</p>

<p>Hi Edwin, I'm not aware of another way to accept credit card payments directly than for you to create a merchant account; probably not very practical for one-time use. </p>

<p>Alternatively, the client can take a cash withdrawal against the credit card in an amount equivalent to the payment to you, or you can offer your client a modest discount as an incentive to use PayPal which might be sufficient to persuade the client to create a PayPal account, and tell the client it's really a painless process.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>No need to create a merchant account. Use Square. It's the same thing every food truck and craft show seller uses. You download the app on your iPhone, they send you tiny plastic card reader that plugs into the earphone jack on your phone. Do the setup with your bank account info and you're in business. <br /><br />Keep in mind that Square, Paypal and merchant accounts all take a percentage of the transaction in return for their services. For square it was around 2.75 percent last I checked. I would not offer a discount for PayPal or any other form of credit card payment -- it's already costing you more.</p>

<p>I had entirely forgotten about Square having looked into it some time ago. </p>

<p>One issue I recall (and I'm not sure what PayPal does), is that Square can apparently withdraw the paid funds from your bank account should there be a dispute. This can be a problem if you're taking in large amounts, transfer the funds, and you don't have overdraft protection, meanwhile the money is held by a third party until the dispute is settled. </p>

<p>Might want to look into that to avoid potential problems. </p>

The payer does NOT have to have a PayPal account to pay a supplier of goods and services by using a credit card on the

PayPal site. Only the supplier (photographer, in this case) has to have a PayPal account. As soon as the credit card

transaction is approved, PayPal deducts a fee from the total amount and the remainder is immediately deposited in the

supplier's PayPal account. The supplier can use the money later to pay purchases made on other Internet sites that

accept Paypal transactions or the supplier can have all or some of the money transferred to his or her regular bank

account.

When a person does not have a PayPal account, he or she must go directly to the PayPal site and use the send money

option. The payee then gives the supplier's email address. PayPal verifies the the address belongs to a PayPal account

holder and then processes the payment, using the payee's credit card information. In this case, the transaction is initiated

directly by the payer, NOT by a referal from the supplier's Website.

<p>I've found using Paypal to be the simplest solution for most people even though for many years I refused to use it. Only the vendor has to have an established account and it's cheaper than dealing with other card processors.</p>

<p>Rick H.</p>

We use either Square or PayPal. But as others have suggested check with both to see what their policies are regarding

refunds for services as opposed to products. (Yes, photography is both a service and product based business. Now would

you like fries with that?)

<p>First time posting question here in this forum. Thank you for all replies.</p>

<p>If you use PayPal to email an invoice to someone, they are presented with a "Pay Now" link that takes them to a login screen at PayPal. On that screen is the option to present a credit card WITHOUT using a PayPal membership. <br /><br />I use it, and it works fine. I also use Square, under other circumstances. Note that - especially for new accounts - Square may only deposit the first $1000 collected, and hold the rest for some time (as much as 30 days), on the off chance that a brand new account may have been created as a vector for fraud. Once they see regular activity and come to know you, the money from those larger transactions flows more quickly. This is completely understandable, since they are taking a risk with newer user accounts.</p>

<p>"Square can apparently withdraw the paid funds from your bank account should there be a dispute."<br /><br />All card processors do this, including full scale merchant accounts. It's called a "chargeback." <br /><br />Benoit and others are correct -- your customer can use PayPal to pay you without having their own PayPal account. They simply use "credit card" as their payment option and pay pretty much as if making a credit card payment on any other web site.<br /><br />I've used PayPal but I never leave money in the account. Any payments I receive get immediately transferred to my bank account. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>"If client insist to pay by credit card, what are the better options to process the payment?"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I might be concerned about the 'insisting' part. It may merely be their own concern of having a convenient remedy should there be a problem with fulfilling your obligations or other innocent reason but, it opens the door to potential abuse. Even if the odds of that are low, it tends to defeat the purpose of contractual advance payment schemes designed to prevent after service payment problems.</p>