What You Will Achieve By the end of this tutorial, you will have a fully operational branded gift card program with gift card order tracking you can trust, even if you are the only person running the show. You will design cards on a budget, connect them to your point-of-sale (POS) and online store and […]
Category: Online Payments

Square is almost synonymous with phone-based mobile payment processing, but Clover – a company owned by processing giant First Data – has been carving out their own chunk of the market and making a name for themselves with availability in retail settings like Sam’s Club. Each company offers a small card reader designed to integrate […]

Chargebacks are a reality of accepting card payments, and no merchant doing any significant volume can avoid them altogether. Sometimes a chargeback is outright fraudulent, and many are the result of poor customer service or misunderstandings between merchants and customers. But whatever the reason may be, merchants need to be ready to fight back when […]

QuickBooks is the best-known name in small business accounting. Still, it isn’t the right fit for everyone. For example, some owners want lower costs, while others need more users or simpler invoicing. If that sounds like you, these QuickBooks alternatives are worth a look. Below, we compare three popular options side by side: Xero, FreshBooks […]

Simple Pricing Can Be Useful, but Simpler Does Not Always Mean Cheaper What makes a reasonable transaction fee? A surprising number of merchants never really answer that question. They know the rate printed on the processor’s website but not necessarily what accepting payments costs their business over an entire month. That is one reason flat […]

Refunds are a normal part of selling online. Still, with PayPal, every refund costs you more than the sale price. Under the PayPal refund policy, the fees you paid to receive a payment stay with PayPal, even when you send the full amount back to the buyer. Below, we explain what the policy says today, how […]

QuickBooks Desktop 2016 Still Opens for Some Users, but Support Is Long Gone QuickBooks Desktop 2016 discontinued support years ago, which creates an important distinction for merchants still running the software. A program may continue to open on a computer even after Intuit stops supporting the version. That does not mean the software still has […]

Shopify Is Still Strong, but It Is Not the Only Choice The best Shopify alternatives in 2026 give merchants different levels of control over their website, payment processing, hosting and technology stack. Shopify remains one of the strongest all-in-one eCommerce platforms available but some businesses eventually want more control over how their store operates or […]

BAMS has been offering electronic payment processing solutions to thousands of merchants all across the globe for well over a decade. Our experience and commitment to customer satisfaction and savings mean that there are a number of significant benefits to choosing BAMS as a payment processor – benefits that our competitors simply can’t match. From […]

Choosing a merchant services provider is a serious task and picking the wrong merchant account can result in headaches with integration, unnecessarily high fees, and delays in deposits reaching a merchant’s bank account. Merchants choosing between BAMS, Braintree, and QuickBooks Merchant Services – three of the most popular merchant services providers on the market – […]

The payments industry keeps getting bigger at the top. Over the past decade, payment processor mergers have combined some of the largest names in merchant services into even larger companies. So does size matter for your business? And when your processor merges, what actually changes for you? Below, we look at the biggest deals, what […]

Ever since the introduction of the original Square Reader – the small, white plastic magstripe reader that plugs right into the headphone jack of a smartphone – Square has been a widely recognized brand name among small businesses and entrepreneurs. There is no question the Square Reader was revolutionary for pop-up shops, mobile businesses, and […]

Since its initial launch in 2011, San Francisco-based Stripe has become one of the most recognizable brand names in online payment processing. Used by online businesses in over 200 countries, Stripe has recently expanded its electronic payments offerings with the introduction of its in-store card reader, the Stripe Terminal. Stripe has a number of third-party […]

Cash flow is everything, and one of the biggest keys to success in business is keeping accounts receivable to a minimum. The faster your invoices get paid, the healthier your company’s finances will be, and the better you’ll sleep at night. That means using any tool that can help you collect payment faster is a […]

Merchants are all painfully aware of the fact they’re charged fees on the card transaction they put through, but many don’t understand what those fees are made up of. While those fees contain a number of different components, the largest portion is made up of the interchange fee. Interchange fees are charged on every single […]

The thrid-party electronic payments industry is a hotly contested marketplace, with a wide array of different payment solutions for merchants to choose from. Unfortunately, sometimes that level of choice can lead to indecision. It isn’t uncommon for merchants to respond by signing up for the providers that they’re most familiar with. Sometimes that might mean […]

BAMS is the industry leader in payment processing, trusted by thousands of merchants across the globe. That success is due to our full suite of features designed to help businesses like yours accept electronic payments with less fuss, and lower fees. BAMS has been designed from the ground up to provide all of the functionality […]

Connecting Payment Processing With the eCommerce Tools You Already Use We now live in a digital world, and online shopping has become a standard part of how people buy. A 2018 study cited by SmallBusiness.com found that 75% of Americans had purchased something online. That figure now serves more as historical context than a picture […]

Chargebacks are an unfortunate reality of accepting credit card payments, but they aren’t something businesses have to lie down and accept without a fight. Some chargebacks are completely legitimate, like cases where a purchase was made fraudulently by a third party. But many chargebacks are fraudulent, frivolous, or abuses of the system. In those cases, […]
