BAMS Blog

merchant statement audit infographic showing hidden processing fees including PCI fees downgrade surcharges batch fees and effective processing rate calculation
Featured Article Hidden Fees in Merchant Services: A Line-by-Line Audit

Calculate your real B2B processing cost in under an hour using only your existing statements Learn to audit your merchant statements line by line, calculate your true effective processing rate, and identify every buried markup inflating your B2B costs. No new software or contracts required — just your last three statements and 60 minutes. TL;DR […]

BigCommerce Top 10 BigCommerce Apps to Help Your Online Business Grow
Read MoreTop 10 BigCommerce Apps to Help Your Online Business Grow

BigCommerce is one of the leading eCommerce platforms currently on the market, serving some of the biggest brands in industries ranging from automotive to apparel. One of the biggest drivers in the platform’s popularity is its ability to serve as a completely standalone solution, including a built-in site builder, and a fully stocked app store […]

Safe eCommerce Transactions 6 Ways to Keep Your eCommerce Transactions Safe
Read More6 Ways to Keep Your eCommerce Transactions Safe

E-commerce transactions are all about trust. Customers need to feel 100% confident that their personal information and payment details are stored and transmitted with total security, or they simply won’t make a purchase. When breaches do happen, the damage – both financially and psychologically – can be immense, and as a result, businesses simply can’t […]

POS 4 Best Touch Screen POS for 2019
Read More4 Best Touch Screen POS for 2019

From retail stores to restaurants and beyond, hardwired cash registers are giving way to flexible, mobile point of sale (POS) systems designed to make it as easy as possible for customers to pay and for employees and management to go about daily tasks like inventory management, stock ordering, reporting, and more. LightSpeed Retail, ShopKeep, TouchBistro, […]

Merchant Services Clover GO vs. Square – Which is Better for You?
Read MoreClover GO vs. Square – Which is Better for You?

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 […]

BAMS Can Improve Your Cash Flow 4 Ways BAMS Can Improve Your Cash Flow
Read More4 Ways BAMS Can Improve Your Cash Flow

Strong positive cash flow is one of the single most important factors in maintaining a healthy business, and anything you can do to boost and protect it is worthwhile. BAMS has designed a number of solutions to help ensure our merchants always have the positive cash flow they need to keep operations running smoothly and […]

Worldpay Fine Print Make Sure You Read the Fine Print with Worldpay – You Could Be Paying Extra Fees Unexpectedly
Read MoreMake Sure You Read the Fine Print with Worldpay – You Could Be Paying Extra Fees Unexpectedly

In 2017, a class-action lawsuit was brought against Worldpay Inc. alleging that 200,000 merchants were overcharged with unexpected markups and additional fees. Worldpay settled that lawsuit for $52 million, but it’s recently come to light that, despite the settlement, Worldpay may not have changed the practices that led to that legal trouble in the first […]

Chargebacks 5 Effective Tips to Win More Chargebacks
Read More5 Effective Tips to Win More Chargebacks

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 Plan B The Top 3 Best Alternatives to QuickBooks
Read MoreThe Top 3 Best Alternatives to QuickBooks

Intuit’s QuickBooks is undoubtedly the king of the hill when it comes to popular cloud-based accounting software. But there are a number of competitors on the market currently offering their own robust accounting products capable of challenging QuickBooks’ dominance. Three of the most popular QuickBooks alternative include Xero, FreshBooks, and Zoho Books, each offering their […]

Bad for Your Business Is A Flat Rate Good for Your Business? – Spoiler: Probably Not!
Read MoreIs A Flat Rate Good for Your Business? – Spoiler: Probably Not!

What makes a reasonable transaction fee? Amazingly enough, a lot of merchants never ask themselves that question, and failing to think about fees almost guarantees overpaying them. Flat fees, like the kind charged by PayPal and Stripe, are probably among the most common out there. They’re straightforward and easy to grasp, and as a result, […]

PayPal, Square, or Stripe How PayPal’s New Refund Policy Impacts Your Business and What You Can Do About It
Read MoreHow PayPal’s New Refund Policy Impacts Your Business and What You Can Do About It

On May 7th, 2019, PayPal updated its user agreement and made a big change that impacts every single one of their sellers in an inarguably negative way. Prior to the change, any time a refund was provided to a customer, the slice of the pie that PayPal had taken on the transaction was returned to […]

QuickBooks What the Discontinuation of QuickBooks Desktop 2016 Means to You as a Merchant
Read MoreWhat the Discontinuation of QuickBooks Desktop 2016 Means to You as a Merchant

On May 31st, 2019, QuickBooks discontinued support for their QuickBooks Desktop 2016 accounting and finance software – one of the most popular accounting and productivity tools available. That discontinuation was planned and shouldn’t come as a surprise to any Desktop 2016 users, but it still causes headaches for QuickBooks’ large 2016 userbase, annoying some even […]

Shopping Cart 10 Effective Ways to Prevent Shopping Cart Abandonment
Read More10 Effective Ways to Prevent Shopping Cart Abandonment

Cart abandonment is one of the biggest problems plaguing online merchants, and 88% of all consumers have abandoned a shopping cart without completing the transaction at some point. That makes minimizing cart abandonment a key goal for online merchants looking to maximize revenues and profitability. Here are ten of the best eCommerce tactics merchants can […]

Alternatives to Shopify The Best Alternatives to Shopify in 2019
Read MoreThe Best Alternatives to Shopify in 2019

Shopify is a great platform, and its ease of use has resulted in skyrocketing popularity over the last few years. But as an all-in-one solution, Shopify also comes with some major downsides – namely the costs. As with all third-party payment processors, the fees charged by Shopify on transactions are higher than the fees charged […]

PCI Compliance PCI Compliance and The Potentially High Costs of a Breach
Read MorePCI Compliance and The Potentially High Costs of a Breach

Let’s talk about PCI Compliance. In the summer of 2019, it came out that Capital One – a credit card issuer themselves – fell victim to a hack that exposed the data of 100 million cardholders and applicants. That might seem extreme, but it’s only the latest in a series of high-profile security breaches that […]

Saves Businesses Thousands Annually BAMS Low Cost Payment Processing Saves Businesses Thousands Annually
Read MoreBAMS Low Cost Payment Processing Saves Businesses Thousands Annually

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 […]

closeup of businessman working on financial spreadsheet on laptop rearview Why Is Interchange-Plus Pricing the Most Advantageous Merchant Account Pricing Format?
Read MoreWhy Is Interchange-Plus Pricing the Most Advantageous Merchant Account Pricing Format?

A merchant’s profitability is determined largely by the costs of doing business, and one of the most common costs merchants in the digital age run into is the fees associated with processing card payments. Many merchants just assume that all payment processors and all fee structures are alike, but that couldn’t be more untrue. Merchant […]

Fees Understanding Merchant Fees – Which Fees Are Common for A Merchant Account Statement?
Read MoreUnderstanding Merchant Fees – Which Fees Are Common for A Merchant Account Statement?

Credit card transaction processing fees seem simple on the surface, but the overall fees are actually made up of many smaller fees, sometimes numbering in the dozens. In the interest of transparency and regulatory compliance, payment processors break down all of those fees on their merchants’ monthly statements. That’s good for both the processor and […]

Merchant Account Provider Which Merchant Account Provider is Better – BAMS, Braintree or QuickBooks Merchant Services?
Read MoreWhich Merchant Account Provider is Better – BAMS, Braintree or QuickBooks Merchant Services?

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 – […]