An online accounting software firm is providing a new payment gateway to small businesses that can get them paid up to 10 days faster with smaller transaction fees.
As part of the next phase of its partnership with Stripe, an online payment software company, Xero (NZE:XRO) customers will be able to accept Automated Clearing House (ACH) bank transfers.
A Look at Xero ACH Payments
Streamline the Payment Process
These ACH payments essentially streamline the payment process through automation. It’s an electronic network where transactions like vendor payments can be made efficiently and securely. One of the big advantages for small business is it allows invoices to be paid through debit transactions at the client’s end.
Craig Walker, CTO at Xero, explained how scale can become an issue for small businesses looking to get paid online.
Credit Card-Based Transactions
“These are often credit card-based transactions, which come with transactional fees. For a lot of SMBs this is the cost of doing business,” he told Small Business Trends. “But if the invoice total is large enough, it can be prohibitive for small businesses to offer payment via credit card without passing on a significant additional expense to the customer.”
These ACH payments work like this:
Xero customers login to their Stripe account and that connects the Stripe ACH bank transfers gateway to start the process. From there they can generate an invoice with a “Pay Now” button they can send to clients.
Processing Fees
The Stripe account acts as a go-between and reconciles payment and processing fees while keeping all of the information secure and private.
“By adding ACH, our customers can offer an automated way to get paid with a much smaller fee. That means that Xero users can offer more payment options and still make it easy to get invoices paid as fast as possible,” Walker says.
Automated Reconciliation Feature
This recent announcement follows one from the two firms last year that introduced an automated reconciliation feature.
Xero is online accounting software for small businesses. The company has over 1.2 million subscribers in over 180 countries. They have offices in the United States, Australia, and elsewhere around the world.
There are three plans available starting at $20 per month.
Image: Small Business Trends