Paperless Credit Card Processing

Paperless Credit Card Processing is Growing in Popularity

Apple customers have been used to the trend of receiving emailed receipts for years, but now more retailers are following in their footsteps. Emailed receipts remove the contact between cashier and customer to pass the paper, sign it, return and store somewhere inconvenient. This is perhaps why it is believed that in five years up to sixty percent of all retailers will move toward paperless credit card processing.

Some customers are thrilled to put the days of saving and organizing paper receipts to rest, but others are not so thrilled. Some are worried it takes too much time for a cashier to collect emails for receipts. What’s more, is the customers’ added concern that those businesses could use their emails to market to them or send spam. It is true that collecting emails would allow retailers to reach out electronically to customers after the sale is finalized. This would be consistent with the growing trend of businesses starting their own Facebook pages or designing their own phone apps. Also, the receipts could contain coupons or other details. However, online receipts exist as a service to the customer, they make record keeping easier for the merchant, and any follow-up emails from the business would be easy to opt-out of. In a growing culture of virus-aware customers, most would trade a few seconds to delete marking emails for a safer germ-free checkout process.

Why Go Paperless?

The most obvious emotional advantage of paperless processing is how it will benefit the environment. Every year stores use about 600,000 tons of thermal receipt paper. Because it takes 15 trees, 19,000 gallons of water, and 390 gallons of oil to make just one ton of paper, switching to digital receipts is a small change to endure for all the natural resources that moving to paperless will save. Not only will paperless processing benefit the environment, but it will also save businesses money. Merchants who switch no longer have the recurring cost associated with purchasing thermal receipt paper.

A behind the scenes money saver associated with paperless credit card processing is the higher retention of employees. Every pen passed between cashier and customer for a signature is an opportunity for your staff to get sick. If your business is one of the majority without an unlimited budget for employee sick-days, you might consider a paperless and zero-touch credit card processing method.

Perhaps the incentive with the most business-sense to switch to paperless credit card processing is the time saved by having receipts digitally stored and easily searchable. Previously, businesses had to retain every cardholder’s signed receipt for up to 18 months to protect against chargebacks (cardholder disputes). Today, businesses that utilize paperless payments can capture electronic signatures and digitally store these credit card authorizations securely in a searchable database. This is far more convenient than storing signed paper receipts in file folders and file cabinets, or worse, in a shoebox. A business that has only 20 sales per day will likely be storing over 10,000 signed cardholder paper receipts at any given time. These merchants also need a system to periodically destroy paper receipts over 18 months old, or else the paperwork will really pile up. With the cost associated with paying staff to manage paper and the cost associated with office space to store it, it just makes sense to switch to paperless credit card processing. 

PayJunction, a Paperless Merchant Services Provider

PayJunction, a merchant services provider, believes in the importance of paperless processing and provides a paperless payment system. It allows businesses to accept credit cards at their business location(s), on their website, and on-the-go using phones and tablets. The system is paperless, collecting electronic signatures all 3 ways:

Learn more about PayJunction’s paperless program here: Paperless Payments