The oft-uttered phrase “Sometimes the best move is the one you don’t make” can ring true in many situations, including whether or not merchants pass credit card processing fees on to their customers.

U.S. businesses are now permitted to do so in order to recoup some of their transaction costs. But just because you can collect surcharges doesn’t mean that you should. Here are a few reasons why you should never charge customers for using credit cards.

Customers Despise Surcharges

Perhaps the most important reason to eschew credit card surcharges is because they are wildly unpopular with customers.

A poll conducted in August by CreditCards.com reveals that 65 percent of Americans who use credit cards would pay another way if any fee was charged, no matter how small. Only 2 percent of respondents indicated that they would pay an extra fee (and even then they’d only do so if it was capped at 2 percent or less of their purchase’s price).

The results of this poll mirror those seen in other countries. In Canada, 95 percent of credit card shoppers surveyed indicated that they would be encouraged to switch stores if they were forced to pay a 3 percent credit card surcharge. A similar restriction on surcharges was lifted in New Zealand in 2010, and 90 percent of shoppers there said that they would leave the store rather than shell out 3 percent more money for using plastic.

To Surcharge or Not to Surcharge

Based on these findings, customers who are turned off by credit card surcharges may react either by choosing not to frequent your business or by limiting their purchases to reflect the amount of cash they have on hand or in their bank accounts.

It would not be surprising if these customers also expressed their displeasure with the sheer inconvenience of the practice to others, either verbally or on web-based review sites. This negative publicity could contribute to your business being saddled with a reputation of being stingy.

On the other hand, deciding not to levy surcharges on your customers’ credit card purchases may be a wise choice in the long run. It may behoove you instead to make some adjustments to offset your merchant services expenses (like cutting overhead or raising merchandise prices slightly).

Another option: Check out GoPayment, which provides merchants with an affordable means of accepting credit card payments.

QuickBooks has been helping small-business owners balance their books for a long time. But many users may be unaware that they can integrate GoPayment into the accounting software.

To shed some light on how these tools work together, the GoPayment Blog recently asked Michelle Long (pictured), founder of the Long for Success website and an Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor, about the advantages of syncing the mobile-payment system with QuickBooks.

GoPayment: Why is QuickBooks such a valuable tool for small businesses?

Long: QuickBooks is a pretty powerful (yet affordable) accounting program for small businesses. You do not need to be an accountant or know debits or credits to enter transactions. You simply enter a check, invoice, or other transactions and QuickBooks makes the entries for you. There are lots of reports available to help you monitor how the business is doing, stay on top of accounts receivable, and more. That’s why QuickBooks is the #1 accounting program for small businesses!

What are some of the features that make QuickBooks unique in the business accounting software market?

The Company Snapshot includes 16 widgets with great charts, graphs, and reports that users can customize to create their own dashboard. Invoices for customers can include a link to pay you online with Intuit Payment Network.

How difficult or easy is it to integrate mobile payments into QuickBooks?

It is easy to sync payments received with Intuit GoPayment to QuickBooks. In QuickBooks, just click Get Online Payments and you can create a new invoice or apply it to an existing invoice. Customers who want to pay via credit card prefer mobile payments because it is more secure [than] writing down the credit card number or calling it into the office.

How can connecting a mobile-payment account to QuickBooks benefit a small-business owner?

Small businesses can save time and eliminate data-entry mistakes by simply downloading the payments received into QuickBooks.

How do you and your website help businesses with using QuickBooks?

I help small businesses with QuickBooks setup, training, troubleshooting, and customizing QuickBooks for their business. I have created a comprehensive (7.5 hours) QuickBooks training course (online videos or DVD) and a newly released QuickBooks practice set.

To succeed in business, it’s important to stay abreast of the latest trends. Often that means adjusting your practices to keep up with the latest industry developments, so that you don’t fall behind your competitors.

One example is accepting mobile payments. Another is knowing how to use “geofencing” in your marketing efforts.

What Is Geofencing?

Geofencing is essentially the 21st-century answer to direct mail. However, instead of blanketing a given ZIP code with coupons, you target only shoppers who actually enter your target zone.

Geofencing establishes a virtual perimeter around a real-world site, such as delineating the square mile of residential neighborhoods surrounding a retail storefront. When someone carrying a smartphone or tablet enters the designated area, their enabled device sends out geolocation data that establishes their whereabouts.

The technology has many potential uses. From a marketing standpoint, geofencing lets you target customers within a specified area and thus maximize your return on investment. Because geolocation tracks people’s actual locations at any given moment, you have the ability to identify where your potential customers are in real time — and tailor your marketing messages accordingly.

How Does Modern Geofencing Work?

Customers must opt-in to geofencing. That is, they must actively consent to having their digital devices geolocated by your business. Early experimentation with this method of geofencing has shown positive results.

During the 2012 holiday season, shoppers were given a chance to opt-in to a promotion at an Ohio mall. Those who did received SMS text messages on their smartphones whenever they were physically nearby. Almost two out of every five participants reported that their shopping habits were influenced by this geofencing initiative.

How Do You Use Geofencing Effectively?

Geofencing is most effective when it is done a certain way. Practically speaking, it’s unwise to send a promotional text every time a digital device moves within an established geofence; this could potentially flood customers with marketing messages and become an annoyance rather than welcome advisory or offer.

Instead, use geofencing as one tactic in a well-planned marketing campaign. For instance, a cantina might issue a text every other Friday afternoon to customers within a geofence that invites them to “start the weekend right” with two-for-one margaritas.

If you generate enough interest and pick your spots wisely, you could assemble a geofencing promotion that increases repeat business, strengthens customer loyalty, and boosts your business’s bottom line.

Smart small-business owners do all they can to appear professional, so that they can compete with larger companies.

They do this in many different ways. For example, if they want to appeal to a broader customer base, they can begin accepting credit cards as payment for goods or services. If they want to position themselves on the leading edge of retail technology, they can create a mobile payments account and begin processing credit card payments on an iPad. And, if they want to demonstrate that they are a well-established company, they can add in a few subtle marketing messages.

On the lattermost front, we suggest getting a custom iPad cover made for your business’s mobile-payment device. Various vendors offer customized iPad covers for small businesses, including:

• eCrater — This site, which acts as an online marketplace for buyers and sellers, offers personalized products of all kinds. PictureItStore lets you have the photo of your choice embedded in a hard plastic iPad cover that resists scratches and other marks. (Price: $29.99)
• Photo Gifts Mall — This company’s plastic iPad covers use a water-transfer printing technology for more vivid image colors. The cover’s edges wrap around the iPad, and a portable folding tablet stand is included. (Price: $24.99)
• Zazzle — This popular online shopping site offers not just an iPad cover but a water-resistant portfolio that can be personalized. Its two halves fold shut and are kept closed by an elastic strap. Inside, the suede interior lining features a document pocket; outside, the cover may be customized with the image of your choice. (Price: $55.95)
• Cherished Memories Too — Instead of a single photo, why not go with a collage for your iPad cover? This site lets you select up to eight different photos and text to print onto a sturdy aluminum insert, which is then permanently fastened to an impact-resistant plastic iPad cover. (Price: $29.95)
• Be Monogrammed — For a more corporate style, check out Be Monogrammed’s upscale offering (pictured). The black vinyl cover features a small metal plaque engraved with your business’s name or your initials. The case also folds out into a tablet stand. (Price: $39.99)

If you want to impress your customers, consider investing in a customized iPad cover. It’ll look great as you swipe credit cards through your GoPayment card reader every time you make a sale!

Public speaking can be a lucrative gig. With this in mind, Bryan Caplovitz founded the company SpeakerMatch, which pairs organizations with emerging talent — speakers who are on their way up.

The GoPayment Blog recently chatted with Caplovitz about the public speaking industry and how mobile payments play a vital role in it.

GoPayment: What is SpeakerMatch all about?

Caplovitz: SpeakerMatch is the world’s largest speakers bureau. We cater to the emerging speaker market, which we define as speakers who earn less than $1,500 per speech and/or do not make a full-time living through earned speaking fees.

I started up the company in 2002, and it has grown to thousands of users. Our website is the highest-trafficked speakers bureau website in the world, according to Alexa.com.

What are some of today’s hottest topics or forums?

Great question! While they follow the trends you might see on Google News, hot topics are not at all the most popular. By far, most meeting planners seek speakers who are motivational and inspirational in nature. They want a great entertainer. They are looking for someone who works for their particular audience.

Meeting planners can tell us all about the demographics of their audience (e.g., percentage male/female, job titles in attendance, age range) and the theme of their conference or event. They often have a suggested idea (e.g., “something about marketing” or “online security”). Just about everyone, however, mentions “motivational” and “inspirational” in their request.

Almost all planners will buy a great title and an energetic, entertaining speaker. They want someone who makes them look good.

What do many of today’s speakers talk about that wasn’t talked about five or 10 years ago?

I’d say social networking and entrepreneurship have seen the biggest growth in the past few years. The talks about social networking and how to use it for growing and building your business have skyrocketed. They did not exist at all 10 years ago.

Do many of your speakers use mobile payments?

Most speakers have something to sell on the back end of their talk, and a significant number sell at the back of the room. … I have heard anecdotally about many speakers processing mobile payments.

How can speakers simplify their jobs by using mobile payments?

Close to 100 percent of some speakers’ sales are made while they’re on the road. Processing payments on-site would eliminate the need to go back to the office (or their hotel room) to manually process credit card payments. They could save money by getting swiped-card rates. Perhaps the biggest benefit is that they could get money into their bank account sooner.

One of the most attractive features of using a mobile-payment system is the ability to issue electronic receipts. Instead of having to mess with pen and paper, you simply ask a customer for an email address, get a signature on the touchscreen on your mobile device (with a finger or a stylus), and send the receipt to his or her inbox.

As e-receipts become more popular, however, consumers are having to figure out efficient ways to manage them. Businesses like OneReceipt aim to help. For example, OneReceipt provides a free, user-friendly service that enables customers to store, access, and organize digital (and paper) receipts quickly and easily.

The GoPayment Blog recently sat down with OneReceipt co-founder Sam Fine to get his thoughts on the evolution of e-receipts.

GoPayment: What’s the concept behind your website?

Fine: OneReceipt is a faster and simpler way for people to organize their receipts and analyze their spending habits. OneReceipt works directly with Gmail, Google Apps, or Yahoo to understand e-receipts. Registration is quick and accounts get synced automatically.

For paper receipts, users need to take a picture with their phone and email it to their personal @onereceipt.com address. This data is presented to the user through an easily navigated interface. OneReceipt also provides tools like monthly spending reports and return alerts. The service acts as a post-purchase hub for consumers.

What kinds of problems do your services solve for consumers?

We give our users the ability to see all of their purchases in a single location — regardless of whether the purchase is completed online or in-store. With the direction of payments in general moving toward the digital sphere, we found the pain in finding e-receipts in our in-boxes. On top of that, paper receipts aren’t disappearing.

Will digital receipts eventually replace paper receipts?

We think the paper receipt will eventually disappear. But, for now, we will see a steady rise in e-receipts from bricks-and-mortar retailers. As more retailers adopt e-receipts, customers will become more accustomed to them, and this will make the switch to e-receipts [happen] faster.

Once upon a time, many charities in the United States were limited in accepting donations at fundraising events: They could only collect money from people who carried cash or their checkbooks with them. Today, mobile payments enable donors to contribute on-the-spot using their credit cards.

Here are four charitable organizations that have thrived with the support of mobile payments.

1. Vitamin Angels — This group distributes vitamins and similar nutrients to kids in developing countries worldwide. Over the past three years, Vitamin Angels has provided more than 100 million supplements to children in 40 nations. The group accepts mobile payments at charity events such as golf tournaments; the technology allows volunteers to process credit card payments instantly via smartphone or tablet rather than recording donor payment information and completing the transactions at a later time.

2. B.I.C. Bands — This charitable business’s mission is to assist those in need who are unable to help themselves. Founder Sandy Pearson donates a portion of her revenues to various charities, including Athletes Serving Athletes and Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. B.I.C. (“Because I Can”) Bands are washable, non-slip headbands that women can wear while exercising. Pearson says she loves GoPayment because it puts her on a level playing field with larger businesses without her going through the hassle of setting up a full-blown merchant account.

3.  Greater Atlanta Pentecostals Church — This church in Coweta County, Ga., has expanded its fund-raising efforts using GoPayment. Pastor Mark Herrington says that he uses mobile payments frequently when people want to donate to the church. Herrington says that GoPayment allows him to collect donations when he visits housebound individuals or when he’s just out in public. He calls the service convenient and easy to use.

4. Girl Scouts of America — Many troops that sell Girl Scout Cookies have embraced mobile payments as a simple solution to accepting credit cards. The scouts can process credit card transactions door-to-door, at the cookie stands they set up outside supermarkets, and at other sales events. As a result, Girl Scout troops from California to North Carolina have reported increases in cookie sales after adopting mobile payments.

Mobile payments can help nonprofit groups and charitable businesses of all kinds. Will yours be next?

In many countries, small businesses must adhere to strict rules and regulations that affect everything, from how much they can charge for a product or service to what types of goods they may sell. But in the United States, small businesses generally have more freedom to run their enterprises how they see fit.

However, just because you’re allowed to do something doesn’t mean that you should do it. This includes levying surcharges on credit card purchases.

Why Surcharges May Be a Bad Idea

Just because a small business can legally charge an extra 2 or 3 percent on a given transaction doesn’t necessarily make the practice a viable long-term strategy.

For example, today’s consumers are savvier than ever before: They know that, if they want to avoid credit card surcharges, they can probably find a merchant who doesn’t levy them. Therefore, businesses that tack on these fees may put themselves at a competitive disadvantage.

What’s more, 10 U.S. states have laws on the books that bar merchants from charging more for credit card purchases than those paid for with cash or checks.

However, the practice is legal elsewhere. A group of businesses recently filed a class-action lawsuit against Visa and MasterCard, because their merchant agreements prohibited them from passing credit card processing fees on to their customers. In July 2012, they reached an $8.55 billion settlement that included the right to assess surcharges on customers who pay with plastic.

If You Insist on Levying Fees

Some small merchants may experiment with credit card surcharges in an effort to offset the costs related to processing the cards.

One way to handle this is to couch your policy as a “discount” for customers who write checks or pay cash. This plan may lend itself well to industries that deal with large transactions, such as commercial contracting, home improvement, or consulting services.

Other small businesses may want to consider the sage advice that the most important actions are often the ones not taken. Choosing to avoid passing credit card surcharges on to customers may better support your operation in the long run.

Mobile payments have come a long way … but where, exactly, are they going?

That was a big topic of discussion at the Spring 2013 Mobile Payments Conference, which was held April 10 and 11 at the Helen Mills Event Space & Theater in New York City. The biannual event brought together more than 150 executives to talk about the latest developments in the mobile-payment industry.

Here are five trends to watch, according to the experts who spoke at the conference.

1. “Geo-fencing” is on the rise. The term refers to erecting a virtual fence around a geographic area and targeting customers electronically within that area. Locaid and Alliance Data Retail Services detailed their successful pilot geo-fencing retail promotion during the 2012 holiday season. Customers who opted in to the program received a text message when they were at or near Easton Town Center, a mall in Columbus, Ohio. If they used a particular credit card to make a purchase, they were entered to win a $5,000 shopping spree. Participating cardholders spent an average of 24 percent more in a shopping trip triggered by a text message than the average cardholder.

2. Consumers aren’t yet confident with mobile payments. Joe Cincotta, who founded Pixolut in Australia, observed that consumers have yet to widely embrace mobile payments, even though 79 percent are using smartphones while shopping in stores. Cincotta thinks that these consumers still haven’t been sold on the benefits of mobile payments and, to solve this problem, providers need to leverage the confidence consumers already have in corporate brands. He predicts steady growth in mobile payments for the next two to four years — and then fast acceleration.

3. Mobile wallets are secure. So said David Schropfer, a founding partner of mobile-payment consultancy Luciano Group. In fact, Schropfer believes that mobile wallets are more secure than many of the payment options currently offered in the marketplace. He points out that, as long as customers know their mobile wallet will be accepted by their favorite retailers, they really don’t care which technology they use.

4. It’s the consumers, stupid. In the past, many mobile-payment systems focused more on features and perks than on consumer needs. But Tim Attinger, an executive for prepaid payment-option provider Blackhawk Network, said that today these systems are shifting their energy toward tying goods and services to customers. Attinger also notes that many of these mobile-payment systems are moving from plastic to virtual prepaid cards.

5. Mobile payments meet loyalty programs. Expect to see more pairings of mobile-payment systems and loyalty programs in the near future. Jim Garrett, CEO of Snapfinger, an online portal for placing restaurant takeout orders, said that consumers don’t distinguish between ordering, payment, and loyalty programs. Any company that can combine all three components, Garrett says, will be able to provide “a fully integrated experience” that’s attractive to consumers.

About one-third of all small business failures can be traced back to employee theft and other worker crimes, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. As you might expect, retailers are particularly vulnerable, primarily because of the relatively short-term or part-time tenures of many clerks and cashiers.

How vulnerable? In 2011, the industry lost more than $35.3 billion to theft, 44.2 percent of which was attributed to inside jobs by employees. Although that was a slightly lower percentage than in the previous 12 months, it was substantially more than the losses related to shoplifting and organized crime (about 36 percent of total retail shrinkage) or administrative errors (12 percent), a National Retail Security Survey shows.

How can a small retailer reduce its exposure?

First, an owner or hiring manager can implement numerous measures to avoid hiring a risky employee in the first place and to build awareness about this problem among existing staff. Here are the top eight pre-employment techniques, as ranked by the national survey referenced above:

• Criminal conviction checks
• Multiple interviews
• Verification of past employment history
• Personal reference checks
• Drug screening
• Driving history checks
• Credit checks
• Education verification

There are also some very practical steps that retail store owners and managers can take to cut down on losses related to inside jobs. These solutions don’t necessarily require intrusive product tags and sensors that alert you when an item leaves the premises. In fact, they involve features you may already have in your Intuit POS system but haven’t put to use.

Here are two specific ideas:

1. Get on top of inventory. It is difficult to prevent losses if your company can’t properly account for how many items are on store shelves or in storage closets and warehouses. Investing in a POS system that has integrated inventory capabilities helps you track what’s coming in and out of the store, without requiring someone to spend time physically counting it. That way, you’ll be alerted if something goes missing.

2. Keep better tabs on employee hours. Another practice to consider is using your POS system to correlate employee hours with specific sales trends. If items disappear during a certain shift but weren’t rung up as a transaction, the store owner can dig into what happened.

“Most small retailers don’t know it, but they can actually use Intuit POS to map employee hours to sales — by day, by the week, even by the hour,” said Erik Roodsari, product manager for Intuit POS. “If they’re doing regular inventory, they may be able to spot spikes in shrinkage and map that to their employee activity. One retailer did this to quietly confirm her suspicions and ultimately prosecute the employee she fired.”