Banks are no longer directing their financial solutions towards individuals. Nowadays, they are developing more and more services targeting businesses of different sizes including, small businesses.
So, if you are a small business owner, here is how your bank will help you manage your finances and grow your business:
Business Credit Cards
Applying for a business credit card is a must to keep your finances on track. Even if you own a small business, you need to separate your personal expenditures from your business ones. This way, you will get a clear idea of how the business is doing, and you can manage your expenses and profit in a better way.
Obtaining a business credit card will also help you build your business credit score, which is important in case you needed to apply for a business loan in the future. Also, calculating the annual tax will be much easier when you separate personal and business expenses.
Banks offering business credit cards will also offer enhanced terms and benefits that you won’t get when using a personal credit card, e.g., free employee cards.
To choose the best business credit card, look for banks offering cards with low-interest rates and good reward programs where you can earn points and redeem them for other things.
Merchant Services
In case you don’t know, merchant services refer to the group of services, software, and hardware business owners need to accept and process their customers’ credit/debit card payments. These services include:
Merchant Accounts:
You can’t begin to accept any payments before setting up a merchant account to transfer the money to.
Cards Processing:
A bank would enable small businesses to accept card payments online or using in-person card processing through credit card terminals.
Payment Gateways and Online Transaction Processing:
If you decided that your business will be accepting online payments, then you’ll definitely need a secured payment gateway. It is basically software you incorporate within your e-commerce website to accept online payments.
Using online transaction processing, you will create a database to manage orders, update your stock data, and process the payment.
POS:
As part of their merchant services, banks will offer businesses ‘Point-of-Sale’ systems. POS encompasses the hardware needed to take card payments and software needed to process them. A point-of-sale system is also used for tracking inventories.
Loyalty Programs System:
You may have come with the idea of creating a loyalty program to reward your customers after each purchase and allowing them to redeem these reward points for discounts and other things. How can a bank help here?
Your bank will provide software to connect your payment processor to your loyalty program to automatically calculate the points earned on each purchase.
Commercial Real Estate Loans
If you think you’ve just found the perfect office space or maybe a warehouse that will satisfy your business needs and help you grow, but you don’t have the amount needed to purchase it then you can apply for a commercial real estate loan.
When applying for such loans the bank will take several things into consideration including, your business credit score, your personal financial history, and the characteristics of the property you intend to buy.