Hi all,

I am very proud and excited that my wife and I have re-hung the shingle on my defunct dot-com that got flushed in the bust a few years back (thank you so much billy jeff! you sure taught bill gates a lesson by bankrupting me!). I'm back in business with a new company name, a new business plan, and some much needed help: I was single last time, but this time I am married to a professional bean-counter to handle my books and marketing for me so that I can focus on doing what I love: persuading small businesses to pay me to migrate them to an open-source environment, save themselves thousands of dollars in software licenses, and get a service contract from me to keep it all ticking

One of my biggest headaches last time around was collecting bad checks. This time I am going to use a service that will guarantee the checks for me and do the collecting themselves if there is a problem. I can use a phone-in service for the checks, but then there is a 5-day hold on the funds. Not good when a client is waiting for the hardware he ordered! If I have a check-scanning POS machine the service will release the funds to me immediately.

Tough decision, right?

They want $700 for a check-reading machine (a "Valuepak 700")! Yikes! I don't have some zillionaire venture capitalist backing me. I don't want to shell that kind of money out up-front, and leasing the equipment is crazy. The service will allow me to use my own equipment, though! If I provide it, they will set it up and let me use it (whew!).

As an IT/CAD consultant, I do most of my work on client sites and they usually put a check in my hand on the spot. It would make very good sense for me to use my laptop with a PC-based check scanner and cell-internet that I can just keep in the truck or in my briefcase.

I use Suse 10.1 on the laptop, so basically what I need is a check scanning machine that works with Suse that I can set up with the service. I think all they need is an image of the MICR numbers, but one that captures an image of the whole check is probably better. At any rate, an integrated credit-card reader would be good, but isn't necessary. I can use 2 separate widgets if I have to. What I need is for them to be portable, linux-compatible, and not $700! There are a lot of machines for under 50 bones on eBay, but I am not going to buy one until I know that Suse will play nice (as will the service). My laptop has USB as well as legacy COM and LPT ports, so my options are pretty open there.

I also need a cardbus cell-internet card that works in North America with cingular and Linux if anyone knows of one. Else I could use software to dial into the service's network using my laptop's modem. Does that exist for Linux? I try to avoid WINE if anyone is thinking that, BTW.

I could probably make all of this simpler by doing it in XP (the laptop is a dual-boot) but that wouldn't make a very good case for an OSS migration to my clients if I had to boot into XP to take their payment!

I am pretty sold on National Bankcard Systems unless someone can suggest a better service or give me a really good reason to go elsewhere (ie: "they're great!" or "NBS cost me $XXXX and they suck!" is what I want to hear as long as you are willing to share details).

TIA,

J

P.S. - My SAP-veteran wife LOVES GNUcash! I highly recommend it!

I am in a similar business position. I don't order hardware. I get the customer to order it and have it delivered to them. Then when it arrives I come in and set it up.

I don't accept checks from small businesses. I use their credit cards for payments. I have one large customer from whom I accept checks but it is only because they represent a lot of my business and I haven't had any problems getting paid from them.

I haven't purchased a lot of expensive business machinery for billing or payment processing. I just have one really really cheap credit card swiping machine. It's a total piece of junk and it only cost me $29. I never use it. I use my phone to enter credit card transactions.

You shouldn't have to spend a lot of money to get started. Fancy machines and check processing services can be put off until you have a large number of checks passing through your business. Until then just don't accept checks from people that you don't trust.

Thanks. Actually, credit cards are a lot more trouble than they are worth to me. I'm sure one day I will buy a little swipe machine to plug into my laptop, but for now checks actually represent better than 95% of my payments, with cash representing most of the remainder.

It turns out that the NBS rep was mistaken about the funds availability. The phone service will guarantee the check on the spot before I leave the client site. If they reject the check I can just hand it back to the client and tell them I need another form of payment. The funds are available as soon as my bank makes them available, and I have a great bank that makes deposits available immediately, so basically the only delay in getting my money would be the time it takes for me to get from the client's site to the nearest bank branch. They even have a few 24-hour branches so that I can make the deposit in the wee hours of the morning and still go home to place an online hardware order right away if I have to.

The charge for the service is pretty small. Typically I will spend <$30/month at the most. This is very cheap insurance to make sure I always get paid, even if some jerk issues a stop pay on his check because he voided his warranty and I won't do a repair for free (which I have had happen before).

With >$10k in checks going into and out of my bank account each month, the service will pay for itself the first time someone writes me a rubber $5000 check.

For now, services like bidpay and paypal will have to suffice for credit cards, but if I ever start doing a substantial amount of credit card business, I will definitely have to add MC/Visa/Amex service because the fees those online accounts charge for withdrawing my money is nuts.

You may want to look into NBS or one like them if you have clients asking to pay with checks. I'll give you contact info if you want.

J

I'd appreciate that. You know, I went into busines because I knew that I could do a better job for my clients than I was allowed to do working for a single direct employer. I'm happy with the way that is working out. However, all of the stuff pertaining to things like this; accounting, business regulations, forms to fill out, etc. Geeze there's a lot that isn't related to providing IT service to a client.