You depend on a reliable, consistent cash flow to help meet your long-term goals for growth and profitability. This is especially true for the beauty and fitness industries, where seasonal trends can have a big impact on your operating expenses. Vagaro’s merchant services (VMS) are built to help you create the working capital you need to keep your business in business and grow, instead of just breaking even. These features help the money management side of your business run more efficiently, meaning it’s easier to stay profitable.
1. Credit Card Capture and Deposits Mean Cancellations Don’t Cost You
Authorization is the process happening between the customer inserting their card into the reader and seeing the “Approved” message. Once a payment is authorized, those funds become unavailable for use elsewhere. Credit card capture follows authorization. This is when authorized funds transfer from a “pending” state into available funds in your account. Credit card capture allows you to save a customer's credit card information when they book services or purchase products online. With credit card capture, you can set and charge cancellation or no-show fees, requiring a credit card to reserve appointments or classes. Deposits are another way to ensure you won’t lose money on a cancelled appointment or a client no-show. Deposits effectively split the payment for a reserved appointment into the deposit and the balance due. The amount of the required deposit is customizable to your preferences and provides you a partial payment upfront.
2. Boost Purchases with Packages
The ability to pay in advance is powerful incentive, especially for your busiest customers. Once your merchant services account is activated, you can create an ongoing flow of cash by offering upfront payment for a series of future services in a package. Offering discounts as part of the purchase can motivate customers to buy a package, knowing they can schedule their visits for a later date. As a business owner, you'll have the advantage of getting paid upfront for services you'll deliver later. This means you’re automatically creating a money flow with a reduced number of no-shows, because they’ve paid in advance. That's a win/win for everyone!
3. Automate Payments with Memberships
Automated payments for memberships can help you build a stream of recurring revenue for your business and offer customers savings in return. Memberships help build a “nest egg” of working capital to stay profitable through seasonal peaks and valleys. And as long as you deliver on the value customers expect, they also boost client retention. Most people already think of memberships as ongoing expenses they're willing to pay for membership perks and discounts. For this reason, memberships are an easy way to ensure reliable income every month. And because your customers are paying for their membership, they're more likely to visit more often, to take advantage of the perks!
4. Working Capital Keeps You Working
Now that you’re familiarized with some of the ways you can use your merchant account to create ongoing working capital, remember that the Vagaro Support forums have a whole section of resources for using your Vagaro Merchant Services account. Learn more about how to sell and redeem packages and how automated membership payments can help you create an ongoing cashflow.
Ready to create a dependable cashflow with VMS? Great! Let's get started!
