Digital payment tools offer mobile and virtual processing options

Small businesses are increasingly utilizing mobile invoicing and virtual terminal technologies to process transactions without traditional hardware.

Charge.com provides merchant accounts with rates starting at 0.25% and offers free mobile card readers for iOS and Android. Their contactless payment technology, often referred to as tap-to-pay, allows customers to complete transactions in under a second by tapping a card, smartphone, or smartwatch near a compatible reader using short-range wireless communication.

Square offers a Virtual Terminal, a browser-based tool that enables businesses to accept credit and debit card payments via phone, mail, email, or text using a computer. While the software itself has no monthly fee, manually entered card payments in the US are priced at 3.5% plus 15 cents, a higher rate than standard tap, dip, or swipe transactions due to the increased risk associated with keyed-in payments.