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When you run a transaction in the credit card terminal, it sends a signal to get authorization and approval for the digital payment from the customer’s credit or debit card. It does not deposit the money into the merchant’s bank account until the merchant batches all of the transactions at the end of the day.
Merchants can manually hit a button on the terminal to batch out or they can set up the terminal to auto-batch, usually at the end of their business day. That way, no one forgets to batch and send the money to the bank. If the merchant does not batch at the end of the day, the transactions accumulate the next business day on top of the previous day’s transactions. That can cause some bookkeeping headaches as well as cash flow problems. Auto-batch is the preferred choice for most merchants for this reason.
Another advantage to the auto-batch setup is that the merchant can be assured that their money arrives the next morning instead of a day later. Credit card processing companies have time deadlines to meet in order to provide Next Day Funding. But if the credit card terminal has the wrong time in it, then the batch may miss that deadline and not deposit the funds the next morning, but the following morning. If this happens on a Friday, the merchant who is expecting funds Monday morning will be waiting until Tuesday morning to receive funds. This situation could affect cash flow. Many times payroll is paid on Friday and missing funds on Monday morning could cause payroll checks to bounce. This is not a good look for the owner of the business.
Daylight savings and the return in the fall to regular time can cause havoc on the merchant who forgets to change the time in the credit card terminal as the seasons change. The batch may miss the next day funding cut off time.
It is a simple process to change the time but requires entering the back end of the terminal and finding the right prompts to accomplish the time change. Calling your credit card processing support line to help walk you through the prompts on the terminal can make it very simple. Also, every terminal functions a little bit differently, so it is not a generic function that we can explain here in this video.
If you don’t get the support you need from your current processor or the wait is unbearably long on the phone, don’t hesitate to call us at 505-296-2847. We can guide you through any and all credit card terminal functionality.
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