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I, too, have a one-man office. I had a client once ask to pay with a credit card, so I signed up for a PayPal account that accepts credit cards. The client paid the additional fee in addition to my invoice amount. It was painless. As one who pays for most of my expenses with a credit card (love them airline miles), I can see the appeal of using a credit card. Regards, Patrick ------------------------------------------- Patrick Marr AIA Patrick Marr, PE, AIA Santa Barbara CA -------------------------------------------
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-28-2012 18:41
From: David Del Vecchio
Subject: forms payment
To put this in perspective, some colleges allow you to pay tuition by credit card, but charge a processing fee to do so, which typically equals the benefit you may get for using the card in the first place.
From the client's perspective, they see the potential to earn thousands of reward points from their credit card company and maybe even pay for a few airline tickets to go away on vacation when the project was over. I looked into a merchant account. It was prohibitively expensive unless you did it all of the time. Typically there is a set up charge, an annual charge, and the charge per transaction. I think you'd be better off buying them the airline tickets, if that's the case.
There may come a day when this becomes more common for professional fees. But until that time, you'd have to pass that cost along or eat the difference in order to stay competitive. Some contractors are already doing this, by the way. Of course, the best clients don't base their decision to engage you based on price alone.
One more thing to consider (I did.) Maybe they just want the convenience of paying by card. And you cannot overlook the ability to automatically charge the account when you hit a billing milestone, rather than send an invoice and wait and wait and wait for payment.
In the end, I determined that it just wasn't worth it for me right now; but maybe one day I would re-visit this and set up an account, marketing the ease of payment as a benefit while gaining a competitive advantage over my competition.
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David Del Vecchio AIA
Architect
David Del Vecchio, Architect, LLC
Cranford NJ
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-28-2012 17:12
From: Linna Frederick
Subject: forms payment
Jessica,
I have had my firm for 25 years and never had anyone ask to pay by credit card. I would guess that this is just one odd request and not worth setting up the process of taking cards. I looked into accepting cards and the amount that I was allowed to accept was less than a typical bill to a client.
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Linna Frederick FAIA
Principal
Frederick & Frederick Architects
Beaufort SC
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-27-2012 18:26
From: Jessica Burgard
Subject: forms payment
I've recently started up a single-architect practice and I have a new client for a small residential job who is expressing an emphatic wish to pay my retainer by credit card. I hadn't thought it would be necessary to accept credit cards, and it sounds like a waste of money. Is this usual? Will I lose business if I don't accept them? Should I worry about a client who insists on using them?
Thanks for your feedback.
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Jessica Burgard AIA
Principal
Adaptive Architectural Design
College Park MD
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