How do you pay for purchases
Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2025 1:31 pm
Just wondering how you guys generally pay for purchases.
Good for you. Depending on the card I'm excepting it runs 2% to 3.5%. Good old merchant fees. Shit adds up.
Those fees aren't only to cover credit card swipes, it is to help cover the cost of accepting cash. For many businesses, accepting cash is more expensive than the 2 to 3 precent credit card swipe fees. Businesses who do accept cash spend far more time reconciling cash then they do credit cards. Further, there isn't daily or multiple times weekly trips to deposit cash and creating the deposit information. Further, there isn't the "loss" with cards like there is with cash. Loss, being actually losing track of some of the cash, giving incorrect change, employee theft, etc.d-townmike wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2025 7:08 pm
Honestly, we prefer to pay with cash and try to as much as we can. But unfortunately there are a lot of places that are going cashless (sports arenas, stadiums, amusement parks, concert venues) and all they do is increase prices to cover the merchant fees.
Also, more small businesses are adding on a certain percentage of the transaction to cover their merchant fees.
I can see some logic to this. But it makes me wonder why there are some restaurants and other businesses that offer a cash discount, or add a fee for credit card transactions, often if it’s less than a certain amount. There’s a local Japanese restaurant here that gives you a discount for cash. Maybe because the BofA is across the parking lot?Left Seater wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2025 5:30 pmThose fees aren't only to cover credit card swipes, it is to help cover the cost of accepting cash. For many businesses, accepting cash is more expensive than the 2 to 3 precent credit card swipe fees. Businesses who do accept cash spend far more time reconciling cash then they do credit cards. Further, there isn't daily or multiple times weekly trips to deposit cash and creating the deposit information. Further, there isn't the "loss" with cards like there is with cash. Loss, being actually losing track of some of the cash, giving incorrect change, employee theft, etc.d-townmike wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2025 7:08 pm
Honestly, we prefer to pay with cash and try to as much as we can. But unfortunately there are a lot of places that are going cashless (sports arenas, stadiums, amusement parks, concert venues) and all they do is increase prices to cover the merchant fees.
Also, more small businesses are adding on a certain percentage of the transaction to cover their merchant fees.
So the reason many places have stopped taking cash is due to the higher costs associated with cash.
Is this going to make my old penny collection more valuable, or less?dan's college room mate wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2025 5:19 pm For any of you that were paying in pennies, you might want to make other arrangements.
Orange Hitler has ordered the treasury to so something it should have done a very long time ago. They’re going to stop minting pennies.
Pennies have been the smallest denomination of US currency since they stopped making the half penny in 1857.
Not sure what the inflation since 1857 is, but safe to say a penny in 1858 bought more than a quarter today. So, it would make sense to shit can nickels and dimes as well.
It costs more to make them than they’re worth.
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dan's college room mate wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2025 5:33 pm The ones who annoy me are the ones who are cash only.
I fully understand why they do it. Trying tokeep the governor out of their pockets.commit tax fraud.
Yes, it is tax fraud.Roux wrote:dan's college room mate wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2025 5:33 pm The ones who annoy me are the ones who are cash only.
I fully understand why they do it. Trying tokeep the governor out of their pockets.commit tax fraud.
If the business does accept cash and has to go through the hassles that come with it, then you might as well encourage cash as it doesn’t add to the work involved. But it does save the cc fee.Mikey wrote:I can see some logic to this. But it makes me wonder why there are some restaurants and other businesses that offer a cash discount, or add a fee for credit card transactions, often if it’s less than a certain amount. There’s a local Japanese restaurant here that gives you a discount for cash. Maybe because the BofA is across the parking lot?Left Seater wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2025 5:30 pmThose fees aren't only to cover credit card swipes, it is to help cover the cost of accepting cash. For many businesses, accepting cash is more expensive than the 2 to 3 precent credit card swipe fees. Businesses who do accept cash spend far more time reconciling cash then they do credit cards. Further, there isn't daily or multiple times weekly trips to deposit cash and creating the deposit information. Further, there isn't the "loss" with cards like there is with cash. Loss, being actually losing track of some of the cash, giving incorrect change, employee theft, etc.d-townmike wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2025 7:08 pm
Honestly, we prefer to pay with cash and try to as much as we can. But unfortunately there are a lot of places that are going cashless (sports arenas, stadiums, amusement parks, concert venues) and all they do is increase prices to cover the merchant fees.
Also, more small businesses are adding on a certain percentage of the transaction to cover their merchant fees.
So the reason many places have stopped taking cash is due to the higher costs associated with cash.
RACK your new avatard!Roux wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2025 6:37 pmdan's college room mate wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2025 5:33 pm The ones who annoy me are the ones who are cash only.
I fully understand why they do it. Trying tokeep the governor out of their pockets.commit tax fraud.
I guess you missed the part where it costs as much or more than the swipe fee to accept cash.dan's college room mate wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2025 11:04 pm But it does save the cc fee.
It also allows the merchant to forget to put some of it on the books.
Where are you getting this information? Have you ever run a restaurant?Left Seater wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 1:16 amI guess you missed the part where it costs as much or more than the swipe fee to accept cash.dan's college room mate wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2025 11:04 pm But it does save the cc fee.
It also allows the merchant to forget to put some of it on the books.
But let’s assume that the restaurant pays out dishwashers and busboys in cash each night instead of depositing it. They still have the cost associated with tracking such payments. At most the savings are minimal and don’t support the added risk.
When you get into cash receipts of thousands of dollars there's the additional cost of getting the cash to the bank. A cigar box isn't going to cut it, and I wouldn't want to walk out of the business on a daily basis carrying that type of cash. So you're going to want to hire someone like Brinks to come pick it up.Mikey wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 3:18 pmWhere are you getting this information? Have you ever run a restaurant?Left Seater wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 1:16 amI guess you missed the part where it costs as much or more than the swipe fee to accept cash.dan's college room mate wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2025 11:04 pm But it does save the cc fee.
It also allows the merchant to forget to put some of it on the books.
But let’s assume that the restaurant pays out dishwashers and busboys in cash each night instead of depositing it. They still have the cost associated with tracking such payments. At most the savings are minimal and don’t support the added risk.
Your logic here seems a little off, to me. If the business accepts both cash and credit cards, which would include probably 99% of restaurants, isn’t the cost of dealing with cash a fairly fixed amount? In other words it doesn’t cost them significantly more to process $1,000 in cash receipts than it does to process $100, does it? You still have to count up the money, put it in a cigar box and run it over to the bank. With credit cards the cost is a percentage of the charges. $1,000 in credit card receipts costs them ten times as much as $100. By that logic it seems that they would save significantly more from customers paying in cash.
I haven’t run a restaurant, but some of our very best friends own multiple restaurants. They own a Cajun fast casual place with 6 locations in Houston where you order at a counter and then the food and drinks are brought to your table. They claim cash costs just as much as plastic if not more. For each location they have to pay someone with some accounting skills to count all the cash, then compare the total cash to what the POS says they took in. After that is done, they then have to prepare each POS till for the next mornings opening shift. If they are short on certain types of bills, usually $1 and $5s and coins, then that has to be ordered from the bank. Then the deposit is created and entered into the accounting system. Then the next morning another person has to be there to meet the bank truck for the deposit pickup and delivery of any needed coins or bill types. Then these needed bills/coins have to be counted and added to the correct tills.Mikey wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 3:18 pm Where are you getting this information? Have you ever run a restaurant?
Your logic here seems a little off, to me. If the business accepts both cash and credit cards, which would include probably 99% of restaurants, isn’t the cost of dealing with cash a fairly fixed amount? In other words it doesn’t cost them significantly more to process $1,000 in cash receipts than it does to process $100, does it? You still have to count up the money, put it in a cigar box and run it over to the bank. With credit cards the cost is a percentage of the charges. $1,000 in credit card receipts costs them ten times as much as $100. By that logic it seems that they would save significantly more from customers paying in cash.
I don’t disagree that the cash cost are mostly fixed. My point is and has been that taking in cash doesn’t save money vs credit card swipe fees. Let’s take my friends fast casual restaurant. Unit sales are often around 5K per day. More is cash than card, so let’s assume 1/3 card and 2/3 cash. Taking an average swipe fee of 3%, the restaurant spends about $50 per day on swipe fees. For the cash side a couple hours salary and the Brinks truck pick up is going to eat thru that $100 or 3% of the cash take very quickly. This also assumes zero loss of cash which we all know isn’t reality.dan's college room mate wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 11:06 am Lefty, I think you’re the one with the reading comprehension issue.
Miguel said it pretty clearly.
If you accept cash at all, the processing cost is more or less fixed, irregardless (one of my favorite non-words) of the amount. It’s basically an economy of scale thing.
And a tax cheat thing too, of course.
DiS does bring up the security aspect and that’s where minimizing cash might pay off, if it results in a cash amount where merchant assumes the risk of carrying it to the bank/strip club.
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What you fail to consider is that if your friend stopped taking cash he would probably lose half of his customers or even go out of business altogether. So that’s not really a choice, is it? And your “point” is moot. If all of his customers paid in cash he’d be making more money than he does now. He loses money on every credit card transaction.Left Seater wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 12:52 pmI don’t disagree that the cash cost are mostly fixed. My point is and has been that taking in cash doesn’t save money vs credit card swipe fees. Let’s take my friends fast casual restaurant. Unit sales are often around 5K per day. More is cash than card, so let’s assume 1/3 card and 2/3 cash. Taking an average swipe fee of 3%, the restaurant spends about $50 per day on swipe fees. For the cash side a couple hours salary and the Brinks truck pick up is going to eat thru that $100 or 3% of the cash take very quickly. This also assumes zero loss of cash which we all know isn’t reality.dan's college room mate wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 11:06 am Lefty, I think you’re the one with the reading comprehension issue.
Miguel said it pretty clearly.
If you accept cash at all, the processing cost is more or less fixed, irregardless (one of my favorite non-words) of the amount. It’s basically an economy of scale thing.
And a tax cheat thing too, of course.
DiS does bring up the security aspect and that’s where minimizing cash might pay off, if it results in a cash amount where merchant assumes the risk of carrying it to the bank/strip club.
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Of course if the owner is skimming off some of the cash, then this all goes out the window. Tax cheats are cheats.
Reading comp isn't your friend is it?
I didn't fail to consider it, you failed to read the entire posts you are arguing against, or didn't comprehend what you read.Left Seater wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 6:43 pm They would love to move to a credit only business, but they would eliminate much of their customers.
Wrong. If all of his customers paid by card, he doesn't have the fixed costs of accepting the cash.
A 3% transaction fee sounds far better than a double digit transaction fee.dan's college room mate wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 3:11 pm But you said cash was a majority of the business. So every CC transaction becomes a 3% loss. The brinks charge is likely a set fee. They don’t charge by the dollar amount, within reason, anyhoo. All the other costs associated with running a cash business are also pretty much fixed.
Wow. Talk about reading comp. Beyond making some completely illogical fantasyland excursions, you’re not even reacting to what you quoted here.Left Seater wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 7:26 pm
Wrong. If all of his customers paid by card, he doesn't have the fixed costs of accepting the cash.