Will Bachman 00:01
Today, I want to talk about how to accept payment for a consulting project if your client wants to pay using a corporate credit card. So I had never done this before, I always much prefer to get paid by a CH direct deposit or, you know, a wire transfer or worst case getting a check. But this client told us that they would either pay net 90 days, or they could pay immediately using a credit card. And we wanted to pay some subcontractor. So okay, so we said, Fine, we’ll we’ll accept credit card. So I wanted to walk you through it because I had never done it before, as little stressed out about how it would work. But I went through it, it wasn’t that bad, I thought I’d share it with you in case you ever have a client that maybe even insists on paying with with a credit card. So So here’s how it worked. I got an email today from US Bank virtual pay. And I guess they use US Bank, and email says redeem your payment by March 6 2021. So it’s February 5 today. So they give me a month and a day to take action on it or otherwise it expires. And it says a payment from a client name is ready to be redeemed. And it says payment amount $38,250. And that was the amount, the last four digits of the card number and then four digits, payment number and not with a whole string of zeros, and then a six digit number, supplier name, Umbrex Consulting, and supplier ID. And then it has this kind of code, kind of ID code. And then then it has the instructions. So it says login to the secure account access site. By entering the last four digits of the card number and credential information, you can log in up to five times. So I click on this link secure account access site. And you get to a page with just two boxes, one asked for the last four digits of the card number. So that those four digits were right in the email, so put in those four digits, and then ask for credential number. Now I didn’t see any other kind of credential number in this email. So I figured, well, maybe it’s the payment number. So I put in the payment number. But that did not work. And then it says you only have three tries left and two, and then this will be cancelled. So I said, Okay, I better not guess anymore. There was a phone number at the bottom to call. So I call this phone number. And I validated myself, I said my name and my company and the amount and so forth. And they were they kind of gave it away pretty easy. They just gave me the number. So they gave me a credential number, which was a five digit code. And apparently, that five digit code will be my credential number for this particular client, not just for this payment, but for all payments from this particular client. Okay, so then I put in the credential number, and it worked and takes me to a screen that has the first 12 digits of the card number. And then as the expiration date, this the CVC code or the CVV code, the gross amount allowed for that this specific payment, which I said was $38,250 and the billing address of the client. So then you take the first 12 digits of the card number, and you copy those. And then you put on the last four digits of the card number. And now you have a 16 digit credit card number, and you have an expiration date and a c v c. And then I logged into my stripe account. Now, I’ve never accepted a payment for a consulting project before I’ve never actually entered credit card information into that stripe account before we set that up last year, when I set up a an online course that people would pay for on our website. And we wanted to be able to collect payment. So we we set that stripe up and we connected it to WooCommerce on our website, but I had never actually put credit card info in there. So this is my first time and it turned out was pretty easy. So you go in just click you know, create payment, create payment. And then there’s a place for enter the 16 digit credit card number, enter the expiration date, month year, enter the CVV code, enter the gross amount. And then there’s a place for like reference number. And in the email that I received, it says, you know, if possible, provide the payment number and either the purchase ID or customer reference indicator field. So there was a field like that. So I put in that payment number because that’s what they asked. I click Submit and lo and behold the payment went through. So The payment went right through. And we and then stripe gave us went to the dashboard and the stripe took 3%. So I was sort of expecting that, but wow, it is a lot. So they took 3%. So out of that $30,000 that was $1,110 that that stripe takes. And then the remaining balance, if history holds with other payments of received, I should be getting that in my checking account most likely, within one business day. So it’s definitely possible if you are ever in the situation, you can set up a stripe account, which was not, it takes a couple days because you have to log in there. And then you validate you get some emails, you validate yourself, you put in your banking info, and I think it goes back and forth and tests it once or twice where it does one of those things and puts a couple cents into your account, you have to put those cents into stripe to prove that you own the account. But that was it was pretty straightforward. So you can set up a stripe account. And then if you need to, you can accept payments by credit card. Again, a CH is going to be a lot better typically. Because they don’t you know you don’t have those fees. But if you want to get paid quickly, then that’s the way to go. So thanks for listening to this episode of Unleashed the show that explores how to thrive as an independent professional. I’m your host Will Bachman and if you’re so inclined to give this show a five star review on iTunes. That would be greatly appreciated. and shoot me a note at Unleashed at Umbrex comm when you’ve done it, and also if you have any questions that you’d love for me to explore in a future episode. send those along as well. Thanks for listening