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Taking credit card payments

RICHARD WEINER
Technology for Lawyers

Published: July 15, 2016

Every once in a while, this column will pause its screaming about ESI and computer security and talk about something practical.

This is the day!

Here are six methods of taking credit card and other electronic payments from clients. Or, really, from anyone. Like you would turn down money.

All of these services do charge a processing fee of some kind.

Assuming that your firm does not have a credit card machine on its front desk:

Practice management platform MyCase is now set up to take credit card payments from clients for a straight three percent fee. MyCase had already integrated e-check capabilities, allowing payments directly from a client’s checking account.

QuickBooks Merchant Services has a credit card function that can go mobile, with a card swiper that can be plugged into a smartphone. Pay about $20 a month to unlock this feature of the QuickBooks you are already using.

LawPay is a service that is what it says it is. It is set up to process credit card payments into either your trust account or operating account, unlike most processing services, which only go to one bank account. It subtracts the service’s fees directly from the operating account (and not the trust account). LawPay is partnered with the OSBA, ABA and numerous other state bar associations. It has a monthly fee, plus transaction fees, and works through an email link sent to clients.

Square sort of pioneered the idea of a portable, personal, device-based credit card swiper. It charges a small processing fee per transaction. Square’s swiper is free, although it just came out with a swiper that accommodates chip-based cards that does cost $50 or so.

Stripe is a fairly new online-only service for taking credit cards. It can process Bitcoins, if you’re into that sort of thing (don’t be). Transaction fee only.

PayPal allows you to take credit cards, although the client does have to go through a bit of a process to get to that page of the service. It also takes checks, and, of course, payments out of the client’s own PayPal account. There may be a reserve bank account amount required, though.

Before you begin to figure this out, make sure that the service conforms to ethics requirements, and that you’re choosing the service that makes the most financial sense.


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