What are integrated payments?

Business owners can benefit enormously from integrated payment solutions. From simplifying workflows to speeding up the payments process, integrated payment systems help to reduce costs and make life simpler for the companies that take advantage of them.

Find out everything you need to know about integrated payment systems, including the benefits of integrated payment processing and how GoCardless can help with integrated payments.

Integrated payments explained

Integrated payment processing refers to the use of a payment processor that communicates with your business’s point of sale (POS) system to process payments and complete transactions. In a nutshell, the integrated payment solution takes all of the required financial information and sends it where it needs to go, streamlining the payments process.

In addition, integrated payments connect payment processing and merchant services with other important components of your business, such as payroll, CRM software, and accounting systems. When it comes to ecommerce, integrated payments means that the customer can complete checkout entirely on your site, without the need to redirect them to a third-party website or app.

Integrated payment processing vs. non-integrated payments

We’ve explained the meaning of the term “integrated payments” – so, what’s a non-integrated payment system? It’s fairly straightforward – essentially, non-integrated payment processing refers to payment processors that don’t communicate with your POS.

In contrast to integrated payment solutions, payment processing within a non-integrated payments framework isn’t integrated with other critical software platforms (like accounting, CRM, etc.), but remains an isolated product. This means that your transaction data won’t be automatically recorded, necessitating manual input, while it also precludes automatic access to data relating to inventory, reporting, and so on.

In an ecommerce context, non-integrated payments mean that your customers will be redirected to a third-party website/app in order to complete the payment process.

Benefits of integrated payment solutions

There is a broad range of benefits associated with integrated payment processing. Some of the most significant benefits are as follows:

• Faster checkout process – Because integrated payments benefit from uninterrupted communication between your payment processor and your POS, you can take advantage of a more efficient checkout process. Not only can you ensure that the payment process is faster for customers, but automation can help to reduce the amount of labor the accounting process requires from your workforce, enabling cost savings.

• Reduced risk of errors/fraud – Integrated payments ensure more secure transactions, reducing the risk of a data breach and helping to protect against fraud. In addition, since your transaction data is recorded automatically, the risk of human error leading to losses is minimized.

• Superior customer satisfaction – Shorter checkouts and a more streamlined experience is more likely to leave customers satisfied with their transaction and reduces the chance of an abandoned cart.

• Improved decision-making through data – Integrated payment solutions will provide you with detailed real-time data analytics, giving you the opportunity to identify trends in consumer behavior (i.e., preferred time of day for purchases, preferred payment method, etc.), as well as highlighting when certain product lines are doing well/poorly. Businesses can use this data to make better marketing decisions.

How can GoCardless help with integrated payments?

Now that you know a little more about the benefits of integrated payment processing, it’s worth thinking about how GoCardless fits into the picture.

In short, GoCardless provides an integrated payment solution that enables businesses to collect one-off and recurring payments directly from their customers’ bank accounts via ACH debit, integrating seamlessly with 300+ partners like Xero and QuickBooks. Furthermore, GoCardless can help you produce the exact type of payment flow your checkout experience requires, with the ability to create high-conversion payment pages in a variety of formats, including hosted pages, drop-in modules, and custom options.

If you’re interested in making integrated payment processing part of your business, GoCardless may be an important part of the solution.

We can help

GoCardless is a global payments solution that helps you automate payment collection, cutting down on the amount of financial admin your team needs to deal with. Find out how GoCardless can help you with one-off or recurring payments.