Integrated Payments 101: How Software Companies Can Benefit
How Can ISVs or Software Companies Benefit From Payment Integrations?
That’s an important question to ask, however, if you’re new to the payments world, you might first be wondering, “What is an ISV, exactly?” You might then also wonder, “Is my business considered an ISV?”
First, let’s take a step back and give you our best ISV definition. An ISV is the common acronym given for what’s called an independent software vendor. Businesses of this type include organizations that develop and sell software, often used by other businesses. To give you an example, DaySmart is an ISV that develops and sells four types of software that are used by small businesses which include pet stores, salons, spas and tattoo studios. Each type of software provides solutions that are specific to the needs of each business type. Take the software used specifically by salons, for example. It includes tools to help keep track of things like scheduling, client records, and appointment confirmation emails.
ISVs can provide incredible management tools for businesses that many owners and managers couldn’t imagine operating without. Plus, many ISVs aim to consistently provide a seamless experience for their users. That means they’re likely partnering with other companies for integration opportunities to continue building a more comprehensive solution. When an ISV is able to participate in an ISV partnership, like CardConnect’s ISV Partner Program, to integrate payment acceptance, that software becomes even more valuable to its business users.
What Is Integrated Payments?
Integrated payments is simply the addition of payment acceptance to already existing platform, software or system. When ISVs that offer B2B solutions implement integrated payment systems into their software, they’re then able to offer credit card payment acceptance as part of their platform. This becomes an additional asset to businesses using those software programs.
Let’s go back to our DaySmart software example. As a partner of CardConnect, DaySmart has integrated our payment acceptance into all of their software platforms, so the pet stores, salons, spas and tattoo studios that we mentioned earlier have the ability to not only use the software as a business management system, but they can also accept payments from their customers, so it becomes a more comprehensive approach to management. Once a company has integrated payment services into their existing system they can offer a more complete version of themselves to their users. Instead of using several separate tools for operating a business, an integrated platform gives users a more simple and seamless experience that they can enjoy.
What’s the Value of Integrating Payments?
Let’s revisit our first question: “How Can ISVs Benefit from Payment Integrations?” There are benefits for ISVs that choose to implement integrated payment processing into their already existing systems or softwares. We’ve highlighted a few below.
More Comprehensive Offerings
If you’re an ISV providing merchants with a software that makes running their businesses simpler, you’re already on the right track. When you integrate payment acceptance into your software, you’ve then turned your offering into a more complete solution. When businesses looking for the right tools compare your single-source, one-stop-shop solution to the a company who hasn’t put in the same work for an integration that you have, you clearly have the better offering.
Merchants don’t want to have to implement several systems to run their business. In everything we do, the technology we use has become so integrated with other technologies. Our lives have been simplified so much with integration that we sometimes don’t even notice, as it has become the new norm. Business isn’t any different. If it’s available to them, businesses will always prefer an all-in-one comprehensive solution, because it makes management so much easier that more important things can take the spotlight – like growth.
Top-Notch Data Security
It’s only a matter of time before businesses, big and small, become the target of a data breach. For ISVs in particular, their software stores a ton of user information, and that makes them vulnerable. With the right payment solutions partner, when an ISV integrates credit card acceptance into their offering, that payment acceptance will bring with it robust security solutions.
High Quality Support
As an ISV, if you do your research and build a partnership with the right payment solutions provider, you’ll be backed with a hefty level of support by teams that want to see you grow. You should expect a high-quality, white-glove, customized experience from the first point of engagement, during implementation, and throughout the (hopefully) long life of your partnership. During the development phase of your integration, you should be given access to a sandbox or testing environment in order to test transactions for successes or failures, prior to shifting to your production environment.
CardConnect offers an ISV program which meets exactly those expectations. Our support teams work closely with our partners to build a custom solution that fulfills any needs of the software provider, including marketing support. Once an ISV is integrated into the CardConnect platform, we then refer to them as an ‘Integrated Software Vendor’.
