Four Billing Systems Entrepreneurs Need to Know About

Scott Gerber is the founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council, a nonprofit organization that promotes youth entrepreneurship as a solution to unemployment and underemployment. Follow him @askgerber.
For web startups, with a product to sell, having a virtual cash register that’s always available is key. Thanks to a host of new web apps and smartphone additions, that virtual cash register can now fit into the palm of a person’s hand.

I asked four successful young entrepreneurs to suggest the online payment services that are changing the way they conduct sales and business, especially when they’re on the road. Here’s what they shared.

1. Square

The Square app is excellent at helping you to get paid, and get paid on time. It has paved the way for simple online credit processing and offers a sleek UI. Plus, it helps that it’s easy to use on a mobile device and offers features like the ability to hold particularly large payments for thirty days.
- Matt Cheuvront, Launch

2. Chargify

Chargify’s user interface is relatively easy, their API makes their service even more flexible, and the integration that it offers is unparalleled. For example, I run a lot of my business using Wufoo forms and Chargify easily plugs into them so I can capture a client’s credit card information via our sales team. Chargify took literally five minutes to set up, and that was a plus.
- Matthew Ackerson, PetoVera

3. Braintree

Braintree is easy to integrate with any back-end system. The company also handles all charges, and will vet the customers for you to weed out suspicious transactions. We even run a subscription program through them. Also, when you’re on the road, it’s an incredibly easy system to access and manually charge customer orders. But best of all is their customer service. While traveling, I had to charge a pretty massive order for a customer. The revenue was above our maximum allowed transaction, but Braintree reps called our banks and approved the one-time charge to go through.
- Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches

4. Dwolla

Dwolla has completely changed my business since I started using it about six months ago. It’s saved me hundreds if not thousands of dollars in PayPal fees. Instead of paying 3% on every transaction — which adds up fast — I pay .25 cents, no matter how much money is involved. And any charge that’s less than $10 is free. Dwolla is strictly cash-based, so you can’t accept credit card payments through it, which can be a drawback. However, as adoption spreads, they are going to be a legitimate competitor to PayPal.
- Sean Ogle, Location 180, LLC
Image courtesy of iStockphoto,pressureUA