Subscribe in a reader Caculating Losses, by Lisa Solonynka, morguefileChapter 1Making a Decision to Accept Credit CardsStart-up business owners have to make many decisions about their cash flow and if they are not currently accepting credit cards, this may not be a priority when all seems to be running well. After all, people are coming into the store and paying in cash. Once in awhile, someone asks if you accept credit cards and the answer is “No.” If the customers really wants the product and has the cash, they just pay in cash.However, if the person does not have the cash, the business owner loses out on a sale. But, this does not seem to matter, as most of the patrons come in with cash. The business owner may even direct the customer to the nearest ATM machine, at which time, the customer returns with the cash and pays for the merchandise.Money in the Competitor’s PocketBut, what is really happening here? When the owner directs the customer to the nearest ATM machine, he pays for the use of the machine and the owner of the other business receives a fee for the transaction.What about that customer who desperately needs or wants your product so badly and prefers to pay with a credit card? He leaves and finds another business which sells the same product, but accepts credit cards. Because he has found the product and payment terms he wants, he opts to become a regular customer.Let’s say you own a restaurant and the customer likes to go out to eat dinner with his wife once a week. Your average dinner is $15.00. That computes to a loss of $60.00 a month or $720.00 per year. This does not seem to be much of a loss for your company on a yearly basis, but what if you turned down five customers per day and they all found another restaurant as the first customer did?Calculating the LossYou are open six days per week, so you turn down 30 customers per week. That’s 120 customers per month at $15.00 each which computes to $180 per month. At this rate, the annual loss would be $21,600! What could ...