As your company grows, you will inevitably be faced with the prospect of credit cards: whether you should accept them, and if you do, how to go about it.

Making the move to accept credit cards can be a big step for your company, and one tacked with the disincentive of fees drawn from your revenue. However, it opens up new doors and provides a convenient and popular form of payment, so many small business owners ultimately decide to take the leap. (Services like PayPal make it possible for businesses to receive credit payments over the Internet without a credit check or any paperwork; however, these services charge higher fees and lump payments into scheduled deliveries that increase the time between a customer’s transaction and your receipt of the payment.)

Credit card processors can be found in many places. First, your bank probably has an arrangement with a credit card processor, or, if it is a large bank such as Chase or Bank of America, may itself be a credit card processor. Second, you could find a credit card processor with a local presence in the phone book. Third, most processors market themselves aggressively online. If you want help sorting through all the options, you can use our free credit card processing comparison-shopping service.

The fee for each transaction, called the discount rate, is divided into three parts: interchange, assessments, and the processor markup. Interchange, which goes to the bank that issued the credit card, is not negotiable and is composed of a flat rate for each transaction plus a percentage of the transaction. Assessments, which go to Visa and Mastercard, are also not negotiable. The processor markup, however, is negotiable and are based on a number of factors, including your business’ assessed risk, the type of transaction, and the size of a given transaction. Discount rates have been discussed on this blog here and here.

In negotiating fees with providers, the important things to consider are what sort of transactions your business will be doing and how many of them there will be. If you will have numerous transactions, getting the per-transaction fee down is crucial, whereas minimizing start-up costs like purchasing a terminal can be pivotal for lower-volume companies.

For those who have not yet checked it out, be sure to take a look at our free credit card processing calculator, which will tell you how much your business’s discount rate and its derivatives will come in at.