The Celero team is proud to announce another strategic partnership aimed at providing American businesses with elite resources to help them generate fast, efficient, and sustainable growth. Our newest partner, Adesso Capital, is a full-service concierge lending desk with experienced team members trained to help small to medium sized businesses across all industries secure their best financing solutions.

“While we are committed more than ever to our community bank partners nationwide, we view our alliance with Adesso as critical to addressing gaps in our respective geographies,” said Jim Harris, President of Strategic Partnerships. “Our direct-to-merchant channel is taking off after multiple acquisitions, and Adesso gives our merchants access to critical growth capital in a streamlined, digital service model.”

Adesso is fully aligned with Celero’s mission, as the company’s goal is not just to secure clients with short-term funding needs, but also to help them envision long-term growth plans for their businesses. Since 2007, Adesso’s loan specialists have helped secure clients over $700 million in business loans. Their impressive product lineup includes term loans, SBA loans, equipment loans, lines of credit, and merchant cash advances.

“Our company is proud of our ongoing dedication to create growth and profits for our clients,” said Damon Maletta, founder and CEO of Adesso Capital. “We are very excited to enter this new partnership and will be available to serve you when needed.”

To learn more about what Adesso Capital can do for your business capital needs, contact your Celero account executive or visit www.adessocapital.com.  

Whether you own a law firm, pizza restaurant, or hair salon, it’s essential for you to utilize a virtual terminal. Especially in this age of social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many customers prefer to make payments for products and services over the phone and a virtual terminal is what allows you to do this. If you’re not familiar with the term, a virtual terminal is a software program that allows you to process payments without your customer’s card being present. When deciding which platform is right for your business, it’s important to determine your organization’s unique needs and decide which payment features are most important to you. Today, we’re going to discuss three terminals options that we recommend for our clients. 

Finding the Perfect Payment Terminal

At Celero Commerce, we recommend three different virtual terminals to our clients: Authorize.Net, NMI, and PayTrace. Here is an overview of what each terminal has to offer:

• Authorize.Net: For a majority of merchants, including professional service providers, e-commerce shops, restaurants, health and beauty businesses, non-profits, and field service management companies, we recommend utilizing Authorize.Net as a payment terminal. This Visa-backed terminal will allow you to accept “card not present” transactions easily and efficiently. It features customizable security settings that will help keep you and your customers safe, including multiple fraud filters, shipping-billing mismatch detection, transaction limits, and flagging capabilities for suspicious activity. If you ever need assistance, this platform features a comprehensive support center, with 24/7 live support to help answer any questions you may have. Through and through, this virtual terminal is an excellent option for all types of merchants! 
• NMI: If your business is focused on ACH transactions, we recommend utilizing NMI as your virtual terminal. NMI makes processing recurring and single-time ACH transactions easy and secure. In addition to its powerful payment processing capabilities, it features top-notch security features, including smart fraud detection, payer authentication, and automatic suspicious activity screening. Plus, it allows you to accept payments from a variety of card types, such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, Diners Club and JCB, which will make it incredibly convenient for your loyal customers. 
• PayTrace: If your organization would like to process Level 3 payments, we recommend using PayTrace. If you’re not familiar with what Level 3 payments are, they are a type of payment type designed for Business-2-Business (B2B) and Business-2-Government (B2G) purchases. This type of payment requires three items of data to describe the purchase: (1) what is being purchased, (2) how the sale takes place, and (3) who is involved in the transaction. The benefit of Level 3 payments is that they include lower processing fees. PayTrace features easy to use and customizable payment processing, comprehensive fraud protection, excellent reporting options, a dedicated customer support team, recurring billing, and a secure customer information vault to store important details. PayTrace is an excellent option if Level 3 processing is a priority for you, but you don’t want to compromise on other features like security, customizability, and customer service. 

Contact Us Today 

If you’re interested in learning more about the virtual terminals we discussed today, please contact us! One of our representatives will be happy to walk you through the different terminal platforms and help you decide which one is the best fit for your business. 

Professional service providers need payment solutions built for their unique business needs. Whether you run a law office, sales agency, accounting firm, or consulting business, Celero Commerce has a payment solution that will save you time, effort, and hassle. Keep reading to learn more about how we can help!

Payment Devices Designed for Professionals

For professional service providers, we recommend utilizing one of the following payment devices. Whether you need a tabletop or handheld device, we’ve got you covered! 

• PAX A80: This sleek, touchscreen payment device allows you to process payment quickly and efficiently. It features advanced connectivity, so it is easy to process payment after payment without losing connection. Additionally, it features a high-speed printer for receipts which will make the payments process even easier!
• FD 150: The FD 150 is First Data’s most affordable and reliable payment terminal. It features a compact design, fast connectivity, superior security settings, and a variety of payment options, including regular magnetic stripe and chip payments, in addition to contactless methods. 
• PAX A920: This device delivers refined elegance, amazing security features, an ergonomic design, and the reliability you expect from PAX payment devices, all rolled into one easy-to-use device. It has a 5 inch, full-color touchscreen, a speedy thermal printer, a high capacity battery, and advanced payment capabilities. 
• Clover Flex: The Clover Flex is a favorite for professional service companies, thanks to its sleek design, incredible reliability, minimal set-up time, and mobile capabilities. This device can easily be integrated with Clover’s wide variety of business management apps that can help you track sales and collect customer information.

Business Management Apps 

Clover and PAX both offer amazing point-of-sale and business management apps that will help make your life easier. Whether you’re interested in streamlining payroll, creating beautiful, custom invoices, generating sales reports, or managing your workforce, they’ve got the perfect solution for you. 

• Gusto: This free Clover app will make your business’s payroll a breeze. In just a few clicks, you can pay your employees and contractors, in addition to filing your local, state, and federal payroll taxes. Plus, it’s got a 5-star review rating!
• InvoiceASAP: InvoiceASAP integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks to allow for easy invoicing and payments. It also helps you manage your customers and create customized invoice designs. 
• OTF Express: This user-friendly app allows you to track all of your sales and store them in one convenient location for easy viewing and analysis. With this app, you can easily run reports which will help you gather insights about your business. 
• Time Clock by Homebase: In this app, you can track the hours, attendance, and happiness of your employees, which will help in employee retention. The best part is that Time Clock easily integrates with a variety of payroll providers, including Gusto, QuickBooks, ADP, and more.  

Contact Us Today

Not sure which payment solutions are perfect for your business? Contact us today and one of our representatives will be happy to assist you. We look forward to hearing from you!

As we continue to grow as a company, we’re always looking for new ways to maximize value for our bank and merchant partners. We believe one of the best ways we can do so is by providing top-notch, real-time support for our clients. That’s why we’re proud to unveil the new Celero Partner Support Team.

We’ve dedicated 14 highly trained and experienced team members to the Partner Support Team, which will handle all inquiries from new merchant accounts to maintenance to technical questions and much more. When you call Partner Support, you’ll hear many of the familiar voices at Celero that you know and trust. You’ll also hear new voices from trained professionals ready to help with any questions or concerns that you may have.

The establishment of this elite customer service force is part of an ongoing effort to integrate our operations and sales teams into one cohesive network. Additionally, it will help maximize the use of our legacy platform, increase product knowledge, and improve overall value to both existing and potential partners.

As part of this reorganization, we are also restructuring our bank and sales support teams due to COVID-19 and increasing workload in some of our most critical areas. This move will allow us to better share platform expertise and manage a larger bandwidth. Kathryn Cox will spearhead relationship management with our financial institutions as Vice President of BankMax, while Amy Arlington will handle BankMax from the operational side as Vice President of Partner Support.

“We feel confident that our FI partners and merchants will be in great hands with the Partner Support Team, and under the leadership of Kathryn and Amy,” said founder and CEO, Kevin Jones. “I can’t think of two people with more experience and expertise than these two.”

The new Partner Support Team can be reached at (615) 376-7878 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday. We can now provide our clients with:

• Experts to help with the Fiserv North and TSYS platforms
• Product and Level II technical support resources
• Regular webinars on industry-specific topics like Clover, Compass, cash discounting, risk/underwriting, merchant retention, and more

“We’re thrilled about these changes because we know they will lead to better outcomes for both our employees and partners,” said Kevin. “This reorganization empowers us to deliver that high-tech, high-touch experience at a larger bandwidth.”

Stay tuned for video segments introducing the new Partner Support Team!

At Delicious Wines Crew in Napa, California, wine is so much more than just an alcoholic beverage.

“Wine is communion,” said Jay Nunez, winemaker. “It’s sitting next to my brother and sister and creating memories. Sure, it makes you feel good and gets you tipsy, but really, it’s about the experience. Wine brings people together.”

Brendan Kam, founder and CEO, started Delicious Wines Crew with the intent to not only share fine wines, but also to make them more accessible to everyone.

“Our business is centered around education and community,” said Brendan. “We want to make wine something that feels approachable to everybody. One of our core goals is breaking myths and removing these preconceived notions about wine, like this idea that you have to be an expert.”

Delicious Wines Crew is a unique type of wine shop. They’ve created a welcoming and non-judgmental environment where anyone can participate in tastings, from newcomers to seasoned wine experts. While savoring your glass of chardonnay or Bordeaux, you’ll learn more about its complexities. It’s a place to enjoy wines and a place to educate yourself about them. You don’t need to be familiar with wine vernacular—words like “dry” or “oaky”—to enjoy a tasting here.

“The language that people use to describe wine often leads beginners astray,” Brendan explained.

“Wine can be big and confusing, but it’s also approachable if you let it be,” said Jay. “It’s those self-imposed barriers that are the biggest misconceptions in wine.”

In the midst of a global pandemic, serving and educating people about wine isn’t exactly easy. But Brendan and Jay are finding ways to adapt.

“We started doing virtual tastings,” Brendan said. “That way, we can still feel connected and still learn together.”

“Obstacles can become opportunities,” added Jay. “While our tasting group could have suffered dramatically, we’ve pivoted. We’ve utilized the modern tools at our disposal to stay connected with people, and I think that it’s been a blessing because it’s taught us that we can always adapt. We can still find comfort and connectivity with people if we really seek it out.”

One of those modern tools helping them adapt to the new COVID normal is their Celero payments system.

“The solutions we use from Celero—Authorize.net, that whole contactless payment system—they’ve become so popular all over the world,” Brendan said. “We’re even trying out-of-the-box solutions like putting QR codes on the wine bottles. All these new technologies have helped streamline our business.”

“It’s been a way to minimize having multiple avenues to gather revenue, and instead put it all in one place,” said Jay. “In the past, we were taking money from different places, and now it’s just so convenient to do it all in one shot. It’s also a lot easier to track and record everything.”

Brendan’s favorite part about their Celero payments system? The convenient size and user-friendliness. “Seeing the ease of how it works and how small it is, it’s incredibly helpful,” he said. “It’s a Bluetooth connection that you can just carry around in your hand.”

Brendan, Jay, and everyone at Delicious Wines Crew represent our favorite part of doing business: being able to serve the innovative and resilient small businesses that create community across America.

“We do wine all day, everyday,” said Jay. “On our own, we all thought we were weird with our wine obsessions. But when we found this community and started curating it, it felt like home.”

You can learn more about Delicious Wines Crew by following them on Instagram or visiting their website. If you’re looking for a way to support small businesses during COVID-19, consider signing up for their $5/month PrioritySomm club.

Combined company enters top 10 of non-bank payment processors, adds proprietary SaaS solutions to serve additional verticals, strengthens distribution channels 

Nashville, TN and Chicago, IL – October 28, 2020 – Celero Commerce (“Celero”), a vertically-focused commerce solutions provider, today announced the acquisition of TransNational Payments, a leading provider of electronic payments technology and business management SaaS solutions. With the addition of TransNational, Celero now serves approximately 40,000 merchants, 150 financial institutions, and processes more than $14 billion of card volume annually, making it a top 10 non-bank payment processor in the United States.

“We have been building toward this moment since we formed Celero in 2018. This is an important step in Celero’s evolution, expanding the high-tech, high-touch solutions we deliver that differentiate and empower our financial institution partners and business customers across the U.S.,” said Celero Commerce founder and CEO, Kevin Jones. “Our collective offering of vertically focused solutions, advanced middleware technologies and frictionless boarding capabilities, combined with the diverse go-to-market strategy and talented team added by TransNational, optimizes Celero for continued growth.”

“It’s an exciting day for the TransNational Payments team,” said TransNational CEO, Jae Haas. “We are proud to join Celero and contribute to our collective mission to help small and mid-sized companies drive growth with the best financial technology platform in the market. This opportunity not only makes sense in terms of how our products and services fit, but also culturally, where our teams will come together and focus on smart growth for the future.” As part of this transaction, Jae Haas will take on an expanded role leading Celero Direct and Executive Vice President, Bryan Olson, will be responsible for TransNational operations.

This acquisition marks Celero’s second in 2020 and sixth since its launch in 2018, following an investment from private equity firm, LLR Partners. “Each strategic acquisition has increased Celero’s ability to deliver bundled, user-friendly software and payments solutions, empowering businesses to compete and grow,” said Ryan Goldenberg, Principal at LLR Partners and Director at Celero Commerce. “This acquisition is a significant step forward in helping Celero realize its vision to be the premier business partner for small and medium-sized businesses across the country.”

Financial Technology Partners (“FT Partners”) served as the exclusive strategic and financial advisor to TransNational Payments.

About Celero Commerce

Headquartered in Nashville, Celero Commerce is a full-service, integrated electronic commerce solutions provider powered by leading edge technology, strategic partnerships, and business intelligence. Celero offers payment processing services, business management software, and data intelligence to small and medium-sized businesses, empowering them to drive growth and profitability.

Media Contact:

Celero Commerce

Scott Farace, Chief Marketing Officer

scottf@celerocommerce.com

972-533-5655

The success of your financial institution is aligned to the success of your small to mid-sized commercial clients, so it’s important to provide them with a payment processing solution that will save them money and help their business grow. If a merchant already has a payment solution in place, it might be a tough sell for your financial institution to get them to adopt a new payment hardware. Paying a few hundred dollars for a new Clover or PAX payment device might seem out of the question for many merchants, but when they see how much they’ll save in credit card processing fees, the conversation quickly turns to closing the deal and getting started. 

Breaking Down the Savings 

When approaching a merchant about switching from their current payment processor to Celero, it’s important to gather as much information about their current processing fees as possible. With this information, your financial institution can run the numbers to see how much money Celero could be saving them if they switched today. Many businesses invest large sums of money in processing hardware and software, so the idea of purchasing a new one from Celero can be a tough pill to swallow. This sunken cost can sometimes loom heavy on their mind and prevent them from making a switch, but after they see the numbers broken down for them, that sunken cost will become a distant memory. The amount of money they save on credit card processing fees can often recoup this sunken cost within a few months or less! 

To give a real world example, a client of ours used to bank with one of our competitors and had spent $4,000.00 on setting the payment system up. When this client revealed how much they were spending per month on credit card processing fees, we were shocked at how high their processing fee was per transaction! To give them a real-world example of their savings, we generated a report of how much they would save by utilizing Celero’s payment solutions. Within one and half months of signing with Celero, this business was able to recoup the $4,000.00 cost of their previous payment hardware, in addition to saving significantly on their monthly processing fees. Over the course of a single year, we saved this client approximately $20,000.00 in processing fees, which was a game changer for this mid-sized company. It’s important to dig into a potential client’s financial situation to determine if Celero products and services will make a difference in their annual expenses. 

Need Help Acquiring New Merchant Accounts? 

If your financial institution needs assistance acquiring new merchant accounts, please reach out to us! We offer multiple bank partner programs that are designed to provide different levels of support. Whether your institution needs minimal guidance or hands-on support and training, we’re here to help! Please contact us today to learn more. 

Running a field service business can be tough and time-consuming, but RazorSync and Celero are here to help! RazorSync is an award-winning, cloud-based software and mobile app that will do wonders to simplify your business operations. Whether you run an HVAC repair, landscaping, pest control, plumbing, or pool-service business, this user-friendly program will help you immensely. 

Remotely Schedule Jobs  

Whether you’re working from your office, home, or poolside at a Hawaiian resort, RazorSync allows you to easily and quickly schedule and dispatch workers. As long as you have an internet connection, you can access your company data from anywhere in the world and from any type of device, including your smartphone. Say goodbye to lugging around your work computer whenever you’re on a business trip or vacation! This easy-to-use software displays all of your work orders, service requests, and scheduled jobs, in one convenient location and it can help you plan out employee schedules accordingly. 

Optimize Your Time With GPS 

To help you and your employees save time, gas money, and effort, RazorSync will help you assign jobs based on your GPS coordinates. For example, let’s say that you run an HVAC repair company with multiple technicians that travel across your state to service customers. One day, you receive a message saying that a customer needs their air conditioning unit replaced as soon as possible. Right after the service request comes in, RazorSync will use GPS to identify the closest available employee to this customer’s location. Not only will this save you time, but it will also impress customers with your quick response time and lightning-fast service. 

Accounting Made Easy 

RazorSync allows you to easily create, send, and track invoices. This program is incredibly user-friendly and will walk you through each step, so that you can present professional and accurate invoices to your happy customers. Once your invoice is created and your customer is ready to pay their balance, RazorSync will help you process the payment and update the invoice status. In addition to its invoicing capabilities, RazorSync effortlessly integrates with QuickBooks to help make your company’s accounting as easy as possible. As an added bonus, RazorSync will help you manage payroll and keep track of your expenses. Having all of your invoices and accounting information in one location, accessible to you wherever you have internet access, will drastically simplify your business’s accounting processes. 

Contact Us Today 

RazorSync is an amazing opportunity to streamline the operations of your field service business and take back your free time! 

If you’re interested in learning more about this program and how it can help your company, please contact us today. We look forward to chatting with you!  

If your financial institution is looking to become the payment processor for niche businesses like dental offices and medical practices, you already know how hard this market is to break into. While many other merchants are adaptable when it comes to their payment processing preferences, some merchants are looking for something designed specifically for their industry. Payment and practice management vendors, like Dentrix and CareCard, have popped up to cater to this niche market, but are they really the best choices for these merchants? 

Drawbacks of Specialty Payment Vendors 

At Celero, we don’t necessarily have a payment processing solution designed specially for dental offices or medical practices. However, we offer highly adaptable payment hardware options and point-of-sale apps that will help merchants in these industries process payments quickly, efficiently, and in a cost effective manner. Selling this idea to a potential customer who owns a medical practice can be tough, especially when there are organizations like CareCard that cater directly to their business. But is CareCard really the best option for this potential customer? The simple answer is that it depends and determining the answer can help you potentially land a new commercial client. 

While CareCard is a good choice for some medical practices, other practices lose thousands of dollars in credit card processing fees every year. The problem with CareCard is that when using their payment hardware to process payments with a CareCard card, the transaction rates are reasonable, but if you use their hardware to process a payment with a regular credit card, like a Visa or MasterCard, the rates are astronomical! If a medical practice only accepts CareCard for their payments, staying with their system might be a good choice for them financially. But if they often accept payments using regular credit cards, Celero’s payment solutions can save them thousands of dollars per year. They could be stuck paying a six percent credit card transaction fee every time they swipe a patient’s Visa card, while Celero can offer them a fee of less than two percent. Saving roughly four percent on every credit card transaction will save this potential customer’s medical practice a fortune every single year, so you should talk to them about making a change in their payment hardware. If they still want to accept CareCard payments, they can easily keep the two payment hardware options at their practice. This simple change will allow their practice to save money in fees that they would have otherwise been simply throwing away. 

Closing the Deal 

Discussing the hard numbers with your potential clients will often be enough to sway them towards processing payments with your financial institution. However, if they still need some convincing, you can discuss Celero’s various products and services that you think will meet their business needs.

Celero offers advanced practice and employee management software, recurring billing capabilities, over the phone payments, programs for gathering customer insights, bookkeeping, ACH solutions, contactless payments, real-time analytics, and so much more. Your potential client might come into your institution thinking they just want a new payment processing hardware, and they might decide to sign-up for a comprehensive business management system with your bank. 

The payments market has become increasingly competitive in the past few years, and many merchants receive daily solicitations from payment vendors claiming they have the lowest prices in town. How can your community bank retain your merchant accounts, even when your customers are being bombarded daily with advertisements from your competitors? 

Proactive Service and Transparent Pricing 

According to studies, it costs roughly five times more to acquire a new client than to maintain a relationship with a current account. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when every penny counts, it’s important to provide excellent customer service to your merchant accounts, so that you can keep their business even when your competitors are advertising directly to them. 

Beyond keeping in touch with your customers on a regular basis and making sure they have all the tools necessary for their businesses to succeed, it’s important to be proactive about addressing their concerns before they even voice them to you. By the time they open their mouths and say that they have decided to make a change to a different payment processor, like Square, QuickBooks, or Stripe, it’s likely already too late to save your account. Why? Because when your competitors approach your customers, they’re putting forth their best efforts to sway your customer in their direction by using advertising tricks, like offering a lower price that excludes the hidden monthly fees. Sure, the quoted price might be lower than your pricing, but that doesn’t include the $50.00 of hidden add-on and administrative charges that will show up on their first bill. 

So how do you address customer concerns before they even express them? The Celero system allows you to monitor how your merchant accounts are using your payment processing solutions. If you notice a sudden dip in the number of times they are processing with your institution, it’s a good idea to check in with them. It could be that their business has hit a snag or they’re going through a dry spell, and in this case, you can take this time to talk to them about how you can help them through their tough time. You can discuss some of Celero’s money-saving solutions and how to get started. On the other hand, a dip in transactions might mean they are processing with your competitors. In this case, you can take this time to ask them how you can better serve their needs. Reminding them about the countless advantages of processing with your bank will help to solidify your business relationship. 

If you notice that your merchant accounts are downloading financial statements, it could mean that they are shopping around for other payment processing vendors. Competitors will often ask for a financial breakdown of what they are paying their current vendor, so that they can try to undercut your pricing. If you contact your customer and they tell you that they’re considering making a change, it’s important to remind them of your transparent and straightforward pricing model. Even if a vendor offers a lower price, it doesn’t mean it’s the better deal. With Celero payment solutions, we offer simple pricing without any of the hidden fees other payment vendors sneak into their contracts. Discussing pricing concerns with your customer will help you get a feel for how your bank can better serve them, and it will give you a chance to get your customer to stay with you. 

Innovative Payment Solutions

The growth of your financial institution is dependent on the growth of your commercial accounts, so it’s important to provide them with payment solutions that will help them succeed during these tough times. If you’re not already utilizing Celero’s payment processing solutions, please contact us today. We are here to help you nurture relationships with your commercial customers and we offer 24/7 customer service support.