Thanks Alex. We offer Dwolla as offsite payment provider (for members to
pay their bills online) but I wasn't aware they supported ACH.

It is indeed a question of perception. Technology, at the end of the day,
is a matter of finding the right partner/tool and typing the right code,
but if applied in the wrong context, it will just not make things easier.

Answering your question, in the UK for example, Direct Debit (the closest
process to ACH) is widespread. Most people pay subscriptions, utility
bills, accommodation, and the like using this method.

Personally, as a payer, I rather use my card, pay there and then, a not
have any *authorizations* laying around. But from the perspective of
someone running a space I can see how, given the right transaction volume,
those %s add up quickly. So yes, I guess it all depends of the size, the
users and how the whole process is implemented and perceived by them...
very interesting topic and definitively a lot of food for some lateral
thoughts and original solutions...

Adrian


-- 
*Adrian Palacios*
E: adr...@nexudus.com
T: +44.776.555.6838
*
*
[image: Néxudus]



adr...@nexudus.com <i...@nexudus.com>
http://www.nexudus.com<http://spaces.nexudus.com/Tracking/Newsletter/Click?sid=41041&suid=73CA112D-FC97-45F7-878A-56A120BC9337&nid=396396&nuid=f02e212e-771c-47fd-a067-c21eb7d79388&url=http://www.nexudus.com>



On 16 May 2013 22:54, Alex Hillman <dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The US ACH provider that seems to be the "cleanest" is Dwolla, but the
> entire process is still clunky: you need bank account information, multiple
> steps of verification, and a bunch of other things. Credit/debit cards are
> much more readily available, are perceived to be more secure (chargebacks,
> etc), and offer benefits to the customers (cash back, points, etc). I
> wonder...is this different outside of the US?
>
> As usual, the barrier is a mix of technical and perception, but either way
> I find the extra couple of % worth avoiding that pain for our members. At
> some scale of revenue processing I could see the amount we pay in
> processing fees becoming painful, but even processing hundreds of members
> it's not that much for simplicity and peace of mind for business owners and
> members alike.
>
> As for CiviCRM's support, I could be wrong but
> http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC43/Payment+Processorsseems 
> to have a column called "recurring contributions". I believe that, at
> least in most cases, that's an auto-debit option.
>
> -Alex
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> /ah
> indyhall.org
> coworking in philadelphia
>
>
> On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 5:42 PM, Adrian Palacios <adr...@nexudus.com>wrote:
>
>> oh payment industry...  trading in jolly ranchers would really be so much
>> easier... We started offering variable regular payments about 6 months ago
>> via Direct Debit (sort of ACH). Members sign up online when they join
>> the space and they provide a one off authorization to be charged a variable
>> amount of money a month. This normally includes the price plan charges
>> (this would be your $200 Jerome) plus any outstanding charges for that
>> member. The transactions are slow but much cheaper than a credit card
>> charge, normally less than 1%. This is slightly different that a regular
>> payment, in that you don't set and interval and you could request funds
>> multiple times in the same month if it was required, up to a limit set by
>> the provider. Usually around ¤500, but, in every case, it is always
>> initiated by the space. Members only need to make the
>> initial authorization, so it's quite convenient for both ends of the
>> transaction.
>>
>> The bad news (and incredibly frustrating for us) is that we haven't yet
>> found a provider in the US able to offer such as streamlined process (call
>> for help goes here). There is PayPal ACH and a couple of promising services
>> we are working with, but nothing allowing to cleanly avoid the process of
>> having to manually process the variable charges at the end of the month
>> (your are no alone on this Jerome)
>>
>> Alex, if you don't mind me asking, what auto-debit providers does CiviCRM
>> support? Perhaps we have missed a good one!
>>
>> Adrian
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, May 16, 2013 9:08:49 PM UTC+1, Jerome wrote:
>>
>>> No way.  We can schedule out $200/mo for the next 20 years if we want.
>>>  So if we had 100 members, and 70 have $200/mo without any incidentals or
>>> other random charges, then we're only reviewing the remaining 30 plans to
>>> make sure they're properly invoiced/charged.  And out of those 30, for 25
>>> of them we would likely manually enter in $210, or @200.50 or something.
>>>  The last 5 would be because they pay by check or cash, or by piles of
>>> jolly ranchers in our barter exchange program.  (haha!  of course we don't
>>> exchange in jolly ranchers, but wouldn't that be hilarious???)
>>>
>>>
>>> Jerome
>>> ______________
>>> BLANKSPACES
>>> "work FOR yourself, not BY yourself"
>>>
>>> www.blankspaces.com
>>> 5405 Wilshire Blvd (2 blocks west of La Brea) Los Angeles, CA 90036
>>> 323.330.9505 (office)
>>>
>>> On May 16, 2013, at 1:04 PM, Alex Hillman <dangerous...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Jerome,
>>>
>>> Does this mean that every month you need to schedule a new $200/month
>>> payment for each member? Or does it do that automatically?
>>>
>>> -Alex
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> /ah
>>> indyhall.org
>>> coworking in philadelphia
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 4:01 PM, Jerome Chang <jer...@blankspaces.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> Our system can schedule in the future, auto-payments to credit cards on
>>>> file.  This is ideal for plans that just pays, say, $200/mo.
>>>> However, they system does not run whatever outstanding balance is on a
>>>> client's account.  We have to manually enter the amount we want to run on
>>>> their card, say, 10 days later.  This occurs for plans that not only have a
>>>> simple $200/mo plan, but also has other incidentals charged to their
>>>> account: lost key replacement, printing, etc.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Jerome
>>>> ______________
>>>> BLANKSPACES
>>>> "work FOR yourself, not BY yourself"
>>>>
>>>> www.blankspaces.com
>>>> 5405 Wilshire Blvd (2 blocks west of La Brea) Los Angeles, CA 90036
>>>> 323.330.9505 (office)
>>>>
>>>> On May 16, 2013, at 12:32 PM, Alex Hillman <dangerous...@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Got it, thanks!
>>>>
>>>> The reason I ask is because so many of the community/group/club
>>>> management systems I've evaluated in the past do monthly *invoicing* but
>>>> don't auto-debit (or if they do, they're pretty terrible at everything
>>>> else). It looks like some of the pay gateway options that CiviCRM supports
>>>> allows for auto-debit, which is good news.
>>>>
>>>> We're at the tail end of a migration from our old billing system and
>>>> it's one of those things that I wish we'd done a few years ago. Doing it at
>>>> the scale of hundreds of members has been one of the most time consuming
>>>> processes I've ever been through. Necessary, but ouch.
>>>>
>>>> -Alex
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> /ah
>>>> indyhall.org
>>>> coworking in philadelphia
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 3:15 PM, Devin <devinb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> There's core support for about 20, including Google Checkout, PayPal
>>>>> and Authorize.net <http://authorize.net/>. More here:
>>>>> http://wiki.civicrm.org/**confluence/display/CRMDOC41/**
>>>>> Payment+Processors<http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC41/Payment+Processors>
>>>>>
>>>>> There is also an extension for Stripe.com <http://stripe.com/>, which
>>>>> works nicely and is my payment processor of choice.  I think a Dwolla
>>>>> extension is in the works.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thursday, May 16, 2013 3:07:22 PM UTC-4, Alex Hillman wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Devin,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What payment processors does CiviCRM billing integrate with?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>>
>>>>>> /ah
>>>>>> indyhall.org
>>>>>> coworking in philadelphia
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 3:04 PM, Devin <devinb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  I've used Civi for a lot of things but not for space management.
>>>>>>>  One day when I have a space...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> To quickly address your CiviCRM questions: one important feature is
>>>>>>> that it works inside a Wordpress site.  It does membership management 
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>> automated billing,  It doesn't do access tracking or resource 
>>>>>>> reservations,
>>>>>>> but I think that's what this extension proposes doing.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> CiviCRM isn't a perfect solution for coworking space management
>>>>>>> right now but I come from the school of thinking that problems don't get
>>>>>>> solved until there's a free/libre/open-source solution - and I'd put my
>>>>>>> money on CiviCRM being that solution in the not too distant future.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 5:43:41 AM UTC-4, Cristina Santamarina
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Sam, congratulations for the close release! Your design is really
>>>>>>>> nice, and you seem to handle most of what's needed - I am very very 
>>>>>>>> curious
>>>>>>>> to see how you app works! I didn't find the time to watch a demo in 
>>>>>>>> GCUC
>>>>>>>> but I'd love to try it once it is fully functional - when will I be 
>>>>>>>> able to
>>>>>>>> click buttons and play around :) ?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Thanks for the mention to Cobot Brendan - it is great to see that
>>>>>>>> someone is pointing to us even before I jump in the conversation. 
>>>>>>>> Lately I
>>>>>>>> hear of a lot of new spaces using Cobot that learned about us through 
>>>>>>>> users
>>>>>>>> comments in the discussion boards or that saw Cobot visiting other
>>>>>>>> coworking spaces. Referrals prove us that we are on the right track and
>>>>>>>> keep us moving. We send you coblove!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> As Adrian said, each space is managed in a very different way - it
>>>>>>>> is hard to be a fit for all and that's why I see a reason for all of 
>>>>>>>> us to
>>>>>>>> exist. Last year there were just three options: Nexudus, Nadine,
>>>>>>>> and Cobot. I was looking for software for the coworking space that some
>>>>>>>> friends were starting and fell in love with Cobot at first sight for 
>>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>> same reasons you mentioned - it is smooth and easy to use. I think the 
>>>>>>>> main
>>>>>>>> reason behind this is that we run a space ourselves and don't
>>>>>>>> overcomplicate things with additional features that end up being 
>>>>>>>> unused -
>>>>>>>> That's why I joined the team, and why everyday I feel so happy and 
>>>>>>>> proud of
>>>>>>>> being part of it and help so many spaces.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Re CiviCRM, I am skeptic about generic CRM and ERP tools being
>>>>>>>> adapted to coworking spaces management - after over 6 years working 
>>>>>>>> with
>>>>>>>> workspace software and having tried many of these generic tools, I have
>>>>>>>> lost my faith. Devin have you tried it yourself? What's the added 
>>>>>>>> value? I
>>>>>>>> see in their list of features that they have an extensive contact 
>>>>>>>> profile
>>>>>>>> and that they can also handle pledges, but they don't seem to handle
>>>>>>>> membership plans, access tracking, resources reservations or automated
>>>>>>>> billing - which are key to coworking software. Being a fit for all
>>>>>>>> when you are a tool made for coworking is hard (we have to develop new
>>>>>>>> features every week to fit the needs of new spaces using Cobot, and
>>>>>>>> sometime we find that there's just no way to be a fit) so fitting the
>>>>>>>> different coworking models when you're not even a tool made for 
>>>>>>>> coworking
>>>>>>>> sound like a *very* hard thing. If they can make all this for the 4k$, 
>>>>>>>> I
>>>>>>>> guess we will have to try yet another coworking management tool.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hey this was a long answer - we should all meet afk at some point,
>>>>>>>> this is a hot topic!!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Monday, January 21, 2013 11:30:52 PM UTC+1, Jason Saltzman wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Hello everyone. I own and operate a co-working space in Midtown
>>>>>>>>> NYC, called AlleyNYC. We are looking for a member management 
>>>>>>>>> solutions that
>>>>>>>>> would integrate with a magnetic door lock mechanism, where we can also
>>>>>>>>> manage certain pain points such as conference room allotment etc. I 
>>>>>>>>> kindly
>>>>>>>>> ask for suggestions from any veteran. Racking my brain! Thanks in 
>>>>>>>>> advance
>>>>>>>>> and Happy New Year to ALL!
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Jason
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>
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