Bitcoin Wiki - User contributions [en]

CoinGate

2020-05-04T13:41:48Z

Chevesli:

{{infobox company|name=CoinGate|image=[[File:Coingate.png|256px]]
|location=Vilnius, Lithuania
|industry=[[:Category:Payment Processors | Payment Processor]]
|founder=[[Jonas Gilys]] <br/>[[Dmitrijus Borisenka]] <br/> [[Irmantas Baciulis]]
|twitter=CoinGatecom
|facebook=coingatecom
|website=https://coingate.com
}}

CoinGate was founded in 2014 and is incorporated in Vilnius, Lithuania. The company is a cryptocurrency payment gateway, enabling various businesses worldwide to accept Bitcoin.

Currently serving over 4,500 business clients and 80,000 registered users, CoinGate offers payouts in Euros for a flat 1% fee, eliminating any risk associated with the price volatility of cryptocurrencies. Their merchants can also choose to keep the revenue in cryptocurrencies, providing numerous ways to make a withdrawal.

Also, the company provides a platform for traders who wish to buy or sell their digital assets without making any deposits.

Even though most CoinGate services are available in most parts of the world (See “Supported Countries” section), the company does not provide merchant services in the U.S.

==Brief History==
CoinGate went live in March 2015. The company started to gain attention by the end of February 2017 with the launch of the credit card option for buying Bitcoin. By May 2017, CoinGate processed its first 10,000 payments.

Shortly after, in August, CoinGate went into a partnership with Shapeshift, adding over 50 additional cryptocurrencies to their provided payment options. In December 2017, the company also [https://blog.coingate.com/2017/12/coingate-implements-segwit-addresses/ integrated Segwit] addresses. By that time, the company had processed 100,000 payments in total.

In 2018, CoinGate started growing rapidly. In February, [https://news.bitcoin.com/80000-new-merchants-in-europe-gains-option-to-accept-crypto/ CoinGate joined forces with e-commerce platform Prestashop], offering an easy solution for merchants to accept multiple cryptocurrencies using the official plugin.

However, CoinGate is mostly known for pioneering the use-cases of the Lightning Network technology. In September 2018, CoinGate became one of the first payment processors in the world that [https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2018/09/05/bitcoin-adoption-is-getting-a-massive-lightning-network-boost/#6d127321420c introduced Bitcoin Lightning Network payments] to thousands of online vendors. After CoinGate presented their developments at TechCrunch Disrupt event, the Verdict called CoinGate one of “[https://www.verdict.co.uk/techcrunch-disrupt-2018-startups/ future tech giants]”.

CoinGate started 2019 strong, launching support for new native currencies each week. Since the year began, CoinGate natively integrated TRON, Nano, Dai and, [https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-payment-processor-coingate-adds-support-for-ripples-xrp XRP] cryptocurrencies.

By January 2019, the payment gateway implemented ten cryptocurrencies natively. [https://blog.coingate.com/2019/01/year-review-milestones-future/ According to the article on CoinGate blog], CoinGate “processed close to 300,000 merchant payments since January (2018). In comparison, this is nearly three times more than last year”.

==Merchant Tools==
Merchants can receive Bitcoin and Altcoin payments via CoinGate using a [https://blog.coingate.com/2018/11/accept-bitcoin-payments-in-business-why-and-how/ range of tools]: plugins/modules for the most popular e-commerce systems, API, Point of Sale apps, and payment buttons.

Additionally, customers can pay with over 50 Altcoins via Changelly integration, converting any payment to Bitcoin automatically.

===Plugins===
CoinGate offers a range of simple to use e-commerce integrations via [https://coingate.com/plugins/ plugins, modules or extensions] for accepting payments in Bitcoin and Altcoins.

===API===
[https://developer.coingate.com Application Programming Interface] allows businesses to integrate cryptocurrency payments into an online store with more customization. Using the CoinGate API, developers can create orders, get orders and list orders, as well as receive payment callbacks and order statuses. API integration is also possible using one of the CoinGate libraries: [https://github.com/coingate/coingate-php CoinGate PHP], [https://github.com/coingate/omnipay-coingate Omnipay], [https://rubygems.org/gems/coingate Ruby Gem]. A fully functional [https://sandbox.coingate.com Sandbox environment] is available for testing using Testnet Bitcoin.

===Points of Sale===
[https://coingate.com/pos Point of Sale] apps for Android and iOS allow businesses to accept Bitcoin payments on any [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.coingate.pos&hl=en Android] or [https://itunes.apple.com/lt/app/bitcoin-pos/id1145472715 iOS] mobile device. Bitcoin Point of Sale web app, which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser, allows businesses to accept Bitcoin payments on any device with a web browser and an internet connection.

===Payment Buttons===
CoinGate [https://coingate.com/button Payment buttons] allow businesses to accept Bitcoin donations and other simple payments on any website. All three types of buttons - Fixed price, Slider and List - can be easily customized to include any necessary description, company logo, and cover image.

==Settlement==

Payments received from customers can be paid out in Euros to a bank account, AdvCash or Skrill wallet, avoiding the risk of price volatility. Alternatively, merchants can receive payouts in Bitcoin directly to their wallet. CoinGate charges a flat 1% fee for paid orders processed - there are no setup or subscription fees.

==Trader Tools==

===Buy Bitcoin and Altcoins===
In addition to their services for merchants, CoinGate offers a platform for traders, allowing them to buy cryptocurrencies without making any deposits. After CoinGate receives the transfer, users can choose when to commit to their purchase (the maximum period is two weeks).

A list of all available purchasing options:
*SEPA Bank Transfer: Purchasing option for the Europe region. Allows purchasing most native cryptocurrencies listed on CoinGate. Registration and verified account are required;
*Direct Bank Transfer: also available in China, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam. Allows purchasing most natively integrated cryptocurrencies listed on CoinGate. Registration and verified account are required;
*[https://buy.coingate.com/ Credit and debit cards]: Instant payment option available worldwide. Allows purchasing most natively integrated cryptocurrencies listed on CoinGate. No registration required;
*[https://coingate.com/buy-bitcoin-mobile Mobile balance] ([https://themerkle.com/coingate-lets-users-buy-bitcoin-with-their-mobile-credit/ phone credit]): Payment option available worldwide. Registration and verified account required;
*[https://coingate.com/buy/skrill Skrill]: Instant payment option for Skrill users. No verification and registration are required as long as you are verified on Skrill.
*[https://coingate.com/buy/neteller Neteller]: Instant payment option for Neteller users. No verification and registration are required as long as you are verified on Neteller.
*QQPay: Payment option for the Asia region. Allows purchasing most natively integrated cryptocurrencies listed on CoinGate.

For customers that use instant payment options, a quick KYC procedure is applied to ensure that both parties remain fully compliant with international laws.

===Sell Bitcoin and Altcoins===
Customers are also able to sell cryptocurrencies on CoinGate using numerous methods without the need to deposit funds first.
The price of cryptocurrencies is locked before sending to CoinGate, guaranteeing users the amount of EUR they shall receive to their bank account, Skrill wallet or AdvCash platform.

==Fees==

===Merchant fees===
For merchants, CoinGate charges 1% flat fee for payment processing. There are no setup or recurring fees, and no fees charged to shoppers. The service includes free SEPA transfers and Bitcoin payouts, as well as customer support & reporting dashboard.

CoinGate also provides payment infrastructure for enterprise-grade projects and PSPs, meaning that particular clients may get a dedicated account manager, priority customer support and volume-based discounts.

===Trader fees===
CoinGate applies 3% buying and selling fee without depositing funds. Users can buy or sell directly to or from your wallet, also exchange fiat to crypto and vice versa.

===Withdrawals===
Euro withdrawals using SEPA bank transfer cost 0%. Still, customers might have to pay fees applied by a bank, depending on its services.

Withdrawals to Bitcoin are free of charge. However, customers will have to pay the network’s transaction fee.

Fee for Skrill and AdvCash withdrawals to Euros or U.S. Dollars is up to 1%. Customers will also have to pay a transaction fee.

==Affiliate Program==
CoinGate provides referral links that allow receiving 1% of the fees paid by traders who registered using your link. Referred customers will pay 0.5-1% lower fees than the usual 3%. Referrers will get a percentage of total payments that the referred customer makes.

==Supported Countries==
CoinGate provides a list of supported currencies [https://coingate.com/countries here].

==Blog==
All of the major CoinGate announcements are published on the official CoinGate blog. The blog also often features merchants, as well as shares the insights about the cryptocurrency industry.

==Merchant List==
CoinGate does not have an official merchant directory. However, the company often features their vendors on the official blog and social media channels. Here is a list of articles that feature CoinGate merchants:

*[https://blog.coingate.com/2018/07/lightning-network-payments-launched-pilot/ We’ve Launched Lightning Network Payments for 100+ Merchants]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2019/02/support-libreoffice-software-crypto/ Support open source software LibreOffice with CoinGate]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2019/01/buy-video-games-bitcoin-altcoins/ Buy video games with Bitcoin (and altcoins) for PC and consoles]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2019/01/web-hosting-accept-bitcoin-crypto/ Web hosting services that accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2018/12/coingate-partners-with-sirin-labs-release-finney/ CoinGate partners with SIRIN LABS upon the release of FINNEY™]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2018/12/crypto-design-watches-chronoswiss/ Chronoswiss launches crypto-design watches]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2018/11/black-friday-bitcoin-promo/ Black Friday weekend promo: pay with crypto and win!]

==Information For Press==
CoinGate has a webpage with all the necessary information for media journalists, including the company’s logo, media contacts and trademark guidelines. You can find it [https://coingate.com/press here].

==External Links==
*[https://coingate.com CoinGate.com] website
*[https://blog.coingate.com Official Blog]
*[https://twitter.com/CoinGatecom Twitter]
*[https://www.facebook.com/coingatecom/ Facebook]
*[https://www.linkedin.com/company/coingate LinkedIn]
*[https://www.instagram.com/coingatecom/ Instagram]
*[https://developer.coingate.com CoinGate Developer API]
*[http://bitcoinchaser.com/coingate Interview with CoinGate founder Dmitrijus Borisenka]

==References==
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2017/12/coingate-implements-segwit-addresses/ CoinGate implements SegWit addresses]
*[https://news.bitcoin.com/80000-new-merchants-in-europe-gains-option-to-accept-crypto/ 80,000 New Merchants in Europe Gain Option to Accept Crypto]
*[https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2018/09/05/bitcoin-adoption-is-getting-a-massive-lightning-network-boost/#6d127321420c Bitcoin Adoption Is Getting A Massive Lightning Network Boost]
*[https://www.verdict.co.uk/techcrunch-disrupt-2018-startups/ TechCrunch Disrupt 2018: Could these startups be the tech giants of the future?]
*[https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-payment-processor-coingate-adds-support-for-ripples-xrp Crypto Payment Processor CoinGate Adds Support for Ripple’s XRP]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2019/01/year-review-milestones-future/ A year in review: achievements, milestones and the future]
*[https://coingate.com/accept-altcoins A full list of accepted cryptocurrencies]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2018/11/accept-bitcoin-payments-in-business-why-and-how/ Accept Bitcoin payments in your business: why and how]
*[https://coingate.com/plugins Payment plugins and modules for e-commerce platforms]
*[https://developer.coingate.com CoinGate Application Programming Interface (API)]
*[https://github.com/coingate/coingate-php CoinGate PHP GitHub]
*[https://github.com/coingate/omnipay-coingate Omnipay GitHub]
*[https://rubygems.org/gems/coingate Ruby Gem GitHub]
*[https://sandbox.coingate.com Sandbox environment]
*[https://coingate.com/pos Point of Sale]
*[https://coingate.com/button Payment buttons]
*[https://buy.coingate.com/ Buy cryptocurrencies with Credit Card without registration]
*[https://coingate.com/buy-bitcoin-mobile Buy crypto with Phone Credit]
*[https://themerkle.com/coingate-lets-users-buy-bitcoin-with-their-mobile-credit/ CoinGate Lets Users Buy Bitcoin With Their Mobile Credit]
*[https://coingate.com/buy/skrill Buy cryptocurrencies with Skrill]
*[https://coingate.com/buy/neteller Buy cryptocurrencies with Neteller]
*[https://coingate.com/countries CoinGate supported countries]
*[https://coingate.com/press Information for press]

[[Category:Companies]]
[[Category:Exchanges]]
[[Category:Services]]
[[Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces]]
[[Category:Payment Processors]]

CoinGate

2019-02-28T12:51:06Z

Chevesli:

{{infobox company|name=CoinGate|image=[[File:Coingate.png|256px]]
|location=Vilnius, Lithuania
|industry=[[:Category:Payment Processors | Payment Processor]]
|founder=[[Jonas Gilys]] <br/>[[Dmitrijus Borisenka]] <br/> [[Irmantas Baciulis]]
|twitter=CoinGatecom
|facebook=coingatecom
|website=https://coingate.com
}}

CoinGate was founded in 2014 and is incorporated in Vilnius, Lithuania. The company is a cryptocurrency payment gateway, enabling various businesses worldwide to accept Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, XRP, Nano, TRON and other Altcoin payments.

Currently serving over 4,500 business clients and 80,000 registered users, CoinGate offers payouts in Euros for a flat 1% fee, eliminating any risk associated with the price volatility of cryptocurrencies. Their merchants can also choose to keep the revenue in cryptocurrencies, providing numerous ways to make a withdrawal.

Also, the company provides a platform for traders who wish to buy or sell their digital assets without making any deposits.

Even though most CoinGate services are available in most parts of the world (See “Supported Countries” section), the company does not provide merchant services in the U.S.

==Brief History==
CoinGate went live in March 2015. The company started to gain attention by the end of February 2017 with the launch of the credit card option for buying Bitcoin. By May 2017, CoinGate processed its first 10,000 payments.

Shortly after, in August, CoinGate went into a partnership with Shapeshift, adding over 50 additional cryptocurrencies to their provided payment options. In December 2017, the company also [https://blog.coingate.com/2017/12/coingate-implements-segwit-addresses/ integrated Segwit] addresses. By that time, the company had processed 100,000 payments in total.

In 2018, CoinGate started growing rapidly. In February, [https://news.bitcoin.com/80000-new-merchants-in-europe-gains-option-to-accept-crypto/ CoinGate joined forces with e-commerce platform Prestashop], offering an easy solution for merchants to accept multiple cryptocurrencies using the official plugin. By April, CoinGate had launched the native support for second currency on their gateway, Litecoin. At the time of the integration, the company had processed 200,000 payments in total and had 50,000 registered users. Shortly after, they also integrated Ethereum.

However, CoinGate is mostly known for pioneering the use-cases of the Lightning Network technology. In September 2018, CoinGate became one of the first payment processors in the world that [https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2018/09/05/bitcoin-adoption-is-getting-a-massive-lightning-network-boost/#6d127321420c introduced Bitcoin Lightning Network payments] to thousands of online vendors. After CoinGate presented their developments at TechCrunch Disrupt event, the Verdict called CoinGate one of “[https://www.verdict.co.uk/techcrunch-disrupt-2018-startups/ future tech giants]”. In January 2019, the company also announced the first [https://www.ccn.com/coingate-integrates-lightning-network-on-litecoin-to-boost-crypto-payments Litecoin Lightning Network trial] together with selected vendors.

CoinGate started 2019 strong, launching support for new native currencies each week. Since the year began, CoinGate natively integrated TRON, Nano, Dai and, [https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-payment-processor-coingate-adds-support-for-ripples-xrp XRP] cryptocurrencies.

By January 2019, the payment gateway implemented ten cryptocurrencies natively. [https://blog.coingate.com/2019/01/year-review-milestones-future/ According to the article on CoinGate blog], CoinGate “processed close to 300,000 merchant payments since January (2018). In comparison, this is nearly three times more than last year”.

==Supported Cryptocurrencies==
Currently, CoinGate natively supports these cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum Classic, XRP, Bitcoin Cash, Nano, TRON, as well as ERC20 tokens Dai, Telcoin (TEL) and Sirin Labs (SRN).

Due to a partnership with the exchange Changelly, CoinGate also allows merchants to accept over 40 Altcoins. Here is a [https://coingate.com/accept-altcoins full list of accepted Altcoins].

==Merchant Tools==
Merchants can receive Bitcoin and Altcoin payments via CoinGate using a [https://blog.coingate.com/2018/11/accept-bitcoin-payments-in-business-why-and-how/ range of tools]: plugins/modules for the most popular e-commerce systems, API, Point of Sale apps, and payment buttons.

Additionally, customers can pay with over 50 Altcoins via Changelly integration, converting any payment to Bitcoin automatically.

===Plugins===
CoinGate offers a range of simple to use e-commerce integrations via plugins, modules or extensions for accepting payments in Bitcoin and Altcoins:

[https://coingate.com/plugins/magento Magento], [https://coingate.com/plugins/magento2 Magento2], [https://coingate.com/plugins/opencart OpenCart],
[https://coingate.com/plugins/oscommerce osCommerce], [https://coingate.com/plugins/prestashop PrestaShop], [https://coingate.com/plugins/virtuemart VirtueMart], [https://coingate.com/plugins/whmcs WHMCS], [https://coingate.com/plugins/woocommerce WooCommerce], [https://coingate.com/plugins/zencart ZenCart] [https://coingate.com/plugins/blesta Blesta], [https://coingate.com/plugins/thirtybees ThirtyBees], [https://coingate.com/plugins/shopware Shopware]

===API===
[https://developer.coingate.com Application Programming Interface] allows businesses to integrate cryptocurrency payments into an online store with more customization. Using the CoinGate API, developers can create orders, get orders and list orders, as well as receive payment callbacks and order statuses. API integration is also possible using one of the CoinGate libraries: [https://github.com/coingate/coingate-php CoinGate PHP], [https://github.com/coingate/omnipay-coingate Omnipay], [https://rubygems.org/gems/coingate Ruby Gem]. A fully functional [https://sandbox.coingate.com Sandbox environment] is available for testing using Testnet Bitcoin.

===Points of Sale===
[https://coingate.com/pos Point of Sale] apps for Android and iOS allow businesses to accept Bitcoin payments on any [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.coingate.pos&hl=en Android] or [https://itunes.apple.com/lt/app/bitcoin-pos/id1145472715 iOS] mobile device. Bitcoin Point of Sale web app, which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser, allows businesses to accept Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, XRP, Bitcoin Cash, Nano, TRON, Dai, SRN and TEL payments on any device with a web browser and an internet connection.

===Payment Buttons===
CoinGate [https://coingate.com/button Payment buttons] allow businesses to accept Bitcoin donations and other simple payments on any website. All three types of buttons - Fixed price, Slider and List - can be easily customized to include any necessary description, company logo, and cover image.

==Settlement==

Payments received from customers can be paid out in Euros to a bank account, AdvCash or Skrill wallet, avoiding the risk of price volatility. Alternatively, merchants can receive payouts in Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether, Bitcoin Cash, Nano, Dash, Zcash, XRP, TRON and Dai directly to their wallet. CoinGate charges a flat 1% fee for paid orders processed - there are no setup or subscription fees.

==Trader Tools==

===Buy Bitcoin and Altcoins===
In addition to their services for merchants, CoinGate offers a platform for traders, allowing them to buy cryptocurrencies without making any deposits. After CoinGate receives the transfer, users can choose when to commit to their purchase (the maximum period is two weeks).

A list of all available purchasing options:
*SEPA Bank Transfer: Purchasing option for the Europe region. Allows purchasing most native cryptocurrencies listed on CoinGate. Registration and verified account are required;
*Direct Bank Transfer: also available in China, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam. Allows purchasing most natively integrated cryptocurrencies listed on CoinGate. Registration and verified account are required;
*[https://buy.coingate.com/ Credit and debit cards]: Instant payment option available worldwide. Allows purchasing most natively integrated cryptocurrencies listed on CoinGate. No registration required;
*[https://coingate.com/buy-bitcoin-mobile Mobile balance] ([https://themerkle.com/coingate-lets-users-buy-bitcoin-with-their-mobile-credit/ phone credit]): Payment option available worldwide. Allows purchasing Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and XRP. Registration and verified account required;
*[https://coingate.com/buy/skrill Skrill]: Instant payment option for Skrill users. No verification and registration are required as long as you are verified on Skrill. Allows purchasing Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin and a variety of Altcoins;
*[https://coingate.com/buy/neteller Neteller]: Instant payment option for Neteller users. No verification and registration are required as long as you are verified on Neteller. Allows purchasing Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin and Altcoins;
*QQPay: Payment option for the Asia region. Allows purchasing most natively integrated cryptocurrencies listed on CoinGate.

For customers that use instant payment options, a quick KYC procedure is applied to ensure that both parties remain fully compliant with international laws.

===Sell Bitcoin and Altcoins===
Customers are also able to sell cryptocurrencies on CoinGate using numerous methods without the need to deposit funds first. The services provided are for Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Nano, TRON and Dai. The price of cryptocurrencies is locked before sending to CoinGate, guaranteeing users the amount of EUR they shall receive to their bank account, Skrill wallet or AdvCash platform.

==Fees==

===Merchant fees===
For merchants, CoinGate charges 1% flat fee for payment processing. There are no setup or recurring fees, and no fees charged to shoppers. The service includes free SEPA transfers and Bitcoin payouts, as well as customer support & reporting dashboard.

CoinGate also provides payment infrastructure for enterprise-grade projects and PSPs, meaning that particular clients may get a dedicated account manager, priority customer support and volume-based discounts.

===Trader fees===
CoinGate applies 3% buying and selling fee without depositing funds. Users can buy or sell directly to or from your wallet, also exchange fiat to crypto and vice versa.

===Withdrawals===
Euro withdrawals using SEPA bank transfer cost 0%. Still, customers might have to pay fees applied by a bank, depending on its services.

Withdrawals to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash are free of charge. However, customers will have to pay the network’s transaction fee.

Fee for Skrill and AdvCash withdrawals to Euros or U.S. Dollars is up to 1%. Customers will also have to pay a transaction fee.

==Affiliate Program==
CoinGate provides referral links that allow receiving 1% of the fees paid by traders who registered using your link. Referred customers will pay 0.5-1% lower fees than the usual 3%. Referrers will get a percentage of total payments that the referred customer makes.

==Supported Countries==
CoinGate provides a list of supported currencies [https://coingate.com/countries here].

==Blog==
All of the major CoinGate announcements are published on the official CoinGate blog. The blog also often features merchants, as well as shares the insights about the cryptocurrency industry.

==Merchant List==
CoinGate does not have an official merchant directory. However, the company often features their vendors on the official blog and social media channels. Here is a list of articles that feature CoinGate merchants:

*[https://blog.coingate.com/2018/07/lightning-network-payments-launched-pilot/ We’ve Launched Lightning Network Payments for 100+ Merchants]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2019/02/support-libreoffice-software-crypto/ Support open source software LibreOffice with CoinGate]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2019/01/litecoin-lightning-network-launch/ CoinGate launches Litecoin Lightning Network trial with Surfshark]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2019/01/buy-video-games-bitcoin-altcoins/ Buy video games with Bitcoin (and altcoins) for PC and consoles]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2019/01/web-hosting-accept-bitcoin-crypto/ Web hosting services that accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2018/12/coingate-partners-with-sirin-labs-release-finney/ CoinGate partners with SIRIN LABS upon the release of FINNEY™]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2018/12/crypto-design-watches-chronoswiss/ Chronoswiss launches crypto-design watches]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2018/11/black-friday-bitcoin-promo/ Black Friday weekend promo: pay with crypto and win!]

==Information For Press==
CoinGate has a webpage with all the necessary information for media journalists, including the company’s logo, media contacts and trademark guidelines. You can find it [https://coingate.com/press here].

==External Links==
*[https://coingate.com CoinGate.com] website
*[https://blog.coingate.com Official Blog]
*[https://twitter.com/CoinGatecom Twitter]
*[https://www.facebook.com/coingatecom/ Facebook]
*[https://www.linkedin.com/company/coingate LinkedIn]
*[https://www.instagram.com/coingatecom/ Instagram]
*[https://developer.coingate.com CoinGate Developer API]
*[http://bitcoinchaser.com/coingate Interview with CoinGate founder Dmitrijus Borisenka]

==References==
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2017/12/coingate-implements-segwit-addresses/ CoinGate implements SegWit addresses]
*[https://news.bitcoin.com/80000-new-merchants-in-europe-gains-option-to-accept-crypto/ 80,000 New Merchants in Europe Gain Option to Accept Crypto]
*[https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2018/09/05/bitcoin-adoption-is-getting-a-massive-lightning-network-boost/#6d127321420c Bitcoin Adoption Is Getting A Massive Lightning Network Boost]
*[https://www.verdict.co.uk/techcrunch-disrupt-2018-startups/ TechCrunch Disrupt 2018: Could these startups be the tech giants of the future?]
*[https://www.ccn.com/coingate-integrates-lightning-network-on-litecoin-to-boost-crypto-payments CoinGate Integrates Lightning Network on Litecoin to Boost Crypto Payments]
*[https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-payment-processor-coingate-adds-support-for-ripples-xrp Crypto Payment Processor CoinGate Adds Support for Ripple’s XRP]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2019/01/year-review-milestones-future/ A year in review: achievements, milestones and the future]
*[https://coingate.com/accept-altcoins A full list of accepted cryptocurrencies]
*[https://blog.coingate.com/2018/11/accept-bitcoin-payments-in-business-why-and-how/ Accept Bitcoin payments in your business: why and how]
*[https://coingate.com/plugins Payment plugins and modules for e-commerce platforms]
*[https://developer.coingate.com CoinGate Application Programming Interface (API)]
*[https://github.com/coingate/coingate-php CoinGate PHP GitHub]
*[https://github.com/coingate/omnipay-coingate Omnipay GitHub]
*[https://rubygems.org/gems/coingate Ruby Gem GitHub]
*[https://sandbox.coingate.com Sandbox environment]
*[https://coingate.com/pos Point of Sale]
*[https://coingate.com/button Payment buttons]
*[https://buy.coingate.com/ Buy cryptocurrencies with Credit Card without registration]
*[https://coingate.com/buy-bitcoin-mobile Buy crypto with Phone Credit]
*[https://themerkle.com/coingate-lets-users-buy-bitcoin-with-their-mobile-credit/ CoinGate Lets Users Buy Bitcoin With Their Mobile Credit]
*[https://coingate.com/buy/skrill Buy cryptocurrencies with Skrill]
*[https://coingate.com/buy/neteller Buy cryptocurrencies with Neteller]
*[https://coingate.com/countries CoinGate supported countries]
*[https://coingate.com/press Information for press]

[[Category:Companies]]
[[Category:Exchanges]]
[[Category:Services]]
[[Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces]]
[[Category:Payment Processors]]

Bech32 adoption

2018-08-20T00:53:37Z

Chevesli:

[[Bech32]] is a new bitcoin [[address]] format specified by [[BIP 0173]]. This page tracks the adoption of [[Bech32]].

Ideally wallets would first support ''sending to'' bech32 addresses. After almost every wallet can send then people may be willing to adopt bech32 widely for receiving.

The amount of bech32 addresses is tracked on this website: https://p2sh.info/dashboard/db/bech32-statistics?orgId=1

{| class="wikitable"
|-
| {{No}} ||
|-
| {{Evaluating|??}} || Maybe / Haven't checked / placeholder
|-
| {{Planned}} || The developers said they plan to
|-
| {{Acceptable|PR Merged}} || In the case of software, code has been written and merged, and it will be in next release.
|-
| {{Yes}} || Feature has been released
|}

=== Software Wallets ===
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Name !! Send to !! Create/receive !! Notes
|-
| Bitcoin Core || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} ||
|-
| Bitcoin Knots || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} ||
|-
| Electrum || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} ||
|-
| Armory || {{Evaluating|??}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| JoinMarket || {{Yes}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| GreenAddress || {{Yes}} || {{Planned}} ||
|-
| Breadwallet || {{Yes}} || {{No}} || https://twitter.com/udiWertheimer/status/975810157941796864
|-
| Samourai Wallet || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} ||
|-
| Coinomi || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} || [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/865qn1/coinomi_wallet_beta_has_segwit_support/ reddit source]
|-
| BTC.com || {{Yes}} || {{No}} ||
|}

=== Hardware Wallets ===

Hardware wallet manufacturers typically publish a web wallet or browser add-on wallet for use with their hardware. Users can also sometimes connect their hardware wallet to a software wallet like [[Electrum]].

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Name !! Send to !! Create/receive !! Notes
|-
| Trezor web wallet || {{Acceptable|PR Merged}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Ledger chrome app || {{No}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| KeepKey chrome app || {{No}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Digital Bitbox Qt app || {{No}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Trezor + Electrum || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} ||
|-
| Ledger + Electrum || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} ||
|-
| Digital Bitbox + Electrum || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} ||
|-
| KeepKey + Electrum || {{No}} || {{No}} ||
|}

=== Web Wallets ===

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Name !! Send to !! Create/receive !! Notes
|-
| Coinapult || {{Evaluating|??}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Coin.Space || {{Evaluating|??}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| BitGo || {{Evaluating|??}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| blockchain.info web wallet || {{Evaluating|??}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| HolyTransaction || {{Yes}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| [https://coinb.in Coinb.in] || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} || open source JavaScript implementation
|}

=== Exchanges ===



{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Name !! Send to !! Create/receive !! Notes
|-
| 1Fox || {{Yes}} || {{No}} || https://1fox.com/?c=en/content/blog&id=12
|-
| Anycoin Direct || {{Yes}} || {{No}} || https://anycoindirect.eu/en/news/details/segwit-activated
|-
| BitBargain.co.uk || {{Yes}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Bitcoin.de || {{Yes}} || {{No}} || https://bitcoinblog.de/2018/08/10/bitcoin-de-aktiviert-segwit-kunden-sparen-gebuehren/
|-
| Bitfinex || {{No}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| BitMEX || {{Evaluating|??}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Bittylicious || {{Yes}} || {{No}} || https://twitter.com/Bittylicious_/status/998881327347888128
|-
| Bitstamp || {{No}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Bitwage || {{Evaluating|??}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Bisq || {{Evaluating|??}} || {{No}} || https://github.com/bisq-network/bisq-desktop/issues/1139
|-
| Coinbase.com || {{Yes}} || {{No}} || https://twitter.com/diogorsergio/status/983052769262292992
|-
| CoinFalcon || {{Yes}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Coinfloor || {{Evaluating|??}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Flyp.me || {{Yes}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| GDax || {{Yes}} || {{No}} || https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/8c738k/coinbase_gdax_already_allows_sending_to_bc1/
|-
| Gemini || {{No}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Genesis || {{Evaluating|??}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Hodl Hodl || {{Yes}} || {{No}} || https://medium.com/@hodlhodl/hodl-hodl-segwit-compatible-exchange-a2231968ac56
|-
| Itbit || {{Evaluating|??}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Kraken || {{No}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Liberalcoins || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} || https://liberalcoins.com
|-
| Localbitcoins.com || {{No}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Walltime || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} || https://walltime.info
|}

=== Bitcoin ATM Models ===

Hopefully when a model updates then all its ATMs everywhere will gain that feature. See https://coinatmradar.com/shop/buy-bitcoin-atm/

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Name !! Send to !! Create/receive !! Notes
|-
| GenesisCoin || {{No}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| General Bytes || {{No}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Lamassu Douro || {{No}} || {{No}} ||
|}

=== Blockchain Explorers ===

For trying these out you can use mainnet TXIDs <code>4ef47f6eb681d5d9fa2f7e16336cd629303c635e8da51e425b76088be9c8744c</code> and <code>514a33f1d46179b89e1fea7bbb07b682ab14083a276979f91038369d1a8d689b</code>. And addresses <code>bc1qar0srrr7xfkvy5l643lydnw9re59gtzzwf5mdq</code> and <code>bc1qc7slrfxkknqcq2jevvvkdgvrt8080852dfjewde450xdlk4ugp7szw5tk9</code>.

Some blockchain explorers can only parse the bech32 address and display it, they don't build an index so users cannot search for bech32 addresses.

See also: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Category:Block_chain_browsers

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Name !! Display !! Index !! Notes
|-
| Blockchair || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} || https://blockchair.com/
|-
| Blockonomics || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} || https://www.blockonomics.co
|-
| Bitflyer || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} || https://chainflyer.bitflyer.jp/
|-
| OXT || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} || https://oxt.me/
|-
| chaindex || {{Yes}} || {{Yes}} || https://chaindex.com/blockchain/
|-
| blockchain.info || {{Yes}} || {{No}} ||
|-
| Insight || {{No}} || {{No}} || Open source explorer, instances are https://insight.bitpay.com/ and https://chain.localbitcoins.com/
|-
| Blockcypher || {{No}} || {{No}} || https://live.blockcypher.com/btc
|-
| Tradeblock || {{No}} || {{No}} || https://tradeblock.com/bitcoin
|}

=== Payment Processors ===



{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Name !! Invoice addresses !! Withdrawal addresses !! Notes
|-
| [https://coingate.com CoinGate] || {{No}} || {{Yes}} ||
|}

=== Other Services ===

Casinos, marketplaces, etc that let users withdraw money

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Name !! Withdrawals !! Notes
|-
| 1Broker || {{Yes}} ||
|-
| Crypto-Games.net || {{Yes}} || [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=750760.msg31421151#msg31421151 bitcointalk source]
|-
| YOLOdice || {{Yes}} || A popular dice site https://yolodice.com
|}

=== References ===

[[Category:Software]]

Magento Payment Gateway Plugin

2017-09-06T22:04:35Z

Chevesli:

The Magento Payment Gateway Plugin for Bitcoin [[API reference (JSON-RPC)|RPC API]] provides the ability for eCommerce sites running Magento to be able to accept bitcoins for payment.

This open source project was released on June 11, 2011<ref>[http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=8880.msg203426#msg203426 Bitcoin Payment Module for Magento]</ref>.

==External Links==

* [http://github.com/jalder/Magento-Bitcoin-Payment-Module Magento-Bitcoin-Payment-Module] project on GitHub
* [https://github.com/BitPagos/bitpagos-magento Magento Bitcoin Payment Module] for [https://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos]
* [https://www.btcmerch.com/help/magento Bitcoin/Altcoins Plugin for Magento] developed by BTCMerch.
* [https://coingate.com/plugins/magento CoinGate Magento Bitcoin Plugin] enables any Magento website to accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts not only in Bitcoin, but also in Euros or U.S. Dollars straight to your bank account or PayPal without risk of price volatility. [https://blog.coingate.com/2017/05/install-magento-bitcoin-altcoins-plugin/ Visual guide for setup].

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Shopping_Cart_Interfaces]]

CoinGate

2017-05-31T18:05:10Z

Chevesli:

CoinGate

2017-05-31T18:03:39Z

Chevesli:

CoinGate

2017-05-31T16:56:15Z

Chevesli:

CoinGate

2017-05-31T16:50:27Z

Chevesli:

CoinGate

2017-05-31T16:06:45Z

Chevesli:

CoinGate

2017-05-31T16:04:31Z

Chevesli:

Donation-accepting organizations and projects

2016-12-27T12:18:39Z

Chevesli:

Here is a list of organizations that accept bitcoin donations.
Only notable donation-accepting sites should be added here.
Additions must include a reputable 3rd-party source for verification. Do not donate to organizations and projects that you cannot verify are legitimate.

== Art ==

{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Name!!Topic
|-
{{support-page
|url=http://www.blendernation.com/support-blendernation/
|title=Blendernation
|topic=3D, blender
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://cloud.blender.org/gooseberry/
|title=Project gooseberry
|topic=3D, animation, blender
}}
|}

== Entertainment ==

{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Name!!Topic
|-
{{support-page
|url=https://xkcd.com/bitcoin/
|title=XKCD
|topic=comic, nerdism
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://heavensentgaming.com/support-and-donations/
|title=Heaven Sent Gaming
|topic=multimedia
}}
|}

== NGOs ==

{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Name!!Topic
|-
{{support-page
|url=https://www.jaunimolinija.lt/lt/paremk/paremk-1/
|title=Jaunimo linija
|topic=emotional and psychological support for youth
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://krizesiveikimas.lt
|title=Krizių įveikimo centras
|topic=emotional and psychological support
}}
|}

==Open source==

BTC is getting more and more popular at open projects due to its own open nature.

{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Name!!Topic
|-
{{support-page
|url=https://donate.citizenweb.is
|title=arkOS
|topic=raspberry, linux, decentralize
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://awesome.naquadah.org/community/
|title=awesome WM
|topic=linux, X11, window manager
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.apache.org/foundation/contributing.html
|title=Apache Foundation
|topic=Open Source Software ready for business use
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.backbox.org/services
|title=Backbox
|topic=linux, distro, hacking
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.bluetile.org/#development
|title=Bluetile WM
|topic=linux, X11, window manager
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://crypto.cat/
|title=Cryptocat
|topic=mail, crypto
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://dia-installer.de/support/donations.html
|title=Dia
|topic=linux, windows, drawing, sketch, CAD
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://www.dokuwiki.org/donate
|title=Dokuwiki
|topic=wiki
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.dosbox.com/crew.php
|title=Dosbox
|topic=emulator, DOS, x86
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.duplicati.com
|title=Duplicati
|topic=backup, cloud
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://etherpad.org/#links
|title=Etherpad
|topic=collaboration, selfhosting
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://f-droid.org/
|title=F-Droid
|topic=android, repository, open source
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.gimp.org/
|title=GIMP
|topic=drawing, photos
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://code.google.com/p/gource/
|title=Gource
|topic=VCS, animation, git, svn, art
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://wiki.farmbot.it/Welcome#Donate
|title=FarmBot
|topic=farming, automatisation
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/bitcoin
|title=FreeBSD
|topic=unix, OS
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.freehal.net/funds/?p=do&l=en
|title=FreeHAL
|topic=A.I.
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://freenetproject.org/donate.html
|title=Freenet
|topic=anonymity, decentralisation
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.haiku-inc.org/donations.html#online
|title=Haiku OS
|topic=OS, BeOS
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://libre.fm/donate.html
|title=Libre.fm
|topic=music, creativecommons, radio
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://donate.libreoffice.org/
|title=LibreOffice
|topic=office suite
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php
|title=Linux Mint
|topic=Linux, distro, Debian
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://www.loomio.org/wallets
|title=Loomio
|topic=discussion, decission, crowdsourcing, community
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://mediagoblin.org/pages/campaign.html
|title=Mediagobblin
|topic=video, hosting, distributed
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://megaglest.org/donations.html
|title=Megaglest
|topic=gaming
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://musescore.org/en/donate
|title=MuseScore
|topic=music, music notation, sheet music
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://openelec.tv/donate
|title=OpenELEC
|topic=OS, HTPC, multimedia, raspberry
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://opengameart.org/content/donate-bitcoins
|title=opengameart.org
|topic=creative commons, art, gamedev
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Donation
|title=OpenStreetMap
|topic=maps, open data
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://osmand.net
|title=OsmAnd
|topic=maps, Android
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://piwik.org/donate/
|title=Piwik
|topic=tracking, hosting
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://www.torproject.org/donate/donate.html.en#bitcoin
|title=TOR
|topic=anonymity, P2P, routing
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://torchat.googlecode.com/
|title=TOR chat
|topic=anonymity, TOR, chat
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://www.torservers.net/donate.html#cryptocurrencies
|title=TOR servers
|topic=anonymity, TOR, hosting
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://piratelinux.org/?page_id=271
|title=Piratelinux
|topic=linux, distro, hacking
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.raspbmc.com/donate/
|title=RaspBMC
|topic=linux, distro, htpc, multimedia, raspberry
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://crm.fsf.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=19
|title=Replicant
|topic=Android,linux, distro
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.videolan.org/contribute.html#money
|title=VideoLAN
|topic=multimedia, player
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.wikispeed.com/wikispeed-team-blog/wikispeed-first-car-maker-in-the-world-to-accept-bitcoin-press-release
|title=Wikispead
|topic=car, vehicle
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://yacy.net
|title=Yacy
|topic=search engine, distributed
}}
|}

===Foundations===
{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Name!!Topic
|-
{{support-page
|url=http://humanrights.foundation/donate
|title=Human Rights Foundation
|topic=Human Rights
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.archive.org/donate
|title=archive.org
|topic=
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://bitcoinfoundation.org/donate
|title=Bitcoin Foundation
|topic=
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.blender.org/foundation/donation-payment/
|title=Blender Foundation
|topic=blender, 3D
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://donate.citizenweb.io/
|title=citizenweb
|topic=redistribute, dezentralize
|nation=
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://supporters.eff.org/donate
|title=Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
|topic=
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://freedomboxfoundation.org/donate
|title=Freedombox Foundation
|topic=wifi
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://freedom.press/donate
|title=Freedom of the press Foundation
|topic=press, journalism, whistleblowing,
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://commons.thefnf.org/index.php/Needs
|title=Free Network Foundation (FNF)
|topic=wifi, crypto
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://crm.fsf.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=14
|title=Free Software Foundation (FSF)
|topic=open source
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.bitcoincolombia.org/donaciones/
|title=Fundación Bitcoin Colombia
|topic=Expand Bitcoin in Colombia
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.gnome.org/friends/other-ways-to-donate/
|title=Gnome Foundation
|topic=open source, Desktop, Linux
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://sendto.mozilla.org/page/content/give-bitcoin/
|title=Mozilla Foundation
|topic=open source, browser, email
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://www.reactos.org/donations
|title=ReactOS Foundation
|topic=windows, kernel, open source
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://ru4mepetrescue.rescuegroups.org/info/donate
|title=RU4ME Pet Rescue, Inc
|topic=pet rescue...look for Bitcoin button on bottom of page
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give#bitcoin
|title=Wikimedia Foundation
|topic=wikipedia, open knowledge
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://bithope.org/?utm_source=bitcoinwiki&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=wiki
|title=BitHope Foundation
|topic=environment, health, social, micro charity campaigns
}}
|}

==Activism==

{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Name!!Topic
|-
{{support-page
|url=https://freesnowden.is/de/donate/index.html
|title=FreeSnowden
|topic=activism, whistleblowing
|nation=
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://www.seashepherd.org.au/support-us/support-us.html#bitcoin
|title=Sea Shepherd
|topic=environment, whaling
|nation=
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://www.sigilsocial.org
|title=Sigil Social Foundation
|topic=domestic violence, behavioral health counseling for lower income families
|nation=
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://thepiratebay.se/
|title=The pirate bay
|topic=copyright, warez
|nation=
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://prolife.clubs.arizona.edu/
|title=Students for Life @ University of Arizona (SFL@UA)
|topic=pro-life student club, affiliate of [http://studentsforlife.org/ Students for Life of America]
|nation=United States
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://jsie.in/
|title=Jindal Centre for Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship
|topic=social entrepreneurship, empowering women, digital skills training
|nation=
}}|}

===Net-politics===
{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Name!!Topic
|-
{{support-page
|url=https://netzpolitik.org/spenden/
|title=netzpolitik.org
|topic=
|nation=DE
}}
{{support-page
|url=https://help.riseup.net/en/donate
|title=riseup.net
|topic=hosting, activism
|nation=
}}
{{support-page
|url=http://wikileaks.org/support.html
|title=Wikileaks
|topic=activism, whistleblower
|nation=
}}
|}

== Religion ==

{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Name!!Topic
|-
{{support-page
|url=http://www.shorelineuu.org/ways-to-share.html
|title=Shoreline Unitarian Universalist Church
|topic=church, religion, uu, unitarian, universalist
|nation=US
}}
|}


{{p-full}}

Merchant Howto

2016-11-20T01:38:57Z

Chevesli: /* Services */

{{merge|How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses}}

Accepting Bitcoins is easy, and there are several ways to do it.

==Manually==
# Download a bitcoin client
# When a customer wants to buy something, send them a Bitcoin address where their payment should be sent.
#* You can do this by clicking "New.." next to your address in the Bitcoin client and sending that address to the customer.
# When payment comes in to that address, send the goods to your customer. Depending on the value of what you're selling, you may wish to wait until the payment shows Confirmed.
# To issue a refund, obtain from the customer the [[Address|bitcoin address]] where the refund payment should be sent. The refund address will likely be different from the address used when the customer sent payment, especially if an [[EWallet]] was used by the customer.

==Automated==
===Pre-generating Bitcoin addresses===
You can accept Bitcoins on your website without needing to use Bitcoin APIs or third party services if you pre-generate a large number of receiving Bitcoin addresses and store them in a database on your web server, and dispense them one-by-one to customers when they are ready to pay. This way, your web server never actually handles the bitcoins - it simply gives out addresses belonging to a wallet you maintain elsewhere. By using a unique address per order, you will always know which payment belongs to which order. [https://www.casascius.com Example of website using this method]

To pre-generate addresses, use a tool such as [[Pywallet]] (which can generate a wallet.dat file) or [[Bitcoin Address Utility]] (which can generate a CSV file). In both cases, you will be generating a list of [[Address|Bitcoin address]]es along with their corresponding [[private key]]s. Only the Bitcoin addresses (not the private keys) should be loaded on the web server.

If you are shipping goods manually, you can use the Bitcoin software to check for incoming payments, or alternately consider using [[Block Explorer]] or [[Abe]] to verify payment when you're about to ship. To make this easy, make your website provide you a full hyperlink that includes the proper receiving address: ht<nowiki>tp://www</nowiki>.blockexplorer.com/address/ADDRESSGOESHERE.

If you are delivering digital goods or services and want to be able to deliver instantly upon payment and/or confirmation, you can use a third-party service such as [[Bitcoin Notify]] to tell your website when a payment has been received. This sort of service requires no significant API implementation - they will simply make a POST to your website or send you an e-mail when a payment has been received on one of your addresses.

If you keep Bitcoins off your web server, this ensures your wallet cannot be stolen if your web server experiences a security intrusion. Your risk becomes limited to the possibility that a successful intruder could add his own addresses to your address pool and steal funds from a few incoming orders until you detect the problem, however, this is a [[Deterministic_wallet|relatively controllable risk]].

===Using offchain payment networks===

[[Off-Chain_Transactions|Off chain]] networks provides various benefits to Bitcoin, such as instant confirmations and protection against double spending.

===Using a third-party plugin===
You can use an existing [[:Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces|shopping cart interface]] from a 3rd party to automatically handle all Bitcoin payments on your website. If you want to develop the system yourself, you can utilize the Bitcoin client's [[API tutorial (JSON-RPC)|JSON-RPC API]] to automatically accept payments.

Things to note if you build it yourself:
# When a customer orders something on your website it records:
#* Bitcoin address that payment should be sent to
#* Order details (delivery address etc.)
#* Customer's refund address (optional - if you wish you can ask for this later, only in cases a refund is required)
#* Payment amount
# When payment arrives, checks that they have paid the correct amount or not, and informs you
#* You dispatch the goods to the customer and mark the order as fulfilled
#* If you cannot dispatch the goods you mark the order as denied and ask the customer for a refund address (unless you already have it from earlier) to send a refund.
# Forwards the funds to bitcoin address of your choice

===If You have a retail business and do not have internet or smart phone===
You can still accept Bitcoin. [https://easybitz.com/merchant] EasyBitz.com has a very simple way to accept bitcoin with just a print out and a phone that gets sms text messages.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]]

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment. However it is possible to create automated invoices by using known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup.

==Common Errors==
It has been observed on occasion that a business funnels all its orders through the same Bitcoin address, and asks people to send some BTC, then send email describing the timing and the amount of the transaction to 'claim' it. This is '''not''' secure, since anyone can see the transaction details using a tool such as [[Block Explorer]], and then try to claim someone else's transaction as theirs.

Do not do this. Give each customer a unique Bitcoin address.

==Listing your business on the Bitcoin Trade page==

Anyone can add and update a listing on the [[Trade|trade]] page. Just register if you haven't and add to the appropriate category. If you'ld like assistance, perhaps someone in the [http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#bitcoin-marketing #bitcoin-marketing] IRC channel would be willing to assist. If you have a brick and mortar business that accepts bitcoin you can add it to the bitcoin directories. [https://easybitz.com] [http://coinmap.org]

==Services==

See also [[Why Your Business Should Use a Full Node to Accept Bitcoin]]

* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Merchant solution for Bitcoin specialized in Middle Europe (Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Czech republic)
* [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting bitcoins, getting euro's. No fee. The Netherlands.
* [[BitPay]] Merchant solutions for Bitcoin
* [http://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Payments Gateway for Latin America
* [https://coinbase.com/merchants Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, pages, iframes, shopping cart integration, subscription/recurring billing, micro-transactions, and cash out to your local currency for 1%.
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [[File:Coingate_favicon.png|16px|link=https://coingate.com/merchants]] [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate] Accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. E-commerce plugins, API, Point of Sale app for Android / iOS / web, payment buttons.
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] Bitcoin merchant payment processing. UK-based, serving UK and EU clients.
* [http://www.dcpos.com DC POS] A Bitcoin browser-based Point-of-Sale app. It is hardware, OS, wallet, and browser agnostic. 0.5% transaction fee.
* [[Coinify]] Merchant solutions for Bitcoin
* [http://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] Fraud screening service for online merchants. Support transactions using Bitcoin as payment method.
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com GoCoin] International Payment Processing for Bitcoin
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment Gateway with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] - Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [http://xbterminal.io XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.

==See Also==
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces|Shopping Cart Interfaces]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[Bitcoin Evolution]] handles sales tracking and order forms; requires Bitcoin client for actual payment
* [[Bitcoin API Services]] an easy solution for securely accepting Bitcoins and updating BTC prices
* [[Converter|Bitcoin Javascript Converter]] displays a price in BTCs after converting from USDs.
* [[How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses]]
* [[:Category:Marketing|Marketing]]
* [[URI Scheme]]
* [[Promotional graphics]], buttons and logos
* [https://github.com/cryptoapi/Payment-Gateway GoUrl Bitcoin Payment API] open source php payment api on Github.com
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website
* [http://snowcron.com Snowcron] Bitcoin Store Engine: Handles payments, sends your customers information they ordered (reg. codes, passwords...) No web programming required.
[[Category:ECommerce]]

How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses

2016-11-20T01:38:27Z

Chevesli: /* Setting Prices */

{{merge|Merchant Howto}}

This guide is intended for small business owners who wish to help promote Bitcoin by accepting it as payment for goods and services. It's written with the assumption that you operate a regular business that sells goods or services for regular national currency such as dollars, and that you wish to accept Bitcoin as another legal way to pay, and that you intend to pay taxes on your Bitcoin income just like any other income.

With Bitcoin being touted as a way to conduct anonymous transactions and as way to compete with government currency, many small business owners wonder what's the right way to accept and account Bitcoin, or if it's legal or ethical, or whether and how they should pay taxes on income received through Bitcoin.

As far as we know, Bitcoin isn't yet formally recognized by governments and authorities as a "currency". But in practice, Bitcoin is likely no different than accepting payment in other forms, such as cash, or gold, or scrip, or gift cards or foreign currency. We think that it is pretty much the same as the local businesses of Great Barrington, Massachusetts choosing to accept their locally-printed [http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/19/us-usa-economy-berkshares-idUSN0530157720070619 "Berkshire Bucks"] to support their local economy.

====Starting to accept Bitcoin for transactions====
Accepting Bitcoin at a small business is best started in whichever manner keeps the accounting simple for you. This will vary by the type of business you are operating.

===Start with a sign===
[[{{ns:file}}:WeAcceptBitcoin.png‎]]

If you expect that the number of people interested in using Bitcoin is small, you might simply start by posting a sign or a note: "We Accept Bitcoin", and ask people to contact you directly in order to make a payment. Even if hardly anybody uses Bitcoin as a payment method, you're helping Bitcoin in two ways: one, by increasing awareness, and two, by making your customers more willing to accept Bitcoin as payment from others in the future, because now they know somewhere they can spend it.

===Utilize a merchant solution===
If you sell things on your website (goods or services), you'll want to use a [[#Merchant Services|Bitcoin merchant solution]] to accept the Bitcoins (you can usually opt to have them converted to USD or other currencies automatically with some services).

If you sell things in a brick and mortar shop, customers can pay using hardware terminals, touch screen apps or simple wallet addresses through QR Codes.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]][[File:Coinktie Bitcoin Payment Buttons.png|alt=Coinkite Bitcoin Payment Buttons|link=https://coinkite.com/merchants]]

[[File:Bitcoin-pos-terminal.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|Coinkite terminal]] [[File:Mobile_Web_App_Bitcoin_Register.jpeg|100 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|CoinBox terminal]]

[[File:Mobile_Checkout_Phone.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin Mobile Checkout|Coinify Mobile Checkout|link=https://coinify.com]]

===Smart Phone or Tablet===
You can use a wallet address with any wallet. For that it's best if you can place a QR code near your cash register to which the customers can scan with their phone and pay (use http://bitcoinqrcode.org/ to make a QR code sign). For a more convenient solution you can use a dedicated app or webapp that generates a QR code on the fly including the amount.

==== Examples ====
Solutions for smart phones and tablets:
* [[File:Airbitz mobile logo.png|20px|https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/]] [https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/ Airbitz] Merchant Mode for Android and iOS
* [https://bitcoin.co.th/merchants/ bitcoin.co.th] mobile Bitcoin Point of Sale for Thailand
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], Mobile payment terminal with EUR, USD, PLN and CZK settlements.
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] accept Bitcoin on mobile phone, tablet, computer; converts to Euro/Bitcoin (any percentage)
* [https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-for-retail BitPay] Mobile Checkout
* [https://bitpos.me/demo.html BitPOS] Merchant POS solution for Australia
* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.blockchain.merchant Blockchain] Merchant for Android
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Point of Sale solution available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [[File:Coingate_favicon.png|16px|link=https://coingate.com/pos]] [https://coingate.com/pos CoinGate] Bitcoin Point of Sale apps for Android, iOS and Bitcoin Point of Sale web app which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Bitcoin Point Of Sale
* [[File:Coin_Of_Sale_logo.png|20px|link=https://coinofsale.com]] [https://coinofsale.com Coin Of Sale] - device-independent Bitcoin POS payment system
* [https://coinbase.com Coinbase] Point Of Sale for Android
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]][http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin point of sale for Android
* [https://cryptopay.me/products/ Cryptopay] HTML5-based bitcoin POS
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Simplest Point of Sale, No Fees and a peer to peer market to buy bitcoin instantly
* [https://gourl.io/ GoUrl] Bitcoin Mobile Checkout
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.

===Point-of-Sale hardware terminal===
With custom hardware you can integrate with existing registers and point-of-sales solutions (examples: [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz]] [https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz Coinkite], [https://xbterminal.com/ XBTerminal], [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat]).

===Accounting===
When a customer makes a payment, you might simply issue a credit to their account. Ideally, you want to enter it in a way that suggests you received a payment. You could consider entering it as a "discount", but you may want to consider whether this inappropriately disguises the nature of the transaction. If on the other hand, you're giving "discounts" for Bitcoins, but then you are selling the Bitcoins for currency and then counting that as income, then chances are good that your calculation of income is making up for it. Ask your accountant.

===Businesses that offer gift cards===
If your business sells gift cards or gift certificates, you may find that the easiest way to accept Bitcoin is to accept it only for the purchase of gift cards, and then require the gift cards to be used for actual purchases of goods or services. This way, the accounting practices you already have in place for processing gift cards can be put to use. The accounting for Bitcoins would then be minimized to tracking sales of a single SKU.

This method is also ideal for retail food establishments and convenience stores, where the payment of Bitcoins through a mobile phone for a small daily food purchase might be cumbersome or disruptive, especially in front of a line of other customers. Bitcoins in this case would be best used to reload prepaid cards that can then be swiped at point-of-sale.

If you don't accept gift cards, but you already accept credit cards through a swipe terminal, consider the possibility that you could add a retail gift card system through the swipe terminal you already own. Many point-of-sale terminals, including ones from VeriFone®, are designed around the ability to support multiple applications on the same terminal. Gift cards are also highly profitable because of "breakage", or in other words, the fact that a significant percentage of them never get redeemed.

You could consider adding a private label gift card program from a provider who specializes in this, not just as a jumpstart to accepting Bitcoins, but as an extra boost to income. A private label gift card service provider necessarily have to handle your funds - they can simply provide a solution that keeps track of the balance on the cards on your behalf, including features that allow users to check their balances by phone or by web. Such a solution, of course, is also what makes the cards swipeable through the card reader.

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment.

If you have access to the programming expertise such that you can generate Bitcoin addresses programmatically, consider generating a brand new Bitcoin address for each invoice, and print it on the invoice. When a Bitcoin payment arrives, you'll automatically know where it should arrive.

Customers might wonder how much BTC they should pay in order to satisfy an invoice in full. Your invoice might suggest an amount. For example, if your invoice is for $100 and BTC's are currently worth $1.24 each, your invoice might suggest that it can be paid in full ''"with a payment of 80.65 BTC if paid by (date)"''.

You might be able to anticipate the possibility that even though a Bitcoin address can be printed on an invoice or payment stub, that they are very cumbersome for most people to type, especially being a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. However, you should probably still do it anyway. The customer is probably going to want some paper trail for his payment. Giving him a pre-printed payment stub with a pre-printed address will satisfy that, because the customer can independently and publicly prove through [[Block Explorer]] that the payment took place.

Does your business have a website? On your invoice, consider allowing them to go to a special URL to get the address to make a Bitcoin payment just by typing in their invoice number. For example, ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc'' with a form they can enter their invoice number, or just ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc/60365'' for paying invoice #60365. This way, they can see the Bitcoin address, copy and paste it directly into their Bitcoin client.

Use a brand new address for each invoice whenever possible, and use it only once. This benefits the customer as it removes any ambiguity as to which customer is making which payment and for which invoice.

Known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup, [https://coinify.com/checkout/invoice/cb/bb Coinify]

Payment companion having peer to peer encrypted invoicing using your own bitcoin address [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics]

===Avoiding fraud===

You should also consider the possible risk that fraudsters could send counterfeit invoices to your customers, and entice them to make a payment to a Bitcoin address they control, instead of you. While that isn't likely in general - it depends on how well a fraudster could find out who your customers are in the first place - it would certainly be an unpleasant situation if it ever happened. One way you could control that is, whenever possible, never let people try to type Bitcoin addresses off payment stubs - instead, force people to get the full Bitcoin address from your website via secure SSL. But, still print ''most'' of the address on the payment stub (perhaps with four or five characters starred out), so that the customer's need for a paper trail can be satisfied, so they can prove they paid if there is ever a dispute. Merchants can also use the IP address geolocation to understand the close proximity of users. There is automated solution such as [https://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] that automates the screening of Bitcoin transactions to determine risk level.

==Setting Prices==

When a business accepts bitcoins for payment, there generally is the need to convert them to the currencies used for paying suppliers, employees and shareholders. Some merchants set prices based on the current market rate at the time the price quote is presented to the customer (merchant services like [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [[File:Coingate_favicon.png|16px|link=https://coingate.com/merchants]] [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] or [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] (only for digital products) do this automatically).

[[Bitcoin Prices]] lists the exchange rate for many currencies on multiple exchanges.

When prices are determined using an automated process, the current market rate can be based on either a current price or on a weighted average basis. [[Bitcoin Charts]] provides a [http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api data feed that provides weighted prices]. [[Bitcoin Average]] also offers a weighted average price index, featuring average price across all exchanges reachable in the world and in over 150 currencies. 24h sliding average price index is also available and all data is [https://bitcoinaverage.com/api.htm reachable through the API].

When bitcoin funds for purchases are received, some merchants instantly exchange those proceeds into the preferred currency used (again done automatically by [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [[File:Coingate_favicon.png|16px|link=https://coingate.com/merchants]] [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] or [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] (only for digital products)). Hedging for each transaction can nearly entirely eliminate exchange rate risk that the business is exposed to when accepting bitcoins for payment.

==Contract==

A sales contract might be used to ensure that specific terms are met to lessen the chances of a misunderstanding. For instance, the party sending payment is responsible for paying any [[transaction fee]] that might be necessary. A contract might specify that a transaction fee must be paid and what amount, so as to prevent the situation where the transaction is considered a low priority transaction and thus isn't confirmed quickly.

Other items that might be addressed in a contract:

* Requirement and handling of escrow through an [[:Category:Escrow_services|escrow service]].
* Jurisdiction for disputes.
* Refund policy (particularly with the exchange rate being volatile)

==Paying taxes on Bitcoin income==
[[Tax compliance]] is a topic of concern for small businesses. We aren't accountants or lawyers, and can't give legal or accounting advice.

But in many respects, Bitcoin transactions work very much like cash. Just like Bitcoin, cash is anonymous and doesn't leave a paper trail, yet is widely used in commerce every day.

Ask yourself how you would handle a cash transaction. Do you accept cash transactions? Do you normally pay taxes on cash transactions? The answer for Bitcoin should probably be the same.

As for how to decide what a Bitcoin transaction is worth... the IRS, as far as we know, has never issued a guide mentioning how to value Bitcoin transactions. But they probably have rules and guidelines on how to value transactions made in foreign currency or "cash equivalents". We imagine the accounting would be similar.

With Bitcoins, there's likely to be some difference between the value of BTC when you received them as payment, versus when you go to exchange them for another currency like USD, should you decide to do so. This scenario, likewise, would be no different if you accepted foreign currency or gold as payment. Under some scenarios, it might make sense to book the dollar value of BTC income as it is received, and then to book any difference incurred when it is exchanged for fiat currency. Under others, it might make sense to book the whole thing at the time of exchange.

Perhaps you might talk to your accountant. You don't need to get into a discussion with your accountant about block chains and private keys or the philosophy behind a decentralized currency. By comparing the fundamentals of Bitcoins to accounting concepts already well understood by the public, you can probably get all the answers you need. What would you ask your accountant if you decided that you wanted to accept ''Berkshire Bucks'' or 1-ounce gold coins as payment?

== Merchant Services ==

See also [[Why Your Business Should Use a Full Node to Accept Bitcoin]]

* [https://bitaps.com/api Bitaps.com] APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed.
* [http://www.btc4erp.com Bitcoin Transaction Coordinator] Full Merchant Solution for organizations using the NetSuite Global ERP and eCommerce Platform
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Payment gateway for virtual currencies with direct settlement to PLN, CZK, EUR and USD. POS + API.
* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting Bitcoin, getting Euro or Euro/Bitcoin percentage. The Netherlands.
* [https://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Bitcoin and Credit Card payment processor
* [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay] Bitcoin payment processor with mobile checkout solution
* [https://bitpos.me BitPOS] Bitcoin payment processor for online and brick and mortar stores
* [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat] SiteCite: "As of 10-11-2015 BitStraat is discontinued as a company."
* [[File:Bitx-avatar.png|20px|link=https://bitx.co/api]] [https://bitx.co/api BitX API] Merchant API for registered businesses & developers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
* [http://blockchain.info/api/api_receive Blockchain.info] Free APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed. '''Update:''' Starting 01/2016 API2 requires an API key - account required!
* [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics] Peer to peer bitcoin invoices using your own bitcoin address.
* [https://coinbase.com/docs/merchant_tools/payment_buttons Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, checkout pages, shopping cart integration, and daily cash out to USD.
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]] [http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin Point of Sales application for Android, with integration into various exchanges. Similar to Square.
* [[Cashila]] Online bank account and payment processor. Accepts bitcoin payments, SEPA transfers and [https://www.cashila.com/ pay bills with bitcoin]
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [[File:Coingate_favicon.png|16px|link=https://coingate.com/merchants]] [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate] Accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. E-commerce plugins, API, Point of Sale app for Android / iOS / web, payment buttons.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Payment Service Provider (PSP) specializing in the technical aspects of accepting cryptocurrencies - such as bitcoin. Supports Bitcoin Web Payments, Mobile Checkout, In-store Bitcoin Payments and Bitcoin Invoicing with recurring billing in bitcoin.
* [https://coinpip.com CoinPip] Online and POS bitcoin payment processor for Asia.
* [[File:Coinsnap_favicon.jpg|20px|link=http://www.coinsnap.eu]] [[Coinsnap]] European Bitcoin Payment Provider
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] European payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR and USD. Exchange and wallet integrated.
* [https://cubits.com Cubits] Platform with multisignature wallets and merchant system Cubits Pay.
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com/docs GoCoin International payment gateway and processing platform for Merchants]
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment processor with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Membership, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [https://www.okpay.com/en/services/accept-payments/index.html OKPAY] Bitcoin payment processing for merchants
* [[File:Payfast-400.png|20px|link=https://www.payfast.co.za]] [https://www.payfast.co.za PayFast] Merchant solution for South Africa. Integrated in 60+ shopping carts. Supports credit cards, EFT bank transfers and Bitcoin. When buyers pay with Bitcoin, merchants receive the South African rand equivalent, using BitX API
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Accept Bitcoin with no internet then sell bitcoin for profit on our peer to peer exchange.
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.
* [[File:SpectroCoin.png|20px|link=https://spectrocoin.com]][https://spectrocoin.com SpectroCoin] Payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR, USD, CZK, PLN and other currencies. Debit card, exchange and wallet offered. Plugins for e-commerce and API offered for integration.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]][https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [http://xbterminal.com XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.

==See Also==

* [[Merchant Howto]]
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Tax compliance]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[BitCoins Mobile]] provides accurate up to date pricing from multiple exchanges from your Apple iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.
* [[Bitcoin PayFlow]] automates the process for accepting bitcoins
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website

[[Category:ECommerce]]
[[Category:Local]]

[[de:Bitcoin_als_Geschäft_akzeptieren]]

How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses

2016-11-20T01:37:18Z

Chevesli: /* Merchant Services */

{{merge|Merchant Howto}}

This guide is intended for small business owners who wish to help promote Bitcoin by accepting it as payment for goods and services. It's written with the assumption that you operate a regular business that sells goods or services for regular national currency such as dollars, and that you wish to accept Bitcoin as another legal way to pay, and that you intend to pay taxes on your Bitcoin income just like any other income.

With Bitcoin being touted as a way to conduct anonymous transactions and as way to compete with government currency, many small business owners wonder what's the right way to accept and account Bitcoin, or if it's legal or ethical, or whether and how they should pay taxes on income received through Bitcoin.

As far as we know, Bitcoin isn't yet formally recognized by governments and authorities as a "currency". But in practice, Bitcoin is likely no different than accepting payment in other forms, such as cash, or gold, or scrip, or gift cards or foreign currency. We think that it is pretty much the same as the local businesses of Great Barrington, Massachusetts choosing to accept their locally-printed [http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/19/us-usa-economy-berkshares-idUSN0530157720070619 "Berkshire Bucks"] to support their local economy.

====Starting to accept Bitcoin for transactions====
Accepting Bitcoin at a small business is best started in whichever manner keeps the accounting simple for you. This will vary by the type of business you are operating.

===Start with a sign===
[[{{ns:file}}:WeAcceptBitcoin.png‎]]

If you expect that the number of people interested in using Bitcoin is small, you might simply start by posting a sign or a note: "We Accept Bitcoin", and ask people to contact you directly in order to make a payment. Even if hardly anybody uses Bitcoin as a payment method, you're helping Bitcoin in two ways: one, by increasing awareness, and two, by making your customers more willing to accept Bitcoin as payment from others in the future, because now they know somewhere they can spend it.

===Utilize a merchant solution===
If you sell things on your website (goods or services), you'll want to use a [[#Merchant Services|Bitcoin merchant solution]] to accept the Bitcoins (you can usually opt to have them converted to USD or other currencies automatically with some services).

If you sell things in a brick and mortar shop, customers can pay using hardware terminals, touch screen apps or simple wallet addresses through QR Codes.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]][[File:Coinktie Bitcoin Payment Buttons.png|alt=Coinkite Bitcoin Payment Buttons|link=https://coinkite.com/merchants]]

[[File:Bitcoin-pos-terminal.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|Coinkite terminal]] [[File:Mobile_Web_App_Bitcoin_Register.jpeg|100 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|CoinBox terminal]]

[[File:Mobile_Checkout_Phone.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin Mobile Checkout|Coinify Mobile Checkout|link=https://coinify.com]]

===Smart Phone or Tablet===
You can use a wallet address with any wallet. For that it's best if you can place a QR code near your cash register to which the customers can scan with their phone and pay (use http://bitcoinqrcode.org/ to make a QR code sign). For a more convenient solution you can use a dedicated app or webapp that generates a QR code on the fly including the amount.

==== Examples ====
Solutions for smart phones and tablets:
* [[File:Airbitz mobile logo.png|20px|https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/]] [https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/ Airbitz] Merchant Mode for Android and iOS
* [https://bitcoin.co.th/merchants/ bitcoin.co.th] mobile Bitcoin Point of Sale for Thailand
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], Mobile payment terminal with EUR, USD, PLN and CZK settlements.
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] accept Bitcoin on mobile phone, tablet, computer; converts to Euro/Bitcoin (any percentage)
* [https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-for-retail BitPay] Mobile Checkout
* [https://bitpos.me/demo.html BitPOS] Merchant POS solution for Australia
* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.blockchain.merchant Blockchain] Merchant for Android
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Point of Sale solution available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [[File:Coingate_favicon.png|16px|link=https://coingate.com/pos]] [https://coingate.com/pos CoinGate] Bitcoin Point of Sale apps for Android, iOS and Bitcoin Point of Sale web app which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Bitcoin Point Of Sale
* [[File:Coin_Of_Sale_logo.png|20px|link=https://coinofsale.com]] [https://coinofsale.com Coin Of Sale] - device-independent Bitcoin POS payment system
* [https://coinbase.com Coinbase] Point Of Sale for Android
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]][http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin point of sale for Android
* [https://cryptopay.me/products/ Cryptopay] HTML5-based bitcoin POS
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Simplest Point of Sale, No Fees and a peer to peer market to buy bitcoin instantly
* [https://gourl.io/ GoUrl] Bitcoin Mobile Checkout
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.

===Point-of-Sale hardware terminal===
With custom hardware you can integrate with existing registers and point-of-sales solutions (examples: [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz]] [https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz Coinkite], [https://xbterminal.com/ XBTerminal], [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat]).

===Accounting===
When a customer makes a payment, you might simply issue a credit to their account. Ideally, you want to enter it in a way that suggests you received a payment. You could consider entering it as a "discount", but you may want to consider whether this inappropriately disguises the nature of the transaction. If on the other hand, you're giving "discounts" for Bitcoins, but then you are selling the Bitcoins for currency and then counting that as income, then chances are good that your calculation of income is making up for it. Ask your accountant.

===Businesses that offer gift cards===
If your business sells gift cards or gift certificates, you may find that the easiest way to accept Bitcoin is to accept it only for the purchase of gift cards, and then require the gift cards to be used for actual purchases of goods or services. This way, the accounting practices you already have in place for processing gift cards can be put to use. The accounting for Bitcoins would then be minimized to tracking sales of a single SKU.

This method is also ideal for retail food establishments and convenience stores, where the payment of Bitcoins through a mobile phone for a small daily food purchase might be cumbersome or disruptive, especially in front of a line of other customers. Bitcoins in this case would be best used to reload prepaid cards that can then be swiped at point-of-sale.

If you don't accept gift cards, but you already accept credit cards through a swipe terminal, consider the possibility that you could add a retail gift card system through the swipe terminal you already own. Many point-of-sale terminals, including ones from VeriFone®, are designed around the ability to support multiple applications on the same terminal. Gift cards are also highly profitable because of "breakage", or in other words, the fact that a significant percentage of them never get redeemed.

You could consider adding a private label gift card program from a provider who specializes in this, not just as a jumpstart to accepting Bitcoins, but as an extra boost to income. A private label gift card service provider necessarily have to handle your funds - they can simply provide a solution that keeps track of the balance on the cards on your behalf, including features that allow users to check their balances by phone or by web. Such a solution, of course, is also what makes the cards swipeable through the card reader.

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment.

If you have access to the programming expertise such that you can generate Bitcoin addresses programmatically, consider generating a brand new Bitcoin address for each invoice, and print it on the invoice. When a Bitcoin payment arrives, you'll automatically know where it should arrive.

Customers might wonder how much BTC they should pay in order to satisfy an invoice in full. Your invoice might suggest an amount. For example, if your invoice is for $100 and BTC's are currently worth $1.24 each, your invoice might suggest that it can be paid in full ''"with a payment of 80.65 BTC if paid by (date)"''.

You might be able to anticipate the possibility that even though a Bitcoin address can be printed on an invoice or payment stub, that they are very cumbersome for most people to type, especially being a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. However, you should probably still do it anyway. The customer is probably going to want some paper trail for his payment. Giving him a pre-printed payment stub with a pre-printed address will satisfy that, because the customer can independently and publicly prove through [[Block Explorer]] that the payment took place.

Does your business have a website? On your invoice, consider allowing them to go to a special URL to get the address to make a Bitcoin payment just by typing in their invoice number. For example, ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc'' with a form they can enter their invoice number, or just ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc/60365'' for paying invoice #60365. This way, they can see the Bitcoin address, copy and paste it directly into their Bitcoin client.

Use a brand new address for each invoice whenever possible, and use it only once. This benefits the customer as it removes any ambiguity as to which customer is making which payment and for which invoice.

Known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup, [https://coinify.com/checkout/invoice/cb/bb Coinify]

Payment companion having peer to peer encrypted invoicing using your own bitcoin address [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics]

===Avoiding fraud===

You should also consider the possible risk that fraudsters could send counterfeit invoices to your customers, and entice them to make a payment to a Bitcoin address they control, instead of you. While that isn't likely in general - it depends on how well a fraudster could find out who your customers are in the first place - it would certainly be an unpleasant situation if it ever happened. One way you could control that is, whenever possible, never let people try to type Bitcoin addresses off payment stubs - instead, force people to get the full Bitcoin address from your website via secure SSL. But, still print ''most'' of the address on the payment stub (perhaps with four or five characters starred out), so that the customer's need for a paper trail can be satisfied, so they can prove they paid if there is ever a dispute. Merchants can also use the IP address geolocation to understand the close proximity of users. There is automated solution such as [https://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] that automates the screening of Bitcoin transactions to determine risk level.

==Setting Prices==

When a business accepts bitcoins for payment, there generally is the need to convert them to the currencies used for paying suppliers, employees and shareholders. Some merchants set prices based on the current market rate at the time the price quote is presented to the customer (merchant services like [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] or [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] (only for digital products) do this automatically).

[[Bitcoin Prices]] lists the exchange rate for many currencies on multiple exchanges.

When prices are determined using an automated process, the current market rate can be based on either a current price or on a weighted average basis. [[Bitcoin Charts]] provides a [http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api data feed that provides weighted prices]. [[Bitcoin Average]] also offers a weighted average price index, featuring average price across all exchanges reachable in the world and in over 150 currencies. 24h sliding average price index is also available and all data is [https://bitcoinaverage.com/api.htm reachable through the API].

When bitcoin funds for purchases are received, some merchants instantly exchange those proceeds into the preferred currency used (again done automatically by [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] or [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] (only for digital products)). Hedging for each transaction can nearly entirely eliminate exchange rate risk that the business is exposed to when accepting bitcoins for payment.

==Contract==

A sales contract might be used to ensure that specific terms are met to lessen the chances of a misunderstanding. For instance, the party sending payment is responsible for paying any [[transaction fee]] that might be necessary. A contract might specify that a transaction fee must be paid and what amount, so as to prevent the situation where the transaction is considered a low priority transaction and thus isn't confirmed quickly.

Other items that might be addressed in a contract:

* Requirement and handling of escrow through an [[:Category:Escrow_services|escrow service]].
* Jurisdiction for disputes.
* Refund policy (particularly with the exchange rate being volatile)

==Paying taxes on Bitcoin income==
[[Tax compliance]] is a topic of concern for small businesses. We aren't accountants or lawyers, and can't give legal or accounting advice.

But in many respects, Bitcoin transactions work very much like cash. Just like Bitcoin, cash is anonymous and doesn't leave a paper trail, yet is widely used in commerce every day.

Ask yourself how you would handle a cash transaction. Do you accept cash transactions? Do you normally pay taxes on cash transactions? The answer for Bitcoin should probably be the same.

As for how to decide what a Bitcoin transaction is worth... the IRS, as far as we know, has never issued a guide mentioning how to value Bitcoin transactions. But they probably have rules and guidelines on how to value transactions made in foreign currency or "cash equivalents". We imagine the accounting would be similar.

With Bitcoins, there's likely to be some difference between the value of BTC when you received them as payment, versus when you go to exchange them for another currency like USD, should you decide to do so. This scenario, likewise, would be no different if you accepted foreign currency or gold as payment. Under some scenarios, it might make sense to book the dollar value of BTC income as it is received, and then to book any difference incurred when it is exchanged for fiat currency. Under others, it might make sense to book the whole thing at the time of exchange.

Perhaps you might talk to your accountant. You don't need to get into a discussion with your accountant about block chains and private keys or the philosophy behind a decentralized currency. By comparing the fundamentals of Bitcoins to accounting concepts already well understood by the public, you can probably get all the answers you need. What would you ask your accountant if you decided that you wanted to accept ''Berkshire Bucks'' or 1-ounce gold coins as payment?

== Merchant Services ==

See also [[Why Your Business Should Use a Full Node to Accept Bitcoin]]

* [https://bitaps.com/api Bitaps.com] APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed.
* [http://www.btc4erp.com Bitcoin Transaction Coordinator] Full Merchant Solution for organizations using the NetSuite Global ERP and eCommerce Platform
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Payment gateway for virtual currencies with direct settlement to PLN, CZK, EUR and USD. POS + API.
* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting Bitcoin, getting Euro or Euro/Bitcoin percentage. The Netherlands.
* [https://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Bitcoin and Credit Card payment processor
* [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay] Bitcoin payment processor with mobile checkout solution
* [https://bitpos.me BitPOS] Bitcoin payment processor for online and brick and mortar stores
* [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat] SiteCite: "As of 10-11-2015 BitStraat is discontinued as a company."
* [[File:Bitx-avatar.png|20px|link=https://bitx.co/api]] [https://bitx.co/api BitX API] Merchant API for registered businesses & developers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
* [http://blockchain.info/api/api_receive Blockchain.info] Free APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed. '''Update:''' Starting 01/2016 API2 requires an API key - account required!
* [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics] Peer to peer bitcoin invoices using your own bitcoin address.
* [https://coinbase.com/docs/merchant_tools/payment_buttons Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, checkout pages, shopping cart integration, and daily cash out to USD.
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]] [http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin Point of Sales application for Android, with integration into various exchanges. Similar to Square.
* [[Cashila]] Online bank account and payment processor. Accepts bitcoin payments, SEPA transfers and [https://www.cashila.com/ pay bills with bitcoin]
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [[File:Coingate_favicon.png|16px|link=https://coingate.com/merchants]] [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate] Accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. E-commerce plugins, API, Point of Sale app for Android / iOS / web, payment buttons.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Payment Service Provider (PSP) specializing in the technical aspects of accepting cryptocurrencies - such as bitcoin. Supports Bitcoin Web Payments, Mobile Checkout, In-store Bitcoin Payments and Bitcoin Invoicing with recurring billing in bitcoin.
* [https://coinpip.com CoinPip] Online and POS bitcoin payment processor for Asia.
* [[File:Coinsnap_favicon.jpg|20px|link=http://www.coinsnap.eu]] [[Coinsnap]] European Bitcoin Payment Provider
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] European payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR and USD. Exchange and wallet integrated.
* [https://cubits.com Cubits] Platform with multisignature wallets and merchant system Cubits Pay.
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com/docs GoCoin International payment gateway and processing platform for Merchants]
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment processor with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Membership, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [https://www.okpay.com/en/services/accept-payments/index.html OKPAY] Bitcoin payment processing for merchants
* [[File:Payfast-400.png|20px|link=https://www.payfast.co.za]] [https://www.payfast.co.za PayFast] Merchant solution for South Africa. Integrated in 60+ shopping carts. Supports credit cards, EFT bank transfers and Bitcoin. When buyers pay with Bitcoin, merchants receive the South African rand equivalent, using BitX API
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Accept Bitcoin with no internet then sell bitcoin for profit on our peer to peer exchange.
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.
* [[File:SpectroCoin.png|20px|link=https://spectrocoin.com]][https://spectrocoin.com SpectroCoin] Payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR, USD, CZK, PLN and other currencies. Debit card, exchange and wallet offered. Plugins for e-commerce and API offered for integration.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]][https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [http://xbterminal.com XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.

==See Also==

* [[Merchant Howto]]
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Tax compliance]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[BitCoins Mobile]] provides accurate up to date pricing from multiple exchanges from your Apple iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.
* [[Bitcoin PayFlow]] automates the process for accepting bitcoins
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website

[[Category:ECommerce]]
[[Category:Local]]

[[de:Bitcoin_als_Geschäft_akzeptieren]]

How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses

2016-11-20T01:36:13Z

Chevesli: /* Examples */

{{merge|Merchant Howto}}

This guide is intended for small business owners who wish to help promote Bitcoin by accepting it as payment for goods and services. It's written with the assumption that you operate a regular business that sells goods or services for regular national currency such as dollars, and that you wish to accept Bitcoin as another legal way to pay, and that you intend to pay taxes on your Bitcoin income just like any other income.

With Bitcoin being touted as a way to conduct anonymous transactions and as way to compete with government currency, many small business owners wonder what's the right way to accept and account Bitcoin, or if it's legal or ethical, or whether and how they should pay taxes on income received through Bitcoin.

As far as we know, Bitcoin isn't yet formally recognized by governments and authorities as a "currency". But in practice, Bitcoin is likely no different than accepting payment in other forms, such as cash, or gold, or scrip, or gift cards or foreign currency. We think that it is pretty much the same as the local businesses of Great Barrington, Massachusetts choosing to accept their locally-printed [http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/19/us-usa-economy-berkshares-idUSN0530157720070619 "Berkshire Bucks"] to support their local economy.

====Starting to accept Bitcoin for transactions====
Accepting Bitcoin at a small business is best started in whichever manner keeps the accounting simple for you. This will vary by the type of business you are operating.

===Start with a sign===
[[{{ns:file}}:WeAcceptBitcoin.png‎]]

If you expect that the number of people interested in using Bitcoin is small, you might simply start by posting a sign or a note: "We Accept Bitcoin", and ask people to contact you directly in order to make a payment. Even if hardly anybody uses Bitcoin as a payment method, you're helping Bitcoin in two ways: one, by increasing awareness, and two, by making your customers more willing to accept Bitcoin as payment from others in the future, because now they know somewhere they can spend it.

===Utilize a merchant solution===
If you sell things on your website (goods or services), you'll want to use a [[#Merchant Services|Bitcoin merchant solution]] to accept the Bitcoins (you can usually opt to have them converted to USD or other currencies automatically with some services).

If you sell things in a brick and mortar shop, customers can pay using hardware terminals, touch screen apps or simple wallet addresses through QR Codes.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]][[File:Coinktie Bitcoin Payment Buttons.png|alt=Coinkite Bitcoin Payment Buttons|link=https://coinkite.com/merchants]]

[[File:Bitcoin-pos-terminal.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|Coinkite terminal]] [[File:Mobile_Web_App_Bitcoin_Register.jpeg|100 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|CoinBox terminal]]

[[File:Mobile_Checkout_Phone.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin Mobile Checkout|Coinify Mobile Checkout|link=https://coinify.com]]

===Smart Phone or Tablet===
You can use a wallet address with any wallet. For that it's best if you can place a QR code near your cash register to which the customers can scan with their phone and pay (use http://bitcoinqrcode.org/ to make a QR code sign). For a more convenient solution you can use a dedicated app or webapp that generates a QR code on the fly including the amount.

==== Examples ====
Solutions for smart phones and tablets:
* [[File:Airbitz mobile logo.png|20px|https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/]] [https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/ Airbitz] Merchant Mode for Android and iOS
* [https://bitcoin.co.th/merchants/ bitcoin.co.th] mobile Bitcoin Point of Sale for Thailand
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], Mobile payment terminal with EUR, USD, PLN and CZK settlements.
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] accept Bitcoin on mobile phone, tablet, computer; converts to Euro/Bitcoin (any percentage)
* [https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-for-retail BitPay] Mobile Checkout
* [https://bitpos.me/demo.html BitPOS] Merchant POS solution for Australia
* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.blockchain.merchant Blockchain] Merchant for Android
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Point of Sale solution available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [[File:Coingate_favicon.png|16px|link=https://coingate.com/pos]] [https://coingate.com/pos CoinGate] Bitcoin Point of Sale apps for Android, iOS and Bitcoin Point of Sale web app which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Bitcoin Point Of Sale
* [[File:Coin_Of_Sale_logo.png|20px|link=https://coinofsale.com]] [https://coinofsale.com Coin Of Sale] - device-independent Bitcoin POS payment system
* [https://coinbase.com Coinbase] Point Of Sale for Android
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]][http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin point of sale for Android
* [https://cryptopay.me/products/ Cryptopay] HTML5-based bitcoin POS
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Simplest Point of Sale, No Fees and a peer to peer market to buy bitcoin instantly
* [https://gourl.io/ GoUrl] Bitcoin Mobile Checkout
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.

===Point-of-Sale hardware terminal===
With custom hardware you can integrate with existing registers and point-of-sales solutions (examples: [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz]] [https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz Coinkite], [https://xbterminal.com/ XBTerminal], [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat]).

===Accounting===
When a customer makes a payment, you might simply issue a credit to their account. Ideally, you want to enter it in a way that suggests you received a payment. You could consider entering it as a "discount", but you may want to consider whether this inappropriately disguises the nature of the transaction. If on the other hand, you're giving "discounts" for Bitcoins, but then you are selling the Bitcoins for currency and then counting that as income, then chances are good that your calculation of income is making up for it. Ask your accountant.

===Businesses that offer gift cards===
If your business sells gift cards or gift certificates, you may find that the easiest way to accept Bitcoin is to accept it only for the purchase of gift cards, and then require the gift cards to be used for actual purchases of goods or services. This way, the accounting practices you already have in place for processing gift cards can be put to use. The accounting for Bitcoins would then be minimized to tracking sales of a single SKU.

This method is also ideal for retail food establishments and convenience stores, where the payment of Bitcoins through a mobile phone for a small daily food purchase might be cumbersome or disruptive, especially in front of a line of other customers. Bitcoins in this case would be best used to reload prepaid cards that can then be swiped at point-of-sale.

If you don't accept gift cards, but you already accept credit cards through a swipe terminal, consider the possibility that you could add a retail gift card system through the swipe terminal you already own. Many point-of-sale terminals, including ones from VeriFone®, are designed around the ability to support multiple applications on the same terminal. Gift cards are also highly profitable because of "breakage", or in other words, the fact that a significant percentage of them never get redeemed.

You could consider adding a private label gift card program from a provider who specializes in this, not just as a jumpstart to accepting Bitcoins, but as an extra boost to income. A private label gift card service provider necessarily have to handle your funds - they can simply provide a solution that keeps track of the balance on the cards on your behalf, including features that allow users to check their balances by phone or by web. Such a solution, of course, is also what makes the cards swipeable through the card reader.

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment.

If you have access to the programming expertise such that you can generate Bitcoin addresses programmatically, consider generating a brand new Bitcoin address for each invoice, and print it on the invoice. When a Bitcoin payment arrives, you'll automatically know where it should arrive.

Customers might wonder how much BTC they should pay in order to satisfy an invoice in full. Your invoice might suggest an amount. For example, if your invoice is for $100 and BTC's are currently worth $1.24 each, your invoice might suggest that it can be paid in full ''"with a payment of 80.65 BTC if paid by (date)"''.

You might be able to anticipate the possibility that even though a Bitcoin address can be printed on an invoice or payment stub, that they are very cumbersome for most people to type, especially being a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. However, you should probably still do it anyway. The customer is probably going to want some paper trail for his payment. Giving him a pre-printed payment stub with a pre-printed address will satisfy that, because the customer can independently and publicly prove through [[Block Explorer]] that the payment took place.

Does your business have a website? On your invoice, consider allowing them to go to a special URL to get the address to make a Bitcoin payment just by typing in their invoice number. For example, ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc'' with a form they can enter their invoice number, or just ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc/60365'' for paying invoice #60365. This way, they can see the Bitcoin address, copy and paste it directly into their Bitcoin client.

Use a brand new address for each invoice whenever possible, and use it only once. This benefits the customer as it removes any ambiguity as to which customer is making which payment and for which invoice.

Known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup, [https://coinify.com/checkout/invoice/cb/bb Coinify]

Payment companion having peer to peer encrypted invoicing using your own bitcoin address [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics]

===Avoiding fraud===

You should also consider the possible risk that fraudsters could send counterfeit invoices to your customers, and entice them to make a payment to a Bitcoin address they control, instead of you. While that isn't likely in general - it depends on how well a fraudster could find out who your customers are in the first place - it would certainly be an unpleasant situation if it ever happened. One way you could control that is, whenever possible, never let people try to type Bitcoin addresses off payment stubs - instead, force people to get the full Bitcoin address from your website via secure SSL. But, still print ''most'' of the address on the payment stub (perhaps with four or five characters starred out), so that the customer's need for a paper trail can be satisfied, so they can prove they paid if there is ever a dispute. Merchants can also use the IP address geolocation to understand the close proximity of users. There is automated solution such as [https://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] that automates the screening of Bitcoin transactions to determine risk level.

==Setting Prices==

When a business accepts bitcoins for payment, there generally is the need to convert them to the currencies used for paying suppliers, employees and shareholders. Some merchants set prices based on the current market rate at the time the price quote is presented to the customer (merchant services like [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] or [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] (only for digital products) do this automatically).

[[Bitcoin Prices]] lists the exchange rate for many currencies on multiple exchanges.

When prices are determined using an automated process, the current market rate can be based on either a current price or on a weighted average basis. [[Bitcoin Charts]] provides a [http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api data feed that provides weighted prices]. [[Bitcoin Average]] also offers a weighted average price index, featuring average price across all exchanges reachable in the world and in over 150 currencies. 24h sliding average price index is also available and all data is [https://bitcoinaverage.com/api.htm reachable through the API].

When bitcoin funds for purchases are received, some merchants instantly exchange those proceeds into the preferred currency used (again done automatically by [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] or [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] (only for digital products)). Hedging for each transaction can nearly entirely eliminate exchange rate risk that the business is exposed to when accepting bitcoins for payment.

==Contract==

A sales contract might be used to ensure that specific terms are met to lessen the chances of a misunderstanding. For instance, the party sending payment is responsible for paying any [[transaction fee]] that might be necessary. A contract might specify that a transaction fee must be paid and what amount, so as to prevent the situation where the transaction is considered a low priority transaction and thus isn't confirmed quickly.

Other items that might be addressed in a contract:

* Requirement and handling of escrow through an [[:Category:Escrow_services|escrow service]].
* Jurisdiction for disputes.
* Refund policy (particularly with the exchange rate being volatile)

==Paying taxes on Bitcoin income==
[[Tax compliance]] is a topic of concern for small businesses. We aren't accountants or lawyers, and can't give legal or accounting advice.

But in many respects, Bitcoin transactions work very much like cash. Just like Bitcoin, cash is anonymous and doesn't leave a paper trail, yet is widely used in commerce every day.

Ask yourself how you would handle a cash transaction. Do you accept cash transactions? Do you normally pay taxes on cash transactions? The answer for Bitcoin should probably be the same.

As for how to decide what a Bitcoin transaction is worth... the IRS, as far as we know, has never issued a guide mentioning how to value Bitcoin transactions. But they probably have rules and guidelines on how to value transactions made in foreign currency or "cash equivalents". We imagine the accounting would be similar.

With Bitcoins, there's likely to be some difference between the value of BTC when you received them as payment, versus when you go to exchange them for another currency like USD, should you decide to do so. This scenario, likewise, would be no different if you accepted foreign currency or gold as payment. Under some scenarios, it might make sense to book the dollar value of BTC income as it is received, and then to book any difference incurred when it is exchanged for fiat currency. Under others, it might make sense to book the whole thing at the time of exchange.

Perhaps you might talk to your accountant. You don't need to get into a discussion with your accountant about block chains and private keys or the philosophy behind a decentralized currency. By comparing the fundamentals of Bitcoins to accounting concepts already well understood by the public, you can probably get all the answers you need. What would you ask your accountant if you decided that you wanted to accept ''Berkshire Bucks'' or 1-ounce gold coins as payment?

== Merchant Services ==

See also [[Why Your Business Should Use a Full Node to Accept Bitcoin]]

* [https://bitaps.com/api Bitaps.com] APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed.
* [http://www.btc4erp.com Bitcoin Transaction Coordinator] Full Merchant Solution for organizations using the NetSuite Global ERP and eCommerce Platform
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Payment gateway for virtual currencies with direct settlement to PLN, CZK, EUR and USD. POS + API.
* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting Bitcoin, getting Euro or Euro/Bitcoin percentage. The Netherlands.
* [https://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Bitcoin and Credit Card payment processor
* [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay] Bitcoin payment processor with mobile checkout solution
* [https://bitpos.me BitPOS] Bitcoin payment processor for online and brick and mortar stores
* [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat] SiteCite: "As of 10-11-2015 BitStraat is discontinued as a company."
* [[File:Bitx-avatar.png|20px|link=https://bitx.co/api]] [https://bitx.co/api BitX API] Merchant API for registered businesses & developers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
* [http://blockchain.info/api/api_receive Blockchain.info] Free APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed. '''Update:''' Starting 01/2016 API2 requires an API key - account required!
* [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics] Peer to peer bitcoin invoices using your own bitcoin address.
* [https://coinbase.com/docs/merchant_tools/payment_buttons Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, checkout pages, shopping cart integration, and daily cash out to USD.
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]] [http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin Point of Sales application for Android, with integration into various exchanges. Similar to Square.
* [[Cashila]] Online bank account and payment processor. Accepts bitcoin payments, SEPA transfers and [https://www.cashila.com/ pay bills with bitcoin]
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate] Accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. E-commerce plugins, API, Point of Sale app for Android / iOS / web, payment buttons.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Payment Service Provider (PSP) specializing in the technical aspects of accepting cryptocurrencies - such as bitcoin. Supports Bitcoin Web Payments, Mobile Checkout, In-store Bitcoin Payments and Bitcoin Invoicing with recurring billing in bitcoin.
* [https://coinpip.com CoinPip] Online and POS bitcoin payment processor for Asia.
* [[File:Coinsnap_favicon.jpg|20px|link=http://www.coinsnap.eu]] [[Coinsnap]] European Bitcoin Payment Provider
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] European payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR and USD. Exchange and wallet integrated.
* [https://cubits.com Cubits] Platform with multisignature wallets and merchant system Cubits Pay.
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com/docs GoCoin International payment gateway and processing platform for Merchants]
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment processor with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Membership, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [https://www.okpay.com/en/services/accept-payments/index.html OKPAY] Bitcoin payment processing for merchants
* [[File:Payfast-400.png|20px|link=https://www.payfast.co.za]] [https://www.payfast.co.za PayFast] Merchant solution for South Africa. Integrated in 60+ shopping carts. Supports credit cards, EFT bank transfers and Bitcoin. When buyers pay with Bitcoin, merchants receive the South African rand equivalent, using BitX API
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Accept Bitcoin with no internet then sell bitcoin for profit on our peer to peer exchange.
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.
* [[File:SpectroCoin.png|20px|link=https://spectrocoin.com]][https://spectrocoin.com SpectroCoin] Payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR, USD, CZK, PLN and other currencies. Debit card, exchange and wallet offered. Plugins for e-commerce and API offered for integration.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]][https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [http://xbterminal.com XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.

==See Also==

* [[Merchant Howto]]
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Tax compliance]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[BitCoins Mobile]] provides accurate up to date pricing from multiple exchanges from your Apple iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.
* [[Bitcoin PayFlow]] automates the process for accepting bitcoins
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website

[[Category:ECommerce]]
[[Category:Local]]

[[de:Bitcoin_als_Geschäft_akzeptieren]]

File:Coingate favicon.png

2016-11-20T01:34:38Z

Chevesli: CoinGate.com favicon

== Summary ==
CoinGate.com favicon
== Licensing ==
{{subst:nld}}

How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses

2016-11-20T01:18:42Z

Chevesli: /* Setting Prices */

{{merge|Merchant Howto}}

This guide is intended for small business owners who wish to help promote Bitcoin by accepting it as payment for goods and services. It's written with the assumption that you operate a regular business that sells goods or services for regular national currency such as dollars, and that you wish to accept Bitcoin as another legal way to pay, and that you intend to pay taxes on your Bitcoin income just like any other income.

With Bitcoin being touted as a way to conduct anonymous transactions and as way to compete with government currency, many small business owners wonder what's the right way to accept and account Bitcoin, or if it's legal or ethical, or whether and how they should pay taxes on income received through Bitcoin.

As far as we know, Bitcoin isn't yet formally recognized by governments and authorities as a "currency". But in practice, Bitcoin is likely no different than accepting payment in other forms, such as cash, or gold, or scrip, or gift cards or foreign currency. We think that it is pretty much the same as the local businesses of Great Barrington, Massachusetts choosing to accept their locally-printed [http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/19/us-usa-economy-berkshares-idUSN0530157720070619 "Berkshire Bucks"] to support their local economy.

====Starting to accept Bitcoin for transactions====
Accepting Bitcoin at a small business is best started in whichever manner keeps the accounting simple for you. This will vary by the type of business you are operating.

===Start with a sign===
[[{{ns:file}}:WeAcceptBitcoin.png‎]]

If you expect that the number of people interested in using Bitcoin is small, you might simply start by posting a sign or a note: "We Accept Bitcoin", and ask people to contact you directly in order to make a payment. Even if hardly anybody uses Bitcoin as a payment method, you're helping Bitcoin in two ways: one, by increasing awareness, and two, by making your customers more willing to accept Bitcoin as payment from others in the future, because now they know somewhere they can spend it.

===Utilize a merchant solution===
If you sell things on your website (goods or services), you'll want to use a [[#Merchant Services|Bitcoin merchant solution]] to accept the Bitcoins (you can usually opt to have them converted to USD or other currencies automatically with some services).

If you sell things in a brick and mortar shop, customers can pay using hardware terminals, touch screen apps or simple wallet addresses through QR Codes.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]][[File:Coinktie Bitcoin Payment Buttons.png|alt=Coinkite Bitcoin Payment Buttons|link=https://coinkite.com/merchants]]

[[File:Bitcoin-pos-terminal.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|Coinkite terminal]] [[File:Mobile_Web_App_Bitcoin_Register.jpeg|100 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|CoinBox terminal]]

[[File:Mobile_Checkout_Phone.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin Mobile Checkout|Coinify Mobile Checkout|link=https://coinify.com]]

===Smart Phone or Tablet===
You can use a wallet address with any wallet. For that it's best if you can place a QR code near your cash register to which the customers can scan with their phone and pay (use http://bitcoinqrcode.org/ to make a QR code sign). For a more convenient solution you can use a dedicated app or webapp that generates a QR code on the fly including the amount.

==== Examples ====
Solutions for smart phones and tablets:
* [[File:Airbitz mobile logo.png|20px|https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/]] [https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/ Airbitz] Merchant Mode for Android and iOS
* [https://bitcoin.co.th/merchants/ bitcoin.co.th] mobile Bitcoin Point of Sale for Thailand
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], Mobile payment terminal with EUR, USD, PLN and CZK settlements.
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] accept Bitcoin on mobile phone, tablet, computer; converts to Euro/Bitcoin (any percentage)
* [https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-for-retail BitPay] Mobile Checkout
* [https://bitpos.me/demo.html BitPOS] Merchant POS solution for Australia
* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.blockchain.merchant Blockchain] Merchant for Android
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Point of Sale solution available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/pos CoinGate] Bitcoin Point of Sale apps for Android, iOS and Bitcoin Point of Sale web app which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Bitcoin Point Of Sale
* [[File:Coin_Of_Sale_logo.png|20px|link=https://coinofsale.com]] [https://coinofsale.com Coin Of Sale] - device-independent Bitcoin POS payment system
* [https://coinbase.com Coinbase] Point Of Sale for Android
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]][http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin point of sale for Android
* [https://cryptopay.me/products/ Cryptopay] HTML5-based bitcoin POS
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Simplest Point of Sale, No Fees and a peer to peer market to buy bitcoin instantly
* [https://gourl.io/ GoUrl] Bitcoin Mobile Checkout
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.

===Point-of-Sale hardware terminal===
With custom hardware you can integrate with existing registers and point-of-sales solutions (examples: [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz]] [https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz Coinkite], [https://xbterminal.com/ XBTerminal], [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat]).

===Accounting===
When a customer makes a payment, you might simply issue a credit to their account. Ideally, you want to enter it in a way that suggests you received a payment. You could consider entering it as a "discount", but you may want to consider whether this inappropriately disguises the nature of the transaction. If on the other hand, you're giving "discounts" for Bitcoins, but then you are selling the Bitcoins for currency and then counting that as income, then chances are good that your calculation of income is making up for it. Ask your accountant.

===Businesses that offer gift cards===
If your business sells gift cards or gift certificates, you may find that the easiest way to accept Bitcoin is to accept it only for the purchase of gift cards, and then require the gift cards to be used for actual purchases of goods or services. This way, the accounting practices you already have in place for processing gift cards can be put to use. The accounting for Bitcoins would then be minimized to tracking sales of a single SKU.

This method is also ideal for retail food establishments and convenience stores, where the payment of Bitcoins through a mobile phone for a small daily food purchase might be cumbersome or disruptive, especially in front of a line of other customers. Bitcoins in this case would be best used to reload prepaid cards that can then be swiped at point-of-sale.

If you don't accept gift cards, but you already accept credit cards through a swipe terminal, consider the possibility that you could add a retail gift card system through the swipe terminal you already own. Many point-of-sale terminals, including ones from VeriFone®, are designed around the ability to support multiple applications on the same terminal. Gift cards are also highly profitable because of "breakage", or in other words, the fact that a significant percentage of them never get redeemed.

You could consider adding a private label gift card program from a provider who specializes in this, not just as a jumpstart to accepting Bitcoins, but as an extra boost to income. A private label gift card service provider necessarily have to handle your funds - they can simply provide a solution that keeps track of the balance on the cards on your behalf, including features that allow users to check their balances by phone or by web. Such a solution, of course, is also what makes the cards swipeable through the card reader.

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment.

If you have access to the programming expertise such that you can generate Bitcoin addresses programmatically, consider generating a brand new Bitcoin address for each invoice, and print it on the invoice. When a Bitcoin payment arrives, you'll automatically know where it should arrive.

Customers might wonder how much BTC they should pay in order to satisfy an invoice in full. Your invoice might suggest an amount. For example, if your invoice is for $100 and BTC's are currently worth $1.24 each, your invoice might suggest that it can be paid in full ''"with a payment of 80.65 BTC if paid by (date)"''.

You might be able to anticipate the possibility that even though a Bitcoin address can be printed on an invoice or payment stub, that they are very cumbersome for most people to type, especially being a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. However, you should probably still do it anyway. The customer is probably going to want some paper trail for his payment. Giving him a pre-printed payment stub with a pre-printed address will satisfy that, because the customer can independently and publicly prove through [[Block Explorer]] that the payment took place.

Does your business have a website? On your invoice, consider allowing them to go to a special URL to get the address to make a Bitcoin payment just by typing in their invoice number. For example, ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc'' with a form they can enter their invoice number, or just ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc/60365'' for paying invoice #60365. This way, they can see the Bitcoin address, copy and paste it directly into their Bitcoin client.

Use a brand new address for each invoice whenever possible, and use it only once. This benefits the customer as it removes any ambiguity as to which customer is making which payment and for which invoice.

Known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup, [https://coinify.com/checkout/invoice/cb/bb Coinify]

Payment companion having peer to peer encrypted invoicing using your own bitcoin address [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics]

===Avoiding fraud===

You should also consider the possible risk that fraudsters could send counterfeit invoices to your customers, and entice them to make a payment to a Bitcoin address they control, instead of you. While that isn't likely in general - it depends on how well a fraudster could find out who your customers are in the first place - it would certainly be an unpleasant situation if it ever happened. One way you could control that is, whenever possible, never let people try to type Bitcoin addresses off payment stubs - instead, force people to get the full Bitcoin address from your website via secure SSL. But, still print ''most'' of the address on the payment stub (perhaps with four or five characters starred out), so that the customer's need for a paper trail can be satisfied, so they can prove they paid if there is ever a dispute. Merchants can also use the IP address geolocation to understand the close proximity of users. There is automated solution such as [https://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] that automates the screening of Bitcoin transactions to determine risk level.

==Setting Prices==

When a business accepts bitcoins for payment, there generally is the need to convert them to the currencies used for paying suppliers, employees and shareholders. Some merchants set prices based on the current market rate at the time the price quote is presented to the customer (merchant services like [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] or [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] (only for digital products) do this automatically).

[[Bitcoin Prices]] lists the exchange rate for many currencies on multiple exchanges.

When prices are determined using an automated process, the current market rate can be based on either a current price or on a weighted average basis. [[Bitcoin Charts]] provides a [http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api data feed that provides weighted prices]. [[Bitcoin Average]] also offers a weighted average price index, featuring average price across all exchanges reachable in the world and in over 150 currencies. 24h sliding average price index is also available and all data is [https://bitcoinaverage.com/api.htm reachable through the API].

When bitcoin funds for purchases are received, some merchants instantly exchange those proceeds into the preferred currency used (again done automatically by [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] or [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] (only for digital products)). Hedging for each transaction can nearly entirely eliminate exchange rate risk that the business is exposed to when accepting bitcoins for payment.

==Contract==

A sales contract might be used to ensure that specific terms are met to lessen the chances of a misunderstanding. For instance, the party sending payment is responsible for paying any [[transaction fee]] that might be necessary. A contract might specify that a transaction fee must be paid and what amount, so as to prevent the situation where the transaction is considered a low priority transaction and thus isn't confirmed quickly.

Other items that might be addressed in a contract:

* Requirement and handling of escrow through an [[:Category:Escrow_services|escrow service]].
* Jurisdiction for disputes.
* Refund policy (particularly with the exchange rate being volatile)

==Paying taxes on Bitcoin income==
[[Tax compliance]] is a topic of concern for small businesses. We aren't accountants or lawyers, and can't give legal or accounting advice.

But in many respects, Bitcoin transactions work very much like cash. Just like Bitcoin, cash is anonymous and doesn't leave a paper trail, yet is widely used in commerce every day.

Ask yourself how you would handle a cash transaction. Do you accept cash transactions? Do you normally pay taxes on cash transactions? The answer for Bitcoin should probably be the same.

As for how to decide what a Bitcoin transaction is worth... the IRS, as far as we know, has never issued a guide mentioning how to value Bitcoin transactions. But they probably have rules and guidelines on how to value transactions made in foreign currency or "cash equivalents". We imagine the accounting would be similar.

With Bitcoins, there's likely to be some difference between the value of BTC when you received them as payment, versus when you go to exchange them for another currency like USD, should you decide to do so. This scenario, likewise, would be no different if you accepted foreign currency or gold as payment. Under some scenarios, it might make sense to book the dollar value of BTC income as it is received, and then to book any difference incurred when it is exchanged for fiat currency. Under others, it might make sense to book the whole thing at the time of exchange.

Perhaps you might talk to your accountant. You don't need to get into a discussion with your accountant about block chains and private keys or the philosophy behind a decentralized currency. By comparing the fundamentals of Bitcoins to accounting concepts already well understood by the public, you can probably get all the answers you need. What would you ask your accountant if you decided that you wanted to accept ''Berkshire Bucks'' or 1-ounce gold coins as payment?

== Merchant Services ==

See also [[Why Your Business Should Use a Full Node to Accept Bitcoin]]

* [https://bitaps.com/api Bitaps.com] APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed.
* [http://www.btc4erp.com Bitcoin Transaction Coordinator] Full Merchant Solution for organizations using the NetSuite Global ERP and eCommerce Platform
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Payment gateway for virtual currencies with direct settlement to PLN, CZK, EUR and USD. POS + API.
* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting Bitcoin, getting Euro or Euro/Bitcoin percentage. The Netherlands.
* [https://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Bitcoin and Credit Card payment processor
* [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay] Bitcoin payment processor with mobile checkout solution
* [https://bitpos.me BitPOS] Bitcoin payment processor for online and brick and mortar stores
* [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat] SiteCite: "As of 10-11-2015 BitStraat is discontinued as a company."
* [[File:Bitx-avatar.png|20px|link=https://bitx.co/api]] [https://bitx.co/api BitX API] Merchant API for registered businesses & developers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
* [http://blockchain.info/api/api_receive Blockchain.info] Free APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed. '''Update:''' Starting 01/2016 API2 requires an API key - account required!
* [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics] Peer to peer bitcoin invoices using your own bitcoin address.
* [https://coinbase.com/docs/merchant_tools/payment_buttons Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, checkout pages, shopping cart integration, and daily cash out to USD.
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]] [http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin Point of Sales application for Android, with integration into various exchanges. Similar to Square.
* [[Cashila]] Online bank account and payment processor. Accepts bitcoin payments, SEPA transfers and [https://www.cashila.com/ pay bills with bitcoin]
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate] Accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. E-commerce plugins, API, Point of Sale app for Android / iOS / web, payment buttons.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Payment Service Provider (PSP) specializing in the technical aspects of accepting cryptocurrencies - such as bitcoin. Supports Bitcoin Web Payments, Mobile Checkout, In-store Bitcoin Payments and Bitcoin Invoicing with recurring billing in bitcoin.
* [https://coinpip.com CoinPip] Online and POS bitcoin payment processor for Asia.
* [[File:Coinsnap_favicon.jpg|20px|link=http://www.coinsnap.eu]] [[Coinsnap]] European Bitcoin Payment Provider
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] European payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR and USD. Exchange and wallet integrated.
* [https://cubits.com Cubits] Platform with multisignature wallets and merchant system Cubits Pay.
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com/docs GoCoin International payment gateway and processing platform for Merchants]
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment processor with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Membership, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [https://www.okpay.com/en/services/accept-payments/index.html OKPAY] Bitcoin payment processing for merchants
* [[File:Payfast-400.png|20px|link=https://www.payfast.co.za]] [https://www.payfast.co.za PayFast] Merchant solution for South Africa. Integrated in 60+ shopping carts. Supports credit cards, EFT bank transfers and Bitcoin. When buyers pay with Bitcoin, merchants receive the South African rand equivalent, using BitX API
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Accept Bitcoin with no internet then sell bitcoin for profit on our peer to peer exchange.
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.
* [[File:SpectroCoin.png|20px|link=https://spectrocoin.com]][https://spectrocoin.com SpectroCoin] Payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR, USD, CZK, PLN and other currencies. Debit card, exchange and wallet offered. Plugins for e-commerce and API offered for integration.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]][https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [http://xbterminal.com XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.

==See Also==

* [[Merchant Howto]]
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Tax compliance]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[BitCoins Mobile]] provides accurate up to date pricing from multiple exchanges from your Apple iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.
* [[Bitcoin PayFlow]] automates the process for accepting bitcoins
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website

[[Category:ECommerce]]
[[Category:Local]]

[[de:Bitcoin_als_Geschäft_akzeptieren]]

How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses

2016-11-20T01:14:52Z

Chevesli: /* Setting Prices */

{{merge|Merchant Howto}}

This guide is intended for small business owners who wish to help promote Bitcoin by accepting it as payment for goods and services. It's written with the assumption that you operate a regular business that sells goods or services for regular national currency such as dollars, and that you wish to accept Bitcoin as another legal way to pay, and that you intend to pay taxes on your Bitcoin income just like any other income.

With Bitcoin being touted as a way to conduct anonymous transactions and as way to compete with government currency, many small business owners wonder what's the right way to accept and account Bitcoin, or if it's legal or ethical, or whether and how they should pay taxes on income received through Bitcoin.

As far as we know, Bitcoin isn't yet formally recognized by governments and authorities as a "currency". But in practice, Bitcoin is likely no different than accepting payment in other forms, such as cash, or gold, or scrip, or gift cards or foreign currency. We think that it is pretty much the same as the local businesses of Great Barrington, Massachusetts choosing to accept their locally-printed [http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/19/us-usa-economy-berkshares-idUSN0530157720070619 "Berkshire Bucks"] to support their local economy.

====Starting to accept Bitcoin for transactions====
Accepting Bitcoin at a small business is best started in whichever manner keeps the accounting simple for you. This will vary by the type of business you are operating.

===Start with a sign===
[[{{ns:file}}:WeAcceptBitcoin.png‎]]

If you expect that the number of people interested in using Bitcoin is small, you might simply start by posting a sign or a note: "We Accept Bitcoin", and ask people to contact you directly in order to make a payment. Even if hardly anybody uses Bitcoin as a payment method, you're helping Bitcoin in two ways: one, by increasing awareness, and two, by making your customers more willing to accept Bitcoin as payment from others in the future, because now they know somewhere they can spend it.

===Utilize a merchant solution===
If you sell things on your website (goods or services), you'll want to use a [[#Merchant Services|Bitcoin merchant solution]] to accept the Bitcoins (you can usually opt to have them converted to USD or other currencies automatically with some services).

If you sell things in a brick and mortar shop, customers can pay using hardware terminals, touch screen apps or simple wallet addresses through QR Codes.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]][[File:Coinktie Bitcoin Payment Buttons.png|alt=Coinkite Bitcoin Payment Buttons|link=https://coinkite.com/merchants]]

[[File:Bitcoin-pos-terminal.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|Coinkite terminal]] [[File:Mobile_Web_App_Bitcoin_Register.jpeg|100 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|CoinBox terminal]]

[[File:Mobile_Checkout_Phone.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin Mobile Checkout|Coinify Mobile Checkout|link=https://coinify.com]]

===Smart Phone or Tablet===
You can use a wallet address with any wallet. For that it's best if you can place a QR code near your cash register to which the customers can scan with their phone and pay (use http://bitcoinqrcode.org/ to make a QR code sign). For a more convenient solution you can use a dedicated app or webapp that generates a QR code on the fly including the amount.

==== Examples ====
Solutions for smart phones and tablets:
* [[File:Airbitz mobile logo.png|20px|https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/]] [https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/ Airbitz] Merchant Mode for Android and iOS
* [https://bitcoin.co.th/merchants/ bitcoin.co.th] mobile Bitcoin Point of Sale for Thailand
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], Mobile payment terminal with EUR, USD, PLN and CZK settlements.
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] accept Bitcoin on mobile phone, tablet, computer; converts to Euro/Bitcoin (any percentage)
* [https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-for-retail BitPay] Mobile Checkout
* [https://bitpos.me/demo.html BitPOS] Merchant POS solution for Australia
* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.blockchain.merchant Blockchain] Merchant for Android
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Point of Sale solution available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/pos CoinGate] Bitcoin Point of Sale apps for Android, iOS and Bitcoin Point of Sale web app which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Bitcoin Point Of Sale
* [[File:Coin_Of_Sale_logo.png|20px|link=https://coinofsale.com]] [https://coinofsale.com Coin Of Sale] - device-independent Bitcoin POS payment system
* [https://coinbase.com Coinbase] Point Of Sale for Android
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]][http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin point of sale for Android
* [https://cryptopay.me/products/ Cryptopay] HTML5-based bitcoin POS
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Simplest Point of Sale, No Fees and a peer to peer market to buy bitcoin instantly
* [https://gourl.io/ GoUrl] Bitcoin Mobile Checkout
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.

===Point-of-Sale hardware terminal===
With custom hardware you can integrate with existing registers and point-of-sales solutions (examples: [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz]] [https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz Coinkite], [https://xbterminal.com/ XBTerminal], [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat]).

===Accounting===
When a customer makes a payment, you might simply issue a credit to their account. Ideally, you want to enter it in a way that suggests you received a payment. You could consider entering it as a "discount", but you may want to consider whether this inappropriately disguises the nature of the transaction. If on the other hand, you're giving "discounts" for Bitcoins, but then you are selling the Bitcoins for currency and then counting that as income, then chances are good that your calculation of income is making up for it. Ask your accountant.

===Businesses that offer gift cards===
If your business sells gift cards or gift certificates, you may find that the easiest way to accept Bitcoin is to accept it only for the purchase of gift cards, and then require the gift cards to be used for actual purchases of goods or services. This way, the accounting practices you already have in place for processing gift cards can be put to use. The accounting for Bitcoins would then be minimized to tracking sales of a single SKU.

This method is also ideal for retail food establishments and convenience stores, where the payment of Bitcoins through a mobile phone for a small daily food purchase might be cumbersome or disruptive, especially in front of a line of other customers. Bitcoins in this case would be best used to reload prepaid cards that can then be swiped at point-of-sale.

If you don't accept gift cards, but you already accept credit cards through a swipe terminal, consider the possibility that you could add a retail gift card system through the swipe terminal you already own. Many point-of-sale terminals, including ones from VeriFone®, are designed around the ability to support multiple applications on the same terminal. Gift cards are also highly profitable because of "breakage", or in other words, the fact that a significant percentage of them never get redeemed.

You could consider adding a private label gift card program from a provider who specializes in this, not just as a jumpstart to accepting Bitcoins, but as an extra boost to income. A private label gift card service provider necessarily have to handle your funds - they can simply provide a solution that keeps track of the balance on the cards on your behalf, including features that allow users to check their balances by phone or by web. Such a solution, of course, is also what makes the cards swipeable through the card reader.

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment.

If you have access to the programming expertise such that you can generate Bitcoin addresses programmatically, consider generating a brand new Bitcoin address for each invoice, and print it on the invoice. When a Bitcoin payment arrives, you'll automatically know where it should arrive.

Customers might wonder how much BTC they should pay in order to satisfy an invoice in full. Your invoice might suggest an amount. For example, if your invoice is for $100 and BTC's are currently worth $1.24 each, your invoice might suggest that it can be paid in full ''"with a payment of 80.65 BTC if paid by (date)"''.

You might be able to anticipate the possibility that even though a Bitcoin address can be printed on an invoice or payment stub, that they are very cumbersome for most people to type, especially being a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. However, you should probably still do it anyway. The customer is probably going to want some paper trail for his payment. Giving him a pre-printed payment stub with a pre-printed address will satisfy that, because the customer can independently and publicly prove through [[Block Explorer]] that the payment took place.

Does your business have a website? On your invoice, consider allowing them to go to a special URL to get the address to make a Bitcoin payment just by typing in their invoice number. For example, ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc'' with a form they can enter their invoice number, or just ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc/60365'' for paying invoice #60365. This way, they can see the Bitcoin address, copy and paste it directly into their Bitcoin client.

Use a brand new address for each invoice whenever possible, and use it only once. This benefits the customer as it removes any ambiguity as to which customer is making which payment and for which invoice.

Known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup, [https://coinify.com/checkout/invoice/cb/bb Coinify]

Payment companion having peer to peer encrypted invoicing using your own bitcoin address [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics]

===Avoiding fraud===

You should also consider the possible risk that fraudsters could send counterfeit invoices to your customers, and entice them to make a payment to a Bitcoin address they control, instead of you. While that isn't likely in general - it depends on how well a fraudster could find out who your customers are in the first place - it would certainly be an unpleasant situation if it ever happened. One way you could control that is, whenever possible, never let people try to type Bitcoin addresses off payment stubs - instead, force people to get the full Bitcoin address from your website via secure SSL. But, still print ''most'' of the address on the payment stub (perhaps with four or five characters starred out), so that the customer's need for a paper trail can be satisfied, so they can prove they paid if there is ever a dispute. Merchants can also use the IP address geolocation to understand the close proximity of users. There is automated solution such as [https://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] that automates the screening of Bitcoin transactions to determine risk level.

==Setting Prices==

When a business accepts bitcoins for payment, there generally is the need to convert them to the currencies used for paying suppliers, employees and shareholders. Some merchants set prices based on the current market rate at the time the price quote is presented to the customer (merchant services like [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] (only for digital products) or [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] do this automatically).

[[Bitcoin Prices]] lists the exchange rate for many currencies on multiple exchanges.

When prices are determined using an automated process, the current market rate can be based on either a current price or on a weighted average basis. [[Bitcoin Charts]] provides a [http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api data feed that provides weighted prices]. [[Bitcoin Average]] also offers a weighted average price index, featuring average price across all exchanges reachable in the world and in over 150 currencies. 24h sliding average price index is also available and all data is [https://bitcoinaverage.com/api.htm reachable through the API].

When bitcoin funds for purchases are received, some merchants instantly exchange those proceeds into the preferred currency used (again done automatically by [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] (only for digital products) or [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay]). Hedging for each transaction can nearly entirely eliminate exchange rate risk that the business is exposed to when accepting bitcoins for payment.

==Contract==

A sales contract might be used to ensure that specific terms are met to lessen the chances of a misunderstanding. For instance, the party sending payment is responsible for paying any [[transaction fee]] that might be necessary. A contract might specify that a transaction fee must be paid and what amount, so as to prevent the situation where the transaction is considered a low priority transaction and thus isn't confirmed quickly.

Other items that might be addressed in a contract:

* Requirement and handling of escrow through an [[:Category:Escrow_services|escrow service]].
* Jurisdiction for disputes.
* Refund policy (particularly with the exchange rate being volatile)

==Paying taxes on Bitcoin income==
[[Tax compliance]] is a topic of concern for small businesses. We aren't accountants or lawyers, and can't give legal or accounting advice.

But in many respects, Bitcoin transactions work very much like cash. Just like Bitcoin, cash is anonymous and doesn't leave a paper trail, yet is widely used in commerce every day.

Ask yourself how you would handle a cash transaction. Do you accept cash transactions? Do you normally pay taxes on cash transactions? The answer for Bitcoin should probably be the same.

As for how to decide what a Bitcoin transaction is worth... the IRS, as far as we know, has never issued a guide mentioning how to value Bitcoin transactions. But they probably have rules and guidelines on how to value transactions made in foreign currency or "cash equivalents". We imagine the accounting would be similar.

With Bitcoins, there's likely to be some difference between the value of BTC when you received them as payment, versus when you go to exchange them for another currency like USD, should you decide to do so. This scenario, likewise, would be no different if you accepted foreign currency or gold as payment. Under some scenarios, it might make sense to book the dollar value of BTC income as it is received, and then to book any difference incurred when it is exchanged for fiat currency. Under others, it might make sense to book the whole thing at the time of exchange.

Perhaps you might talk to your accountant. You don't need to get into a discussion with your accountant about block chains and private keys or the philosophy behind a decentralized currency. By comparing the fundamentals of Bitcoins to accounting concepts already well understood by the public, you can probably get all the answers you need. What would you ask your accountant if you decided that you wanted to accept ''Berkshire Bucks'' or 1-ounce gold coins as payment?

== Merchant Services ==

See also [[Why Your Business Should Use a Full Node to Accept Bitcoin]]

* [https://bitaps.com/api Bitaps.com] APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed.
* [http://www.btc4erp.com Bitcoin Transaction Coordinator] Full Merchant Solution for organizations using the NetSuite Global ERP and eCommerce Platform
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Payment gateway for virtual currencies with direct settlement to PLN, CZK, EUR and USD. POS + API.
* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting Bitcoin, getting Euro or Euro/Bitcoin percentage. The Netherlands.
* [https://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Bitcoin and Credit Card payment processor
* [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay] Bitcoin payment processor with mobile checkout solution
* [https://bitpos.me BitPOS] Bitcoin payment processor for online and brick and mortar stores
* [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat] SiteCite: "As of 10-11-2015 BitStraat is discontinued as a company."
* [[File:Bitx-avatar.png|20px|link=https://bitx.co/api]] [https://bitx.co/api BitX API] Merchant API for registered businesses & developers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
* [http://blockchain.info/api/api_receive Blockchain.info] Free APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed. '''Update:''' Starting 01/2016 API2 requires an API key - account required!
* [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics] Peer to peer bitcoin invoices using your own bitcoin address.
* [https://coinbase.com/docs/merchant_tools/payment_buttons Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, checkout pages, shopping cart integration, and daily cash out to USD.
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]] [http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin Point of Sales application for Android, with integration into various exchanges. Similar to Square.
* [[Cashila]] Online bank account and payment processor. Accepts bitcoin payments, SEPA transfers and [https://www.cashila.com/ pay bills with bitcoin]
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate] Accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. E-commerce plugins, API, Point of Sale app for Android / iOS / web, payment buttons.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Payment Service Provider (PSP) specializing in the technical aspects of accepting cryptocurrencies - such as bitcoin. Supports Bitcoin Web Payments, Mobile Checkout, In-store Bitcoin Payments and Bitcoin Invoicing with recurring billing in bitcoin.
* [https://coinpip.com CoinPip] Online and POS bitcoin payment processor for Asia.
* [[File:Coinsnap_favicon.jpg|20px|link=http://www.coinsnap.eu]] [[Coinsnap]] European Bitcoin Payment Provider
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] European payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR and USD. Exchange and wallet integrated.
* [https://cubits.com Cubits] Platform with multisignature wallets and merchant system Cubits Pay.
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com/docs GoCoin International payment gateway and processing platform for Merchants]
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment processor with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Membership, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [https://www.okpay.com/en/services/accept-payments/index.html OKPAY] Bitcoin payment processing for merchants
* [[File:Payfast-400.png|20px|link=https://www.payfast.co.za]] [https://www.payfast.co.za PayFast] Merchant solution for South Africa. Integrated in 60+ shopping carts. Supports credit cards, EFT bank transfers and Bitcoin. When buyers pay with Bitcoin, merchants receive the South African rand equivalent, using BitX API
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Accept Bitcoin with no internet then sell bitcoin for profit on our peer to peer exchange.
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.
* [[File:SpectroCoin.png|20px|link=https://spectrocoin.com]][https://spectrocoin.com SpectroCoin] Payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR, USD, CZK, PLN and other currencies. Debit card, exchange and wallet offered. Plugins for e-commerce and API offered for integration.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]][https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [http://xbterminal.com XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.

==See Also==

* [[Merchant Howto]]
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Tax compliance]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[BitCoins Mobile]] provides accurate up to date pricing from multiple exchanges from your Apple iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.
* [[Bitcoin PayFlow]] automates the process for accepting bitcoins
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website

[[Category:ECommerce]]
[[Category:Local]]

[[de:Bitcoin_als_Geschäft_akzeptieren]]

How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses

2016-11-20T01:13:22Z

Chevesli: /* Setting Prices */

{{merge|Merchant Howto}}

This guide is intended for small business owners who wish to help promote Bitcoin by accepting it as payment for goods and services. It's written with the assumption that you operate a regular business that sells goods or services for regular national currency such as dollars, and that you wish to accept Bitcoin as another legal way to pay, and that you intend to pay taxes on your Bitcoin income just like any other income.

With Bitcoin being touted as a way to conduct anonymous transactions and as way to compete with government currency, many small business owners wonder what's the right way to accept and account Bitcoin, or if it's legal or ethical, or whether and how they should pay taxes on income received through Bitcoin.

As far as we know, Bitcoin isn't yet formally recognized by governments and authorities as a "currency". But in practice, Bitcoin is likely no different than accepting payment in other forms, such as cash, or gold, or scrip, or gift cards or foreign currency. We think that it is pretty much the same as the local businesses of Great Barrington, Massachusetts choosing to accept their locally-printed [http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/19/us-usa-economy-berkshares-idUSN0530157720070619 "Berkshire Bucks"] to support their local economy.

====Starting to accept Bitcoin for transactions====
Accepting Bitcoin at a small business is best started in whichever manner keeps the accounting simple for you. This will vary by the type of business you are operating.

===Start with a sign===
[[{{ns:file}}:WeAcceptBitcoin.png‎]]

If you expect that the number of people interested in using Bitcoin is small, you might simply start by posting a sign or a note: "We Accept Bitcoin", and ask people to contact you directly in order to make a payment. Even if hardly anybody uses Bitcoin as a payment method, you're helping Bitcoin in two ways: one, by increasing awareness, and two, by making your customers more willing to accept Bitcoin as payment from others in the future, because now they know somewhere they can spend it.

===Utilize a merchant solution===
If you sell things on your website (goods or services), you'll want to use a [[#Merchant Services|Bitcoin merchant solution]] to accept the Bitcoins (you can usually opt to have them converted to USD or other currencies automatically with some services).

If you sell things in a brick and mortar shop, customers can pay using hardware terminals, touch screen apps or simple wallet addresses through QR Codes.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]][[File:Coinktie Bitcoin Payment Buttons.png|alt=Coinkite Bitcoin Payment Buttons|link=https://coinkite.com/merchants]]

[[File:Bitcoin-pos-terminal.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|Coinkite terminal]] [[File:Mobile_Web_App_Bitcoin_Register.jpeg|100 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|CoinBox terminal]]

[[File:Mobile_Checkout_Phone.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin Mobile Checkout|Coinify Mobile Checkout|link=https://coinify.com]]

===Smart Phone or Tablet===
You can use a wallet address with any wallet. For that it's best if you can place a QR code near your cash register to which the customers can scan with their phone and pay (use http://bitcoinqrcode.org/ to make a QR code sign). For a more convenient solution you can use a dedicated app or webapp that generates a QR code on the fly including the amount.

==== Examples ====
Solutions for smart phones and tablets:
* [[File:Airbitz mobile logo.png|20px|https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/]] [https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/ Airbitz] Merchant Mode for Android and iOS
* [https://bitcoin.co.th/merchants/ bitcoin.co.th] mobile Bitcoin Point of Sale for Thailand
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], Mobile payment terminal with EUR, USD, PLN and CZK settlements.
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] accept Bitcoin on mobile phone, tablet, computer; converts to Euro/Bitcoin (any percentage)
* [https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-for-retail BitPay] Mobile Checkout
* [https://bitpos.me/demo.html BitPOS] Merchant POS solution for Australia
* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.blockchain.merchant Blockchain] Merchant for Android
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Point of Sale solution available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/pos CoinGate] Bitcoin Point of Sale apps for Android, iOS and Bitcoin Point of Sale web app which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Bitcoin Point Of Sale
* [[File:Coin_Of_Sale_logo.png|20px|link=https://coinofsale.com]] [https://coinofsale.com Coin Of Sale] - device-independent Bitcoin POS payment system
* [https://coinbase.com Coinbase] Point Of Sale for Android
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]][http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin point of sale for Android
* [https://cryptopay.me/products/ Cryptopay] HTML5-based bitcoin POS
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Simplest Point of Sale, No Fees and a peer to peer market to buy bitcoin instantly
* [https://gourl.io/ GoUrl] Bitcoin Mobile Checkout
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.

===Point-of-Sale hardware terminal===
With custom hardware you can integrate with existing registers and point-of-sales solutions (examples: [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz]] [https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz Coinkite], [https://xbterminal.com/ XBTerminal], [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat]).

===Accounting===
When a customer makes a payment, you might simply issue a credit to their account. Ideally, you want to enter it in a way that suggests you received a payment. You could consider entering it as a "discount", but you may want to consider whether this inappropriately disguises the nature of the transaction. If on the other hand, you're giving "discounts" for Bitcoins, but then you are selling the Bitcoins for currency and then counting that as income, then chances are good that your calculation of income is making up for it. Ask your accountant.

===Businesses that offer gift cards===
If your business sells gift cards or gift certificates, you may find that the easiest way to accept Bitcoin is to accept it only for the purchase of gift cards, and then require the gift cards to be used for actual purchases of goods or services. This way, the accounting practices you already have in place for processing gift cards can be put to use. The accounting for Bitcoins would then be minimized to tracking sales of a single SKU.

This method is also ideal for retail food establishments and convenience stores, where the payment of Bitcoins through a mobile phone for a small daily food purchase might be cumbersome or disruptive, especially in front of a line of other customers. Bitcoins in this case would be best used to reload prepaid cards that can then be swiped at point-of-sale.

If you don't accept gift cards, but you already accept credit cards through a swipe terminal, consider the possibility that you could add a retail gift card system through the swipe terminal you already own. Many point-of-sale terminals, including ones from VeriFone®, are designed around the ability to support multiple applications on the same terminal. Gift cards are also highly profitable because of "breakage", or in other words, the fact that a significant percentage of them never get redeemed.

You could consider adding a private label gift card program from a provider who specializes in this, not just as a jumpstart to accepting Bitcoins, but as an extra boost to income. A private label gift card service provider necessarily have to handle your funds - they can simply provide a solution that keeps track of the balance on the cards on your behalf, including features that allow users to check their balances by phone or by web. Such a solution, of course, is also what makes the cards swipeable through the card reader.

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment.

If you have access to the programming expertise such that you can generate Bitcoin addresses programmatically, consider generating a brand new Bitcoin address for each invoice, and print it on the invoice. When a Bitcoin payment arrives, you'll automatically know where it should arrive.

Customers might wonder how much BTC they should pay in order to satisfy an invoice in full. Your invoice might suggest an amount. For example, if your invoice is for $100 and BTC's are currently worth $1.24 each, your invoice might suggest that it can be paid in full ''"with a payment of 80.65 BTC if paid by (date)"''.

You might be able to anticipate the possibility that even though a Bitcoin address can be printed on an invoice or payment stub, that they are very cumbersome for most people to type, especially being a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. However, you should probably still do it anyway. The customer is probably going to want some paper trail for his payment. Giving him a pre-printed payment stub with a pre-printed address will satisfy that, because the customer can independently and publicly prove through [[Block Explorer]] that the payment took place.

Does your business have a website? On your invoice, consider allowing them to go to a special URL to get the address to make a Bitcoin payment just by typing in their invoice number. For example, ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc'' with a form they can enter their invoice number, or just ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc/60365'' for paying invoice #60365. This way, they can see the Bitcoin address, copy and paste it directly into their Bitcoin client.

Use a brand new address for each invoice whenever possible, and use it only once. This benefits the customer as it removes any ambiguity as to which customer is making which payment and for which invoice.

Known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup, [https://coinify.com/checkout/invoice/cb/bb Coinify]

Payment companion having peer to peer encrypted invoicing using your own bitcoin address [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics]

===Avoiding fraud===

You should also consider the possible risk that fraudsters could send counterfeit invoices to your customers, and entice them to make a payment to a Bitcoin address they control, instead of you. While that isn't likely in general - it depends on how well a fraudster could find out who your customers are in the first place - it would certainly be an unpleasant situation if it ever happened. One way you could control that is, whenever possible, never let people try to type Bitcoin addresses off payment stubs - instead, force people to get the full Bitcoin address from your website via secure SSL. But, still print ''most'' of the address on the payment stub (perhaps with four or five characters starred out), so that the customer's need for a paper trail can be satisfied, so they can prove they paid if there is ever a dispute. Merchants can also use the IP address geolocation to understand the close proximity of users. There is automated solution such as [https://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] that automates the screening of Bitcoin transactions to determine risk level.

==Setting Prices==

When a business accepts bitcoins for payment, there generally is the need to convert them to the currencies used for paying suppliers, employees and shareholders. Some merchants set prices based on the current market rate at the time the price quote is presented to the customer (merchant services like [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] or [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] do this automatically).

[[Bitcoin Prices]] lists the exchange rate for many currencies on multiple exchanges.

When prices are determined using an automated process, the current market rate can be based on either a current price or on a weighted average basis. [[Bitcoin Charts]] provides a [http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api data feed that provides weighted prices]. [[Bitcoin Average]] also offers a weighted average price index, featuring average price across all exchanges reachable in the world and in over 150 currencies. 24h sliding average price index is also available and all data is [https://bitcoinaverage.com/api.htm reachable through the API].

When bitcoin funds for purchases are received, some merchants instantly exchange those proceeds into the preferred currency used (again done automatically by [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] or [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay]). Hedging for each transaction can nearly entirely eliminate exchange rate risk that the business is exposed to when accepting bitcoins for payment.

==Contract==

A sales contract might be used to ensure that specific terms are met to lessen the chances of a misunderstanding. For instance, the party sending payment is responsible for paying any [[transaction fee]] that might be necessary. A contract might specify that a transaction fee must be paid and what amount, so as to prevent the situation where the transaction is considered a low priority transaction and thus isn't confirmed quickly.

Other items that might be addressed in a contract:

* Requirement and handling of escrow through an [[:Category:Escrow_services|escrow service]].
* Jurisdiction for disputes.
* Refund policy (particularly with the exchange rate being volatile)

==Paying taxes on Bitcoin income==
[[Tax compliance]] is a topic of concern for small businesses. We aren't accountants or lawyers, and can't give legal or accounting advice.

But in many respects, Bitcoin transactions work very much like cash. Just like Bitcoin, cash is anonymous and doesn't leave a paper trail, yet is widely used in commerce every day.

Ask yourself how you would handle a cash transaction. Do you accept cash transactions? Do you normally pay taxes on cash transactions? The answer for Bitcoin should probably be the same.

As for how to decide what a Bitcoin transaction is worth... the IRS, as far as we know, has never issued a guide mentioning how to value Bitcoin transactions. But they probably have rules and guidelines on how to value transactions made in foreign currency or "cash equivalents". We imagine the accounting would be similar.

With Bitcoins, there's likely to be some difference between the value of BTC when you received them as payment, versus when you go to exchange them for another currency like USD, should you decide to do so. This scenario, likewise, would be no different if you accepted foreign currency or gold as payment. Under some scenarios, it might make sense to book the dollar value of BTC income as it is received, and then to book any difference incurred when it is exchanged for fiat currency. Under others, it might make sense to book the whole thing at the time of exchange.

Perhaps you might talk to your accountant. You don't need to get into a discussion with your accountant about block chains and private keys or the philosophy behind a decentralized currency. By comparing the fundamentals of Bitcoins to accounting concepts already well understood by the public, you can probably get all the answers you need. What would you ask your accountant if you decided that you wanted to accept ''Berkshire Bucks'' or 1-ounce gold coins as payment?

== Merchant Services ==

See also [[Why Your Business Should Use a Full Node to Accept Bitcoin]]

* [https://bitaps.com/api Bitaps.com] APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed.
* [http://www.btc4erp.com Bitcoin Transaction Coordinator] Full Merchant Solution for organizations using the NetSuite Global ERP and eCommerce Platform
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Payment gateway for virtual currencies with direct settlement to PLN, CZK, EUR and USD. POS + API.
* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting Bitcoin, getting Euro or Euro/Bitcoin percentage. The Netherlands.
* [https://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Bitcoin and Credit Card payment processor
* [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay] Bitcoin payment processor with mobile checkout solution
* [https://bitpos.me BitPOS] Bitcoin payment processor for online and brick and mortar stores
* [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat] SiteCite: "As of 10-11-2015 BitStraat is discontinued as a company."
* [[File:Bitx-avatar.png|20px|link=https://bitx.co/api]] [https://bitx.co/api BitX API] Merchant API for registered businesses & developers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
* [http://blockchain.info/api/api_receive Blockchain.info] Free APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed. '''Update:''' Starting 01/2016 API2 requires an API key - account required!
* [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics] Peer to peer bitcoin invoices using your own bitcoin address.
* [https://coinbase.com/docs/merchant_tools/payment_buttons Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, checkout pages, shopping cart integration, and daily cash out to USD.
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]] [http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin Point of Sales application for Android, with integration into various exchanges. Similar to Square.
* [[Cashila]] Online bank account and payment processor. Accepts bitcoin payments, SEPA transfers and [https://www.cashila.com/ pay bills with bitcoin]
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate] Accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. E-commerce plugins, API, Point of Sale app for Android / iOS / web, payment buttons.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Payment Service Provider (PSP) specializing in the technical aspects of accepting cryptocurrencies - such as bitcoin. Supports Bitcoin Web Payments, Mobile Checkout, In-store Bitcoin Payments and Bitcoin Invoicing with recurring billing in bitcoin.
* [https://coinpip.com CoinPip] Online and POS bitcoin payment processor for Asia.
* [[File:Coinsnap_favicon.jpg|20px|link=http://www.coinsnap.eu]] [[Coinsnap]] European Bitcoin Payment Provider
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] European payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR and USD. Exchange and wallet integrated.
* [https://cubits.com Cubits] Platform with multisignature wallets and merchant system Cubits Pay.
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com/docs GoCoin International payment gateway and processing platform for Merchants]
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment processor with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Membership, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [https://www.okpay.com/en/services/accept-payments/index.html OKPAY] Bitcoin payment processing for merchants
* [[File:Payfast-400.png|20px|link=https://www.payfast.co.za]] [https://www.payfast.co.za PayFast] Merchant solution for South Africa. Integrated in 60+ shopping carts. Supports credit cards, EFT bank transfers and Bitcoin. When buyers pay with Bitcoin, merchants receive the South African rand equivalent, using BitX API
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Accept Bitcoin with no internet then sell bitcoin for profit on our peer to peer exchange.
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.
* [[File:SpectroCoin.png|20px|link=https://spectrocoin.com]][https://spectrocoin.com SpectroCoin] Payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR, USD, CZK, PLN and other currencies. Debit card, exchange and wallet offered. Plugins for e-commerce and API offered for integration.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]][https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [http://xbterminal.com XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.

==See Also==

* [[Merchant Howto]]
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Tax compliance]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[BitCoins Mobile]] provides accurate up to date pricing from multiple exchanges from your Apple iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.
* [[Bitcoin PayFlow]] automates the process for accepting bitcoins
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website

[[Category:ECommerce]]
[[Category:Local]]

[[de:Bitcoin_als_Geschäft_akzeptieren]]

How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses

2016-11-20T01:11:52Z

Chevesli: /* Setting Prices */

{{merge|Merchant Howto}}

This guide is intended for small business owners who wish to help promote Bitcoin by accepting it as payment for goods and services. It's written with the assumption that you operate a regular business that sells goods or services for regular national currency such as dollars, and that you wish to accept Bitcoin as another legal way to pay, and that you intend to pay taxes on your Bitcoin income just like any other income.

With Bitcoin being touted as a way to conduct anonymous transactions and as way to compete with government currency, many small business owners wonder what's the right way to accept and account Bitcoin, or if it's legal or ethical, or whether and how they should pay taxes on income received through Bitcoin.

As far as we know, Bitcoin isn't yet formally recognized by governments and authorities as a "currency". But in practice, Bitcoin is likely no different than accepting payment in other forms, such as cash, or gold, or scrip, or gift cards or foreign currency. We think that it is pretty much the same as the local businesses of Great Barrington, Massachusetts choosing to accept their locally-printed [http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/19/us-usa-economy-berkshares-idUSN0530157720070619 "Berkshire Bucks"] to support their local economy.

====Starting to accept Bitcoin for transactions====
Accepting Bitcoin at a small business is best started in whichever manner keeps the accounting simple for you. This will vary by the type of business you are operating.

===Start with a sign===
[[{{ns:file}}:WeAcceptBitcoin.png‎]]

If you expect that the number of people interested in using Bitcoin is small, you might simply start by posting a sign or a note: "We Accept Bitcoin", and ask people to contact you directly in order to make a payment. Even if hardly anybody uses Bitcoin as a payment method, you're helping Bitcoin in two ways: one, by increasing awareness, and two, by making your customers more willing to accept Bitcoin as payment from others in the future, because now they know somewhere they can spend it.

===Utilize a merchant solution===
If you sell things on your website (goods or services), you'll want to use a [[#Merchant Services|Bitcoin merchant solution]] to accept the Bitcoins (you can usually opt to have them converted to USD or other currencies automatically with some services).

If you sell things in a brick and mortar shop, customers can pay using hardware terminals, touch screen apps or simple wallet addresses through QR Codes.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]][[File:Coinktie Bitcoin Payment Buttons.png|alt=Coinkite Bitcoin Payment Buttons|link=https://coinkite.com/merchants]]

[[File:Bitcoin-pos-terminal.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|Coinkite terminal]] [[File:Mobile_Web_App_Bitcoin_Register.jpeg|100 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|CoinBox terminal]]

[[File:Mobile_Checkout_Phone.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin Mobile Checkout|Coinify Mobile Checkout|link=https://coinify.com]]

===Smart Phone or Tablet===
You can use a wallet address with any wallet. For that it's best if you can place a QR code near your cash register to which the customers can scan with their phone and pay (use http://bitcoinqrcode.org/ to make a QR code sign). For a more convenient solution you can use a dedicated app or webapp that generates a QR code on the fly including the amount.

==== Examples ====
Solutions for smart phones and tablets:
* [[File:Airbitz mobile logo.png|20px|https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/]] [https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/ Airbitz] Merchant Mode for Android and iOS
* [https://bitcoin.co.th/merchants/ bitcoin.co.th] mobile Bitcoin Point of Sale for Thailand
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], Mobile payment terminal with EUR, USD, PLN and CZK settlements.
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] accept Bitcoin on mobile phone, tablet, computer; converts to Euro/Bitcoin (any percentage)
* [https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-for-retail BitPay] Mobile Checkout
* [https://bitpos.me/demo.html BitPOS] Merchant POS solution for Australia
* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.blockchain.merchant Blockchain] Merchant for Android
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Point of Sale solution available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/pos CoinGate] Bitcoin Point of Sale apps for Android, iOS and Bitcoin Point of Sale web app which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Bitcoin Point Of Sale
* [[File:Coin_Of_Sale_logo.png|20px|link=https://coinofsale.com]] [https://coinofsale.com Coin Of Sale] - device-independent Bitcoin POS payment system
* [https://coinbase.com Coinbase] Point Of Sale for Android
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]][http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin point of sale for Android
* [https://cryptopay.me/products/ Cryptopay] HTML5-based bitcoin POS
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Simplest Point of Sale, No Fees and a peer to peer market to buy bitcoin instantly
* [https://gourl.io/ GoUrl] Bitcoin Mobile Checkout
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.

===Point-of-Sale hardware terminal===
With custom hardware you can integrate with existing registers and point-of-sales solutions (examples: [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz]] [https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz Coinkite], [https://xbterminal.com/ XBTerminal], [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat]).

===Accounting===
When a customer makes a payment, you might simply issue a credit to their account. Ideally, you want to enter it in a way that suggests you received a payment. You could consider entering it as a "discount", but you may want to consider whether this inappropriately disguises the nature of the transaction. If on the other hand, you're giving "discounts" for Bitcoins, but then you are selling the Bitcoins for currency and then counting that as income, then chances are good that your calculation of income is making up for it. Ask your accountant.

===Businesses that offer gift cards===
If your business sells gift cards or gift certificates, you may find that the easiest way to accept Bitcoin is to accept it only for the purchase of gift cards, and then require the gift cards to be used for actual purchases of goods or services. This way, the accounting practices you already have in place for processing gift cards can be put to use. The accounting for Bitcoins would then be minimized to tracking sales of a single SKU.

This method is also ideal for retail food establishments and convenience stores, where the payment of Bitcoins through a mobile phone for a small daily food purchase might be cumbersome or disruptive, especially in front of a line of other customers. Bitcoins in this case would be best used to reload prepaid cards that can then be swiped at point-of-sale.

If you don't accept gift cards, but you already accept credit cards through a swipe terminal, consider the possibility that you could add a retail gift card system through the swipe terminal you already own. Many point-of-sale terminals, including ones from VeriFone®, are designed around the ability to support multiple applications on the same terminal. Gift cards are also highly profitable because of "breakage", or in other words, the fact that a significant percentage of them never get redeemed.

You could consider adding a private label gift card program from a provider who specializes in this, not just as a jumpstart to accepting Bitcoins, but as an extra boost to income. A private label gift card service provider necessarily have to handle your funds - they can simply provide a solution that keeps track of the balance on the cards on your behalf, including features that allow users to check their balances by phone or by web. Such a solution, of course, is also what makes the cards swipeable through the card reader.

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment.

If you have access to the programming expertise such that you can generate Bitcoin addresses programmatically, consider generating a brand new Bitcoin address for each invoice, and print it on the invoice. When a Bitcoin payment arrives, you'll automatically know where it should arrive.

Customers might wonder how much BTC they should pay in order to satisfy an invoice in full. Your invoice might suggest an amount. For example, if your invoice is for $100 and BTC's are currently worth $1.24 each, your invoice might suggest that it can be paid in full ''"with a payment of 80.65 BTC if paid by (date)"''.

You might be able to anticipate the possibility that even though a Bitcoin address can be printed on an invoice or payment stub, that they are very cumbersome for most people to type, especially being a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. However, you should probably still do it anyway. The customer is probably going to want some paper trail for his payment. Giving him a pre-printed payment stub with a pre-printed address will satisfy that, because the customer can independently and publicly prove through [[Block Explorer]] that the payment took place.

Does your business have a website? On your invoice, consider allowing them to go to a special URL to get the address to make a Bitcoin payment just by typing in their invoice number. For example, ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc'' with a form they can enter their invoice number, or just ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc/60365'' for paying invoice #60365. This way, they can see the Bitcoin address, copy and paste it directly into their Bitcoin client.

Use a brand new address for each invoice whenever possible, and use it only once. This benefits the customer as it removes any ambiguity as to which customer is making which payment and for which invoice.

Known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup, [https://coinify.com/checkout/invoice/cb/bb Coinify]

Payment companion having peer to peer encrypted invoicing using your own bitcoin address [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics]

===Avoiding fraud===

You should also consider the possible risk that fraudsters could send counterfeit invoices to your customers, and entice them to make a payment to a Bitcoin address they control, instead of you. While that isn't likely in general - it depends on how well a fraudster could find out who your customers are in the first place - it would certainly be an unpleasant situation if it ever happened. One way you could control that is, whenever possible, never let people try to type Bitcoin addresses off payment stubs - instead, force people to get the full Bitcoin address from your website via secure SSL. But, still print ''most'' of the address on the payment stub (perhaps with four or five characters starred out), so that the customer's need for a paper trail can be satisfied, so they can prove they paid if there is ever a dispute. Merchants can also use the IP address geolocation to understand the close proximity of users. There is automated solution such as [https://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] that automates the screening of Bitcoin transactions to determine risk level.

==Setting Prices==

When a business accepts bitcoins for payment, there generally is the need to convert them to the currencies used for paying suppliers, employees and shareholders. Some merchants set prices based on the current market rate at the time the price quote is presented to the customer (merchant services like [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] or [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] do this automatically).

[[Bitcoin Prices]] lists the exchange rate for many currencies on multiple exchanges.

When prices are determined using an automated process, the current market rate can be based on either a current price or on a weighted average basis. [[Bitcoin Charts]] provides a [http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api data feed that provides weighted prices]. [[Bitcoin Average]] also offers a weighted average price index, featuring average price across all exchanges reachable in the world and in over 150 currencies. 24h sliding average price index is also available and all data is [https://bitcoinaverage.com/api.htm reachable through the API].

When bitcoin funds for purchases are received, some merchants instantly exchange those proceeds into the preferred currency used (again done automatically by [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [https://coinify.com Coinify] or [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay]). Hedging for each transaction can nearly entirely eliminate exchange rate risk that the business is exposed to when accepting bitcoins for payment.

==Contract==

A sales contract might be used to ensure that specific terms are met to lessen the chances of a misunderstanding. For instance, the party sending payment is responsible for paying any [[transaction fee]] that might be necessary. A contract might specify that a transaction fee must be paid and what amount, so as to prevent the situation where the transaction is considered a low priority transaction and thus isn't confirmed quickly.

Other items that might be addressed in a contract:

* Requirement and handling of escrow through an [[:Category:Escrow_services|escrow service]].
* Jurisdiction for disputes.
* Refund policy (particularly with the exchange rate being volatile)

==Paying taxes on Bitcoin income==
[[Tax compliance]] is a topic of concern for small businesses. We aren't accountants or lawyers, and can't give legal or accounting advice.

But in many respects, Bitcoin transactions work very much like cash. Just like Bitcoin, cash is anonymous and doesn't leave a paper trail, yet is widely used in commerce every day.

Ask yourself how you would handle a cash transaction. Do you accept cash transactions? Do you normally pay taxes on cash transactions? The answer for Bitcoin should probably be the same.

As for how to decide what a Bitcoin transaction is worth... the IRS, as far as we know, has never issued a guide mentioning how to value Bitcoin transactions. But they probably have rules and guidelines on how to value transactions made in foreign currency or "cash equivalents". We imagine the accounting would be similar.

With Bitcoins, there's likely to be some difference between the value of BTC when you received them as payment, versus when you go to exchange them for another currency like USD, should you decide to do so. This scenario, likewise, would be no different if you accepted foreign currency or gold as payment. Under some scenarios, it might make sense to book the dollar value of BTC income as it is received, and then to book any difference incurred when it is exchanged for fiat currency. Under others, it might make sense to book the whole thing at the time of exchange.

Perhaps you might talk to your accountant. You don't need to get into a discussion with your accountant about block chains and private keys or the philosophy behind a decentralized currency. By comparing the fundamentals of Bitcoins to accounting concepts already well understood by the public, you can probably get all the answers you need. What would you ask your accountant if you decided that you wanted to accept ''Berkshire Bucks'' or 1-ounce gold coins as payment?

== Merchant Services ==

See also [[Why Your Business Should Use a Full Node to Accept Bitcoin]]

* [https://bitaps.com/api Bitaps.com] APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed.
* [http://www.btc4erp.com Bitcoin Transaction Coordinator] Full Merchant Solution for organizations using the NetSuite Global ERP and eCommerce Platform
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Payment gateway for virtual currencies with direct settlement to PLN, CZK, EUR and USD. POS + API.
* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting Bitcoin, getting Euro or Euro/Bitcoin percentage. The Netherlands.
* [https://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Bitcoin and Credit Card payment processor
* [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay] Bitcoin payment processor with mobile checkout solution
* [https://bitpos.me BitPOS] Bitcoin payment processor for online and brick and mortar stores
* [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat] SiteCite: "As of 10-11-2015 BitStraat is discontinued as a company."
* [[File:Bitx-avatar.png|20px|link=https://bitx.co/api]] [https://bitx.co/api BitX API] Merchant API for registered businesses & developers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
* [http://blockchain.info/api/api_receive Blockchain.info] Free APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed. '''Update:''' Starting 01/2016 API2 requires an API key - account required!
* [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics] Peer to peer bitcoin invoices using your own bitcoin address.
* [https://coinbase.com/docs/merchant_tools/payment_buttons Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, checkout pages, shopping cart integration, and daily cash out to USD.
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]] [http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin Point of Sales application for Android, with integration into various exchanges. Similar to Square.
* [[Cashila]] Online bank account and payment processor. Accepts bitcoin payments, SEPA transfers and [https://www.cashila.com/ pay bills with bitcoin]
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate] Accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. E-commerce plugins, API, Point of Sale app for Android / iOS / web, payment buttons.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Payment Service Provider (PSP) specializing in the technical aspects of accepting cryptocurrencies - such as bitcoin. Supports Bitcoin Web Payments, Mobile Checkout, In-store Bitcoin Payments and Bitcoin Invoicing with recurring billing in bitcoin.
* [https://coinpip.com CoinPip] Online and POS bitcoin payment processor for Asia.
* [[File:Coinsnap_favicon.jpg|20px|link=http://www.coinsnap.eu]] [[Coinsnap]] European Bitcoin Payment Provider
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] European payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR and USD. Exchange and wallet integrated.
* [https://cubits.com Cubits] Platform with multisignature wallets and merchant system Cubits Pay.
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com/docs GoCoin International payment gateway and processing platform for Merchants]
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment processor with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Membership, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [https://www.okpay.com/en/services/accept-payments/index.html OKPAY] Bitcoin payment processing for merchants
* [[File:Payfast-400.png|20px|link=https://www.payfast.co.za]] [https://www.payfast.co.za PayFast] Merchant solution for South Africa. Integrated in 60+ shopping carts. Supports credit cards, EFT bank transfers and Bitcoin. When buyers pay with Bitcoin, merchants receive the South African rand equivalent, using BitX API
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Accept Bitcoin with no internet then sell bitcoin for profit on our peer to peer exchange.
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.
* [[File:SpectroCoin.png|20px|link=https://spectrocoin.com]][https://spectrocoin.com SpectroCoin] Payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR, USD, CZK, PLN and other currencies. Debit card, exchange and wallet offered. Plugins for e-commerce and API offered for integration.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]][https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [http://xbterminal.com XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.

==See Also==

* [[Merchant Howto]]
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Tax compliance]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[BitCoins Mobile]] provides accurate up to date pricing from multiple exchanges from your Apple iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.
* [[Bitcoin PayFlow]] automates the process for accepting bitcoins
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website

[[Category:ECommerce]]
[[Category:Local]]

[[de:Bitcoin_als_Geschäft_akzeptieren]]

How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses

2016-11-20T01:05:36Z

Chevesli: /* Setting Prices */

{{merge|Merchant Howto}}

This guide is intended for small business owners who wish to help promote Bitcoin by accepting it as payment for goods and services. It's written with the assumption that you operate a regular business that sells goods or services for regular national currency such as dollars, and that you wish to accept Bitcoin as another legal way to pay, and that you intend to pay taxes on your Bitcoin income just like any other income.

With Bitcoin being touted as a way to conduct anonymous transactions and as way to compete with government currency, many small business owners wonder what's the right way to accept and account Bitcoin, or if it's legal or ethical, or whether and how they should pay taxes on income received through Bitcoin.

As far as we know, Bitcoin isn't yet formally recognized by governments and authorities as a "currency". But in practice, Bitcoin is likely no different than accepting payment in other forms, such as cash, or gold, or scrip, or gift cards or foreign currency. We think that it is pretty much the same as the local businesses of Great Barrington, Massachusetts choosing to accept their locally-printed [http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/19/us-usa-economy-berkshares-idUSN0530157720070619 "Berkshire Bucks"] to support their local economy.

====Starting to accept Bitcoin for transactions====
Accepting Bitcoin at a small business is best started in whichever manner keeps the accounting simple for you. This will vary by the type of business you are operating.

===Start with a sign===
[[{{ns:file}}:WeAcceptBitcoin.png‎]]

If you expect that the number of people interested in using Bitcoin is small, you might simply start by posting a sign or a note: "We Accept Bitcoin", and ask people to contact you directly in order to make a payment. Even if hardly anybody uses Bitcoin as a payment method, you're helping Bitcoin in two ways: one, by increasing awareness, and two, by making your customers more willing to accept Bitcoin as payment from others in the future, because now they know somewhere they can spend it.

===Utilize a merchant solution===
If you sell things on your website (goods or services), you'll want to use a [[#Merchant Services|Bitcoin merchant solution]] to accept the Bitcoins (you can usually opt to have them converted to USD or other currencies automatically with some services).

If you sell things in a brick and mortar shop, customers can pay using hardware terminals, touch screen apps or simple wallet addresses through QR Codes.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]][[File:Coinktie Bitcoin Payment Buttons.png|alt=Coinkite Bitcoin Payment Buttons|link=https://coinkite.com/merchants]]

[[File:Bitcoin-pos-terminal.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|Coinkite terminal]] [[File:Mobile_Web_App_Bitcoin_Register.jpeg|100 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|CoinBox terminal]]

[[File:Mobile_Checkout_Phone.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin Mobile Checkout|Coinify Mobile Checkout|link=https://coinify.com]]

===Smart Phone or Tablet===
You can use a wallet address with any wallet. For that it's best if you can place a QR code near your cash register to which the customers can scan with their phone and pay (use http://bitcoinqrcode.org/ to make a QR code sign). For a more convenient solution you can use a dedicated app or webapp that generates a QR code on the fly including the amount.

==== Examples ====
Solutions for smart phones and tablets:
* [[File:Airbitz mobile logo.png|20px|https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/]] [https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/ Airbitz] Merchant Mode for Android and iOS
* [https://bitcoin.co.th/merchants/ bitcoin.co.th] mobile Bitcoin Point of Sale for Thailand
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], Mobile payment terminal with EUR, USD, PLN and CZK settlements.
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] accept Bitcoin on mobile phone, tablet, computer; converts to Euro/Bitcoin (any percentage)
* [https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-for-retail BitPay] Mobile Checkout
* [https://bitpos.me/demo.html BitPOS] Merchant POS solution for Australia
* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.blockchain.merchant Blockchain] Merchant for Android
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Point of Sale solution available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/pos CoinGate] Bitcoin Point of Sale apps for Android, iOS and Bitcoin Point of Sale web app which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Bitcoin Point Of Sale
* [[File:Coin_Of_Sale_logo.png|20px|link=https://coinofsale.com]] [https://coinofsale.com Coin Of Sale] - device-independent Bitcoin POS payment system
* [https://coinbase.com Coinbase] Point Of Sale for Android
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]][http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin point of sale for Android
* [https://cryptopay.me/products/ Cryptopay] HTML5-based bitcoin POS
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Simplest Point of Sale, No Fees and a peer to peer market to buy bitcoin instantly
* [https://gourl.io/ GoUrl] Bitcoin Mobile Checkout
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.

===Point-of-Sale hardware terminal===
With custom hardware you can integrate with existing registers and point-of-sales solutions (examples: [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz]] [https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz Coinkite], [https://xbterminal.com/ XBTerminal], [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat]).

===Accounting===
When a customer makes a payment, you might simply issue a credit to their account. Ideally, you want to enter it in a way that suggests you received a payment. You could consider entering it as a "discount", but you may want to consider whether this inappropriately disguises the nature of the transaction. If on the other hand, you're giving "discounts" for Bitcoins, but then you are selling the Bitcoins for currency and then counting that as income, then chances are good that your calculation of income is making up for it. Ask your accountant.

===Businesses that offer gift cards===
If your business sells gift cards or gift certificates, you may find that the easiest way to accept Bitcoin is to accept it only for the purchase of gift cards, and then require the gift cards to be used for actual purchases of goods or services. This way, the accounting practices you already have in place for processing gift cards can be put to use. The accounting for Bitcoins would then be minimized to tracking sales of a single SKU.

This method is also ideal for retail food establishments and convenience stores, where the payment of Bitcoins through a mobile phone for a small daily food purchase might be cumbersome or disruptive, especially in front of a line of other customers. Bitcoins in this case would be best used to reload prepaid cards that can then be swiped at point-of-sale.

If you don't accept gift cards, but you already accept credit cards through a swipe terminal, consider the possibility that you could add a retail gift card system through the swipe terminal you already own. Many point-of-sale terminals, including ones from VeriFone®, are designed around the ability to support multiple applications on the same terminal. Gift cards are also highly profitable because of "breakage", or in other words, the fact that a significant percentage of them never get redeemed.

You could consider adding a private label gift card program from a provider who specializes in this, not just as a jumpstart to accepting Bitcoins, but as an extra boost to income. A private label gift card service provider necessarily have to handle your funds - they can simply provide a solution that keeps track of the balance on the cards on your behalf, including features that allow users to check their balances by phone or by web. Such a solution, of course, is also what makes the cards swipeable through the card reader.

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment.

If you have access to the programming expertise such that you can generate Bitcoin addresses programmatically, consider generating a brand new Bitcoin address for each invoice, and print it on the invoice. When a Bitcoin payment arrives, you'll automatically know where it should arrive.

Customers might wonder how much BTC they should pay in order to satisfy an invoice in full. Your invoice might suggest an amount. For example, if your invoice is for $100 and BTC's are currently worth $1.24 each, your invoice might suggest that it can be paid in full ''"with a payment of 80.65 BTC if paid by (date)"''.

You might be able to anticipate the possibility that even though a Bitcoin address can be printed on an invoice or payment stub, that they are very cumbersome for most people to type, especially being a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. However, you should probably still do it anyway. The customer is probably going to want some paper trail for his payment. Giving him a pre-printed payment stub with a pre-printed address will satisfy that, because the customer can independently and publicly prove through [[Block Explorer]] that the payment took place.

Does your business have a website? On your invoice, consider allowing them to go to a special URL to get the address to make a Bitcoin payment just by typing in their invoice number. For example, ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc'' with a form they can enter their invoice number, or just ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc/60365'' for paying invoice #60365. This way, they can see the Bitcoin address, copy and paste it directly into their Bitcoin client.

Use a brand new address for each invoice whenever possible, and use it only once. This benefits the customer as it removes any ambiguity as to which customer is making which payment and for which invoice.

Known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup, [https://coinify.com/checkout/invoice/cb/bb Coinify]

Payment companion having peer to peer encrypted invoicing using your own bitcoin address [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics]

===Avoiding fraud===

You should also consider the possible risk that fraudsters could send counterfeit invoices to your customers, and entice them to make a payment to a Bitcoin address they control, instead of you. While that isn't likely in general - it depends on how well a fraudster could find out who your customers are in the first place - it would certainly be an unpleasant situation if it ever happened. One way you could control that is, whenever possible, never let people try to type Bitcoin addresses off payment stubs - instead, force people to get the full Bitcoin address from your website via secure SSL. But, still print ''most'' of the address on the payment stub (perhaps with four or five characters starred out), so that the customer's need for a paper trail can be satisfied, so they can prove they paid if there is ever a dispute. Merchants can also use the IP address geolocation to understand the close proximity of users. There is automated solution such as [https://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] that automates the screening of Bitcoin transactions to determine risk level.

==Setting Prices==

When a business accepts bitcoins for payment, there generally is the need to convert them to the currencies used for paying suppliers, employees and shareholders. Some merchants set prices based on the current market rate at the time the price quote is presented to the customer (merchant services like [[File:Polycoin_favicon.png|20px|link=http://www.polycoin.io]] [http://www.polycoin.io Polycoin], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [http://www.bit-pay.com Bit-pay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [http://paysius.com Paysius] or [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr], [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] do this automatically).

[[Bitcoin Prices]] lists the exchange rate for many currencies on multiple exchanges.

When prices are determined using an automated process, the current market rate can be based on either a current price or on a weighted average basis. [[Bitcoin Charts]] provides a [http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api data feed that provides weighted prices]. [[Bitcoin Average]] also offers a weighted average price index, featuring average price across all exchanges reachable in the world and in over 150 currencies. 24h sliding average price index is also available and all data is [https://bitcoinaverage.com/api.htm reachable through the API].

When bitcoin funds for purchases are received, some merchants instantly exchange those proceeds into the preferred currency used (again done automatically by [[File:Polycoin_favicon.png|20px|link=http://www.polycoin.io]] [http://www.polycoin.io Polycoin], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [http://www.bit-pay.com Bit-pay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate], [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], or [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay]). Hedging for each transaction can nearly entirely eliminate exchange rate risk that the business is exposed to when accepting bitcoins for payment.

==Contract==

A sales contract might be used to ensure that specific terms are met to lessen the chances of a misunderstanding. For instance, the party sending payment is responsible for paying any [[transaction fee]] that might be necessary. A contract might specify that a transaction fee must be paid and what amount, so as to prevent the situation where the transaction is considered a low priority transaction and thus isn't confirmed quickly.

Other items that might be addressed in a contract:

* Requirement and handling of escrow through an [[:Category:Escrow_services|escrow service]].
* Jurisdiction for disputes.
* Refund policy (particularly with the exchange rate being volatile)

==Paying taxes on Bitcoin income==
[[Tax compliance]] is a topic of concern for small businesses. We aren't accountants or lawyers, and can't give legal or accounting advice.

But in many respects, Bitcoin transactions work very much like cash. Just like Bitcoin, cash is anonymous and doesn't leave a paper trail, yet is widely used in commerce every day.

Ask yourself how you would handle a cash transaction. Do you accept cash transactions? Do you normally pay taxes on cash transactions? The answer for Bitcoin should probably be the same.

As for how to decide what a Bitcoin transaction is worth... the IRS, as far as we know, has never issued a guide mentioning how to value Bitcoin transactions. But they probably have rules and guidelines on how to value transactions made in foreign currency or "cash equivalents". We imagine the accounting would be similar.

With Bitcoins, there's likely to be some difference between the value of BTC when you received them as payment, versus when you go to exchange them for another currency like USD, should you decide to do so. This scenario, likewise, would be no different if you accepted foreign currency or gold as payment. Under some scenarios, it might make sense to book the dollar value of BTC income as it is received, and then to book any difference incurred when it is exchanged for fiat currency. Under others, it might make sense to book the whole thing at the time of exchange.

Perhaps you might talk to your accountant. You don't need to get into a discussion with your accountant about block chains and private keys or the philosophy behind a decentralized currency. By comparing the fundamentals of Bitcoins to accounting concepts already well understood by the public, you can probably get all the answers you need. What would you ask your accountant if you decided that you wanted to accept ''Berkshire Bucks'' or 1-ounce gold coins as payment?

== Merchant Services ==

See also [[Why Your Business Should Use a Full Node to Accept Bitcoin]]

* [https://bitaps.com/api Bitaps.com] APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed.
* [http://www.btc4erp.com Bitcoin Transaction Coordinator] Full Merchant Solution for organizations using the NetSuite Global ERP and eCommerce Platform
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Payment gateway for virtual currencies with direct settlement to PLN, CZK, EUR and USD. POS + API.
* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting Bitcoin, getting Euro or Euro/Bitcoin percentage. The Netherlands.
* [https://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Bitcoin and Credit Card payment processor
* [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay] Bitcoin payment processor with mobile checkout solution
* [https://bitpos.me BitPOS] Bitcoin payment processor for online and brick and mortar stores
* [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat] SiteCite: "As of 10-11-2015 BitStraat is discontinued as a company."
* [[File:Bitx-avatar.png|20px|link=https://bitx.co/api]] [https://bitx.co/api BitX API] Merchant API for registered businesses & developers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
* [http://blockchain.info/api/api_receive Blockchain.info] Free APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed. '''Update:''' Starting 01/2016 API2 requires an API key - account required!
* [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics] Peer to peer bitcoin invoices using your own bitcoin address.
* [https://coinbase.com/docs/merchant_tools/payment_buttons Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, checkout pages, shopping cart integration, and daily cash out to USD.
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]] [http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin Point of Sales application for Android, with integration into various exchanges. Similar to Square.
* [[Cashila]] Online bank account and payment processor. Accepts bitcoin payments, SEPA transfers and [https://www.cashila.com/ pay bills with bitcoin]
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate] Accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. E-commerce plugins, API, Point of Sale app for Android / iOS / web, payment buttons.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Payment Service Provider (PSP) specializing in the technical aspects of accepting cryptocurrencies - such as bitcoin. Supports Bitcoin Web Payments, Mobile Checkout, In-store Bitcoin Payments and Bitcoin Invoicing with recurring billing in bitcoin.
* [https://coinpip.com CoinPip] Online and POS bitcoin payment processor for Asia.
* [[File:Coinsnap_favicon.jpg|20px|link=http://www.coinsnap.eu]] [[Coinsnap]] European Bitcoin Payment Provider
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] European payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR and USD. Exchange and wallet integrated.
* [https://cubits.com Cubits] Platform with multisignature wallets and merchant system Cubits Pay.
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com/docs GoCoin International payment gateway and processing platform for Merchants]
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment processor with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Membership, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [https://www.okpay.com/en/services/accept-payments/index.html OKPAY] Bitcoin payment processing for merchants
* [[File:Payfast-400.png|20px|link=https://www.payfast.co.za]] [https://www.payfast.co.za PayFast] Merchant solution for South Africa. Integrated in 60+ shopping carts. Supports credit cards, EFT bank transfers and Bitcoin. When buyers pay with Bitcoin, merchants receive the South African rand equivalent, using BitX API
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Accept Bitcoin with no internet then sell bitcoin for profit on our peer to peer exchange.
* [[File:Rocketr.png|20px|link=https://rocketr.net]] [https://rocketr.net Rocketr] Sell digital products online and accept BTC, ETH, and more. Utilize their IPN/API for seamless integration into your website or app.
* [[File:SpectroCoin.png|20px|link=https://spectrocoin.com]][https://spectrocoin.com SpectroCoin] Payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR, USD, CZK, PLN and other currencies. Debit card, exchange and wallet offered. Plugins for e-commerce and API offered for integration.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]][https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [http://xbterminal.com XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.

==See Also==

* [[Merchant Howto]]
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Tax compliance]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[BitCoins Mobile]] provides accurate up to date pricing from multiple exchanges from your Apple iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.
* [[Bitcoin PayFlow]] automates the process for accepting bitcoins
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website

[[Category:ECommerce]]
[[Category:Local]]

[[de:Bitcoin_als_Geschäft_akzeptieren]]

CoinGate

2016-09-05T02:04:39Z

Chevesli: /* Points of Sale */

{{infobox company|name=CoinGate|image=[[File:Coingate.png|256px]]
|location=Vilnius, Lithuania
|industry=[[:Category:Payment Processors | Payment Processor]]
|founder=[[Dmitrijus Borisenka]]
|twitter=CoinGatecom
|facebook=coingatecom
|website=https://coingate.com
}}

CoinGate is a Bitcoin payment processor, enabling various businesses to accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins, eliminating Bitcoin price volatility risk. Users can also buy bitcoins from CoinGate and sell bitcoins to CoinGate.

==Merchant Tools==
Merchants can receive Bitcoin payments via CoinGate using plugins for the most popular e-commerce systems, API, Point of Sale apps, and payment buttons.

===Plugins===
[https://coingate.com/plugins/magento Bitcoin payments plugin for Magento] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a Magento store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/magento2 Bitcoin payments plugin for Magento2] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a Magento2 store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/opencart Bitcoin payments plugin for OpenCart] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in an OpenCart store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/oscommerce Bitcoin payments plugin for osCommerce] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in an osCommerce store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/prestashop Bitcoin payments plugin for PrestaShop] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a PrestaShop store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/virtuemart Bitcoin payments plugin for VirtueMart] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a VirtueMart store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/whmcs Bitcoin payments plugin for WHMCS] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a WHMCS store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/woocommerce Bitcoin payments plugin for WooCommerce] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a WooCommerce store.

===API===
[https://developer.coingate.com Application Programming Interface] allows businesses to integrate Bitcoin payments into any online store with more customization.

===Points of Sale===
[https://coingate.com/pos Point of Sale] apps for Android and iOS allows businesses to accept Bitcoin payments on an Android or iOS mobile device. Bitcoin Point of Sale web app, which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser, enables businesses to accept Bitcoin payments on any device with a web browser and an internet connection.

===Payment Buttons===
[https://coingate.com/button Payment buttons] allow businesses to accept Bitcoin donations and other simple payments on any website.

==Settlement==

Payments received from customers can be paid out as Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. The payouts can be made to a bank account, a PayPal account, or a Bitcoin address.

==Trader Tools==

===Buy Bitcoins===
CoinGate enables users to buy bitcoins using bank transfer. After the bank transfer is received by CoinGate, users are able to choose when to commit to their purchase.

===Sell Bitcoins===
The price of bitcoins can be locked before sending bitcoins to CoinGate, which enables users to receive a guaranteed amount of EUR or USD to their bank or PayPal account.

==External Links==
[https://coingate.com CoinGate.com] website

[[Category:Companies]]
[[Category:Exchanges]]
[[Category:Services]]
[[Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces]]
[[Category:Payment Processors]]

CoinGate

2016-09-05T02:04:12Z

Chevesli: /* Points of Sale */

{{infobox company|name=CoinGate|image=[[File:Coingate.png|256px]]
|location=Vilnius, Lithuania
|industry=[[:Category:Payment Processors | Payment Processor]]
|founder=[[Dmitrijus Borisenka]]
|twitter=CoinGatecom
|facebook=coingatecom
|website=https://coingate.com
}}

CoinGate is a Bitcoin payment processor, enabling various businesses to accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins, eliminating Bitcoin price volatility risk. Users can also buy bitcoins from CoinGate and sell bitcoins to CoinGate.

==Merchant Tools==
Merchants can receive Bitcoin payments via CoinGate using plugins for the most popular e-commerce systems, API, Point of Sale apps, and payment buttons.

===Plugins===
[https://coingate.com/plugins/magento Bitcoin payments plugin for Magento] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a Magento store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/magento2 Bitcoin payments plugin for Magento2] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a Magento2 store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/opencart Bitcoin payments plugin for OpenCart] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in an OpenCart store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/oscommerce Bitcoin payments plugin for osCommerce] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in an osCommerce store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/prestashop Bitcoin payments plugin for PrestaShop] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a PrestaShop store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/virtuemart Bitcoin payments plugin for VirtueMart] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a VirtueMart store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/whmcs Bitcoin payments plugin for WHMCS] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a WHMCS store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/woocommerce Bitcoin payments plugin for WooCommerce] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a WooCommerce store.

===API===
[https://developer.coingate.com Application Programming Interface] allows businesses to integrate Bitcoin payments into any online store with more customization.

===Points of Sale===
[https://coingate.com/pos Point of Sale] apps for Android and iOS allows businesses to accept Bitcoin payments on an Android or iOS mobile device. Bitcoin Point of Sale web app which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser, enables businesses to accept Bitcoin payments on any device with a web browser and an internet connection.

===Payment Buttons===
[https://coingate.com/button Payment buttons] allow businesses to accept Bitcoin donations and other simple payments on any website.

==Settlement==

Payments received from customers can be paid out as Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. The payouts can be made to a bank account, a PayPal account, or a Bitcoin address.

==Trader Tools==

===Buy Bitcoins===
CoinGate enables users to buy bitcoins using bank transfer. After the bank transfer is received by CoinGate, users are able to choose when to commit to their purchase.

===Sell Bitcoins===
The price of bitcoins can be locked before sending bitcoins to CoinGate, which enables users to receive a guaranteed amount of EUR or USD to their bank or PayPal account.

==External Links==
[https://coingate.com CoinGate.com] website

[[Category:Companies]]
[[Category:Exchanges]]
[[Category:Services]]
[[Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces]]
[[Category:Payment Processors]]

CoinGate

2016-09-05T02:03:32Z

Chevesli: /* Points of Sale */

{{infobox company|name=CoinGate|image=[[File:Coingate.png|256px]]
|location=Vilnius, Lithuania
|industry=[[:Category:Payment Processors | Payment Processor]]
|founder=[[Dmitrijus Borisenka]]
|twitter=CoinGatecom
|facebook=coingatecom
|website=https://coingate.com
}}

CoinGate is a Bitcoin payment processor, enabling various businesses to accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins, eliminating Bitcoin price volatility risk. Users can also buy bitcoins from CoinGate and sell bitcoins to CoinGate.

==Merchant Tools==
Merchants can receive Bitcoin payments via CoinGate using plugins for the most popular e-commerce systems, API, Point of Sale apps, and payment buttons.

===Plugins===
[https://coingate.com/plugins/magento Bitcoin payments plugin for Magento] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a Magento store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/magento2 Bitcoin payments plugin for Magento2] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a Magento2 store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/opencart Bitcoin payments plugin for OpenCart] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in an OpenCart store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/oscommerce Bitcoin payments plugin for osCommerce] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in an osCommerce store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/prestashop Bitcoin payments plugin for PrestaShop] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a PrestaShop store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/virtuemart Bitcoin payments plugin for VirtueMart] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a VirtueMart store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/whmcs Bitcoin payments plugin for WHMCS] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a WHMCS store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/woocommerce Bitcoin payments plugin for WooCommerce] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a WooCommerce store.

===API===
[https://developer.coingate.com Application Programming Interface] allows businesses to integrate Bitcoin payments into any online store with more customization.

===Points of Sale===
[https://coingate.com/pos Point of Sale] apps for Android and iOS allows businesses to accept Bitcoin payments on a mobile device. Bitcoin Point of Sale web app which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser, enables businesses to accept Bitcoin payments on any device with a web browser and an internet connection.

===Payment Buttons===
[https://coingate.com/button Payment buttons] allow businesses to accept Bitcoin donations and other simple payments on any website.

==Settlement==

Payments received from customers can be paid out as Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. The payouts can be made to a bank account, a PayPal account, or a Bitcoin address.

==Trader Tools==

===Buy Bitcoins===
CoinGate enables users to buy bitcoins using bank transfer. After the bank transfer is received by CoinGate, users are able to choose when to commit to their purchase.

===Sell Bitcoins===
The price of bitcoins can be locked before sending bitcoins to CoinGate, which enables users to receive a guaranteed amount of EUR or USD to their bank or PayPal account.

==External Links==
[https://coingate.com CoinGate.com] website

[[Category:Companies]]
[[Category:Exchanges]]
[[Category:Services]]
[[Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces]]
[[Category:Payment Processors]]

CoinGate

2016-09-05T01:59:25Z

Chevesli: /* Plugins */

{{infobox company|name=CoinGate|image=[[File:Coingate.png|256px]]
|location=Vilnius, Lithuania
|industry=[[:Category:Payment Processors | Payment Processor]]
|founder=[[Dmitrijus Borisenka]]
|twitter=CoinGatecom
|facebook=coingatecom
|website=https://coingate.com
}}

CoinGate is a Bitcoin payment processor, enabling various businesses to accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins, eliminating Bitcoin price volatility risk. Users can also buy bitcoins from CoinGate and sell bitcoins to CoinGate.

==Merchant Tools==
Merchants can receive Bitcoin payments via CoinGate using plugins for the most popular e-commerce systems, API, Point of Sale apps, and payment buttons.

===Plugins===
[https://coingate.com/plugins/magento Bitcoin payments plugin for Magento] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a Magento store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/magento2 Bitcoin payments plugin for Magento2] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a Magento2 store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/opencart Bitcoin payments plugin for OpenCart] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in an OpenCart store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/oscommerce Bitcoin payments plugin for osCommerce] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in an osCommerce store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/prestashop Bitcoin payments plugin for PrestaShop] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a PrestaShop store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/virtuemart Bitcoin payments plugin for VirtueMart] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a VirtueMart store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/whmcs Bitcoin payments plugin for WHMCS] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a WHMCS store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/woocommerce Bitcoin payments plugin for WooCommerce] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a WooCommerce store.

===API===
[https://developer.coingate.com Application Programming Interface] allows businesses to integrate Bitcoin payments into any online store with more customization.

===Points of Sale===
[https://coingate.com/pos Point of Sale] apps for Android, iOS and Bitcoin Point of Sale web app which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser.

===Payment Buttons===
[https://coingate.com/button Payment buttons] allow businesses to accept Bitcoin donations and other simple payments on any website.

==Settlement==

Payments received from customers can be paid out as Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. The payouts can be made to a bank account, a PayPal account, or a Bitcoin address.

==Trader Tools==

===Buy Bitcoins===
CoinGate enables users to buy bitcoins using bank transfer. After the bank transfer is received by CoinGate, users are able to choose when to commit to their purchase.

===Sell Bitcoins===
The price of bitcoins can be locked before sending bitcoins to CoinGate, which enables users to receive a guaranteed amount of EUR or USD to their bank or PayPal account.

==External Links==
[https://coingate.com CoinGate.com] website

[[Category:Companies]]
[[Category:Exchanges]]
[[Category:Services]]
[[Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces]]
[[Category:Payment Processors]]

CoinGate

2016-09-05T01:58:31Z

Chevesli: Created page with "{{infobox company|name=CoinGate|image=256px |location=Vilnius, Lithuania |industry= Payment Processor |founder=Dmitri..."

{{infobox company|name=CoinGate|image=[[File:Coingate.png|256px]]
|location=Vilnius, Lithuania
|industry=[[:Category:Payment Processors | Payment Processor]]
|founder=[[Dmitrijus Borisenka]]
|twitter=CoinGatecom
|facebook=coingatecom
|website=https://coingate.com
}}

CoinGate is a Bitcoin payment processor, enabling various businesses to accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins, eliminating Bitcoin price volatility risk. Users can also buy bitcoins from CoinGate and sell bitcoins to CoinGate.

==Merchant Tools==
Merchants can receive Bitcoin payments via CoinGate using plugins for the most popular e-commerce systems, API, Point of Sale apps, and payment buttons.

===Plugins===
[https://coingate.com/plugins/woocommerce Bitcoin payments plugin for WooCommerce] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a WooCommerce store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/magento Bitcoin payments plugin for Magento] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a Magento store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/magento2 Bitcoin payments plugin for Magento2] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a Magento2 store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/opencart Bitcoin payments plugin for OpenCart] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in an OpenCart store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/prestashop Bitcoin payments plugin for PrestaShop] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a PrestaShop store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/oscommerce Bitcoin payments plugin for osCommerce] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in an osCommerce store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/virtuemart Bitcoin payments plugin for VirtueMart] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a VirtueMart store.

[https://coingate.com/plugins/whmcs Bitcoin payments plugin for WHMCS] enables merchants to accept Bitcoin payments in a WHMCS store.

===API===
[https://developer.coingate.com Application Programming Interface] allows businesses to integrate Bitcoin payments into any online store with more customization.

===Points of Sale===
[https://coingate.com/pos Point of Sale] apps for Android, iOS and Bitcoin Point of Sale web app which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser.

===Payment Buttons===
[https://coingate.com/button Payment buttons] allow businesses to accept Bitcoin donations and other simple payments on any website.

==Settlement==

Payments received from customers can be paid out as Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. The payouts can be made to a bank account, a PayPal account, or a Bitcoin address.

==Trader Tools==

===Buy Bitcoins===
CoinGate enables users to buy bitcoins using bank transfer. After the bank transfer is received by CoinGate, users are able to choose when to commit to their purchase.

===Sell Bitcoins===
The price of bitcoins can be locked before sending bitcoins to CoinGate, which enables users to receive a guaranteed amount of EUR or USD to their bank or PayPal account.

==External Links==
[https://coingate.com CoinGate.com] website

[[Category:Companies]]
[[Category:Exchanges]]
[[Category:Services]]
[[Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces]]
[[Category:Payment Processors]]

File:Coingate.png

2016-09-05T01:22:38Z

Chevesli: Logo of CoinGate

Logo of CoinGate

How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses

2016-09-04T00:10:53Z

Chevesli: /* Examples */

{{merge|Merchant Howto}}

This guide is intended for small business owners who wish to help promote Bitcoin by accepting it as payment for goods and services. It's written with the assumption that you operate a regular business that sells goods or services for regular national currency such as dollars, and that you wish to accept Bitcoin as another legal way to pay, and that you intend to pay taxes on your Bitcoin income just like any other income.

With Bitcoin being touted as a way to conduct anonymous transactions and as way to compete with government currency, many small business owners wonder what's the right way to accept and account Bitcoin, or if it's legal or ethical, or whether and how they should pay taxes on income received through Bitcoin.

As far as we know, Bitcoin isn't yet formally recognized by governments and authorities as a "currency". But in practice, Bitcoin is likely no different than accepting payment in other forms, such as cash, or gold, or scrip, or gift cards or foreign currency. We think that it is pretty much the same as the local businesses of Great Barrington, Massachusetts choosing to accept their locally-printed [http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/19/us-usa-economy-berkshares-idUSN0530157720070619 "Berkshire Bucks"] to support their local economy.

====Starting to accept Bitcoin for transactions====
Accepting Bitcoin at a small business is best started in whichever manner keeps the accounting simple for you. This will vary by the type of business you are operating.

===Start with a sign===
[[{{ns:file}}:WeAcceptBitcoin.png‎]]

If you expect that the number of people interested in using Bitcoin is small, you might simply start by posting a sign or a note: "We Accept Bitcoin", and ask people to contact you directly in order to make a payment. Even if hardly anybody uses Bitcoin as a payment method, you're helping Bitcoin in two ways: one, by increasing awareness, and two, by making your customers more willing to accept Bitcoin as payment from others in the future, because now they know somewhere they can spend it.

===Utilize a merchant solution===
If you sell things on your website (goods or services), you'll want to use a [[#Merchant Services|Bitcoin merchant solution]] to accept the Bitcoins (you can usually opt to have them converted to USD or other currencies automatically with some services).

If you sell things in a brick and mortar shop, customers can pay using hardware terminals, touch screen apps or simple wallet addresses through QR Codes.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]][[File:Coinktie Bitcoin Payment Buttons.png|alt=Coinkite Bitcoin Payment Buttons|link=https://coinkite.com/merchants]]

[[File:Bitcoin-pos-terminal.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|Coinkite terminal]] [[File:Mobile_Web_App_Bitcoin_Register.jpeg|100 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|CoinBox terminal]]

[[File:Mobile_Checkout_Phone.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin Mobile Checkout|Coinify Mobile Checkout|link=https://coinify.com]]

===Smart Phone or Tablet===
You can use a wallet address with any wallet. For that it's best if you can place a QR code near your cash register to which the customers can scan with their phone and pay (use http://bitcoinqrcode.org/ to make a QR code sign). For a more convenient solution you can use a dedicated app or webapp that generates a QR code on the fly including the amount.

==== Examples ====
Solutions for smart phones and tablets:
* [[File:Airbitz mobile logo.png|20px|https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/]] [https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/ Airbitz] Merchant Mode for Android and iOS
* [https://bitcoin.co.th/merchants/ bitcoin.co.th] mobile Bitcoin Point of Sale for Thailand
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], Mobile payment terminal with EUR, USD, PLN and CZK settlements.
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] accept Bitcoin on mobile phone, tablet, computer; converts to Euro/Bitcoin (any percentage)
* [https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-for-retail BitPay] Mobile Checkout
* [https://bitpos.me/demo.html BitPOS] Merchant POS solution for Australia
* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.blockchain.merchant Blockchain] Merchant for Android
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Point of Sale solution available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/pos CoinGate] Bitcoin Point of Sale apps for Android, iOS and Bitcoin Point of Sale web app which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Bitcoin Point Of Sale
* [[File:Coin_Of_Sale_logo.png|20px|link=https://coinofsale.com]] [https://coinofsale.com Coin Of Sale] - device-independent Bitcoin POS payment system
* [https://coinbase.com Coinbase] Point Of Sale for Android
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]][http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin point of sale for Android
* [https://cryptopay.me/products/ Cryptopay] HTML5-based bitcoin POS
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Simplest Point of Sale, No Fees and a peer to peer market to buy bitcoin instantly
* [https://gourl.io/ GoUrl] Bitcoin Mobile Checkout

===Point-of-Sale hardware terminal===
With custom hardware you can integrate with existing registers and point-of-sales solutions (examples: [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz]] [https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz Coinkite], [https://xbterminal.com/ XBTerminal], [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat]).

===Accounting===
When a customer makes a payment, you might simply issue a credit to their account. Ideally, you want to enter it in a way that suggests you received a payment. You could consider entering it as a "discount", but you may want to consider whether this inappropriately disguises the nature of the transaction. If on the other hand, you're giving "discounts" for Bitcoins, but then you are selling the Bitcoins for currency and then counting that as income, then chances are good that your calculation of income is making up for it. Ask your accountant.

===Businesses that offer gift cards===
If your business sells gift cards or gift certificates, you may find that the easiest way to accept Bitcoin is to accept it only for the purchase of gift cards, and then require the gift cards to be used for actual purchases of goods or services. This way, the accounting practices you already have in place for processing gift cards can be put to use. The accounting for Bitcoins would then be minimized to tracking sales of a single SKU.

This method is also ideal for retail food establishments and convenience stores, where the payment of Bitcoins through a mobile phone for a small daily food purchase might be cumbersome or disruptive, especially in front of a line of other customers. Bitcoins in this case would be best used to reload prepaid cards that can then be swiped at point-of-sale.

If you don't accept gift cards, but you already accept credit cards through a swipe terminal, consider the possibility that you could add a retail gift card system through the swipe terminal you already own. Many point-of-sale terminals, including ones from VeriFone®, are designed around the ability to support multiple applications on the same terminal. Gift cards are also highly profitable because of "breakage", or in other words, the fact that a significant percentage of them never get redeemed.

You could consider adding a private label gift card program from a provider who specializes in this, not just as a jumpstart to accepting Bitcoins, but as an extra boost to income. A private label gift card service provider necessarily have to handle your funds - they can simply provide a solution that keeps track of the balance on the cards on your behalf, including features that allow users to check their balances by phone or by web. Such a solution, of course, is also what makes the cards swipeable through the card reader.

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment.

If you have access to the programming expertise such that you can generate Bitcoin addresses programmatically, consider generating a brand new Bitcoin address for each invoice, and print it on the invoice. When a Bitcoin payment arrives, you'll automatically know where it should arrive.

Customers might wonder how much BTC they should pay in order to satisfy an invoice in full. Your invoice might suggest an amount. For example, if your invoice is for $100 and BTC's are currently worth $1.24 each, your invoice might suggest that it can be paid in full ''"with a payment of 80.65 BTC if paid by (date)"''.

You might be able to anticipate the possibility that even though a Bitcoin address can be printed on an invoice or payment stub, that they are very cumbersome for most people to type, especially being a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. However, you should probably still do it anyway. The customer is probably going to want some paper trail for his payment. Giving him a pre-printed payment stub with a pre-printed address will satisfy that, because the customer can independently and publicly prove through [[Block Explorer]] that the payment took place.

Does your business have a website? On your invoice, consider allowing them to go to a special URL to get the address to make a Bitcoin payment just by typing in their invoice number. For example, ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc'' with a form they can enter their invoice number, or just ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc/60365'' for paying invoice #60365. This way, they can see the Bitcoin address, copy and paste it directly into their Bitcoin client.

Use a brand new address for each invoice whenever possible, and use it only once. This benefits the customer as it removes any ambiguity as to which customer is making which payment and for which invoice.

Known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup, [https://coinify.com/checkout/invoice/cb/bb Coinify]

Payment companion having peer to peer encrypted invoicing using your own bitcoin address [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics]

===Avoiding fraud===

You should also consider the possible risk that fraudsters could send counterfeit invoices to your customers, and entice them to make a payment to a Bitcoin address they control, instead of you. While that isn't likely in general - it depends on how well a fraudster could find out who your customers are in the first place - it would certainly be an unpleasant situation if it ever happened. One way you could control that is, whenever possible, never let people try to type Bitcoin addresses off payment stubs - instead, force people to get the full Bitcoin address from your website via secure SSL. But, still print ''most'' of the address on the payment stub (perhaps with four or five characters starred out), so that the customer's need for a paper trail can be satisfied, so they can prove they paid if there is ever a dispute. Merchants can also use the IP address geolocation to understand the close proximity of users. There is automated solution such as [https://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] that automates the screening of Bitcoin transactions to determine risk level.

==Setting Prices==

When a business accepts bitcoins for payment, there generally is the need to convert them to the currencies used for paying suppliers, employees and shareholders. Some merchants set prices based on the current market rate at the time the price quote is presented to the customer (merchant services like [[File:Polycoin_favicon.png|20px|link=http://www.polycoin.io]] [http://www.polycoin.io Polycoin], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [http://www.bit-pay.com Bit-pay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [http://paysius.com Paysius] or [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] do this automatically).

[[Bitcoin Prices]] lists the exchange rate for many currencies on multiple exchanges.

When prices are determined using an automated process, the current market rate can be based on either a current price or on a weighted average basis. [[Bitcoin Charts]] provides a [http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api data feed that provides weighted prices]. [[Bitcoin Average]] also offers a weighted average price index, featuring average price across all exchanges reachable in the world and in over 150 currencies. 24h sliding average price index is also available and all data is [https://bitcoinaverage.com/api.htm reachable through the API].

When bitcoin funds for purchases are received, some merchants instantly exchange those proceeds into the preferred currency used (again done automatically by [[File:Polycoin_favicon.png|20px|link=http://www.polycoin.io]] [http://www.polycoin.io Polycoin], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [http://www.bit-pay.com Bit-pay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] or [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay]). Hedging for each transaction can nearly entirely eliminate exchange rate risk that the business is exposed to when accepting bitcoins for payment.

==Contract==

A sales contract might be used to ensure that specific terms are met to lessen the chances of a misunderstanding. For instance, the party sending payment is responsible for paying any [[transaction fee]] that might be necessary. A contract might specify that a transaction fee must be paid and what amount, so as to prevent the situation where the transaction is considered a low priority transaction and thus isn't confirmed quickly.

Other items that might be addressed in a contract:

* Requirement and handling of escrow through an [[:Category:Escrow_services|escrow service]].
* Jurisdiction for disputes.
* Refund policy (particularly with the exchange rate being volatile)

==Paying taxes on Bitcoin income==
[[Tax compliance]] is a topic of concern for small businesses. We aren't accountants or lawyers, and can't give legal or accounting advice.

But in many respects, Bitcoin transactions work very much like cash. Just like Bitcoin, cash is anonymous and doesn't leave a paper trail, yet is widely used in commerce every day.

Ask yourself how you would handle a cash transaction. Do you accept cash transactions? Do you normally pay taxes on cash transactions? The answer for Bitcoin should probably be the same.

As for how to decide what a Bitcoin transaction is worth... the IRS, as far as we know, has never issued a guide mentioning how to value Bitcoin transactions. But they probably have rules and guidelines on how to value transactions made in foreign currency or "cash equivalents". We imagine the accounting would be similar.

With Bitcoins, there's likely to be some difference between the value of BTC when you received them as payment, versus when you go to exchange them for another currency like USD, should you decide to do so. This scenario, likewise, would be no different if you accepted foreign currency or gold as payment. Under some scenarios, it might make sense to book the dollar value of BTC income as it is received, and then to book any difference incurred when it is exchanged for fiat currency. Under others, it might make sense to book the whole thing at the time of exchange.

Perhaps you might talk to your accountant. You don't need to get into a discussion with your accountant about block chains and private keys or the philosophy behind a decentralized currency. By comparing the fundamentals of Bitcoins to accounting concepts already well understood by the public, you can probably get all the answers you need. What would you ask your accountant if you decided that you wanted to accept ''Berkshire Bucks'' or 1-ounce gold coins as payment?

== Merchant Services ==
* [http://www.btc4erp.com Bitcoin Transaction Coordinator] Full Merchant Solution for organizations using the NetSuite Global ERP and eCommerce Platform
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Payment gateway for virtual currencies with direct settlement to PLN, CZK, EUR and USD. POS + API.
* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting Bitcoin, getting Euro or Euro/Bitcoin percentage. The Netherlands.
* [https://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Bitcoin and Credit Card payment processor
* [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay] Bitcoin payment processor with mobile checkout solution
* [https://bitpos.me BitPOS] Bitcoin payment processor for online and brick and mortar stores
* [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat] SiteCite: "As of 10-11-2015 BitStraat is discontinued as a company."
* [[File:Bitx-avatar.png|20px|link=https://bitx.co/api]] [https://bitx.co/api BitX API] Merchant API for registered businesses & developers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
* [http://blockchain.info/api/api_receive Blockchain.info] Free APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed. '''Update:''' Starting 01/2016 API2 requires an API key - account required!
* [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics] Peer to peer bitcoin invoices using your own bitcoin address.
* [https://coinbase.com/docs/merchant_tools/payment_buttons Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, checkout pages, shopping cart integration, and daily cash out to USD.
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]] [http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin Point of Sales application for Android, with integration into various exchanges. Similar to Square.
* [[Cashila]] Online bank account and payment processor. Accepts bitcoin payments, SEPA transfers and [https://www.cashila.com/ pay bills with bitcoin]
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate] Accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. E-commerce plugins, API, Point of Sale app for Android / iOS / web, payment buttons.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Payment Service Provider (PSP) specializing in the technical aspects of accepting cryptocurrencies - such as bitcoin. Supports Bitcoin Web Payments, Mobile Checkout, In-store Bitcoin Payments and Bitcoin Invoicing with recurring billing in bitcoin.
* [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com]] [https://coinkite.com Coinkite] Secure wallet multisig, payment buttons, invoice pages, hardware POS terminals, and Debit-Cards.
* [https://coinpip.com CoinPip] Online and POS bitcoin payment processor for Asia.
* [[File:Coinsnap_favicon.jpg|20px|link=http://www.coinsnap.eu]] [[Coinsnap]] European Bitcoin Payment Provider
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] European payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR and USD. Exchange and wallet integrated.
* [https://cubits.com Cubits] Platform with multisignature wallets and merchant system Cubits Pay.
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Accept Bitcoin with no internet then sell bitcoin for profit on our peer to peer exchange.
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com/docs GoCoin International payment gateway and processing platform for Merchants]
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment processor with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Membership, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [[File:inpay_favicon.png|link=https://inpay.pl/?lang=en]] [https://inpay.pl/?lang=en InPay.pl] InPay was created to enable entrepreneurs to accept Bitcoin in PLN, EUR and USD.
* [https://www.okpay.com/en/services/accept-payments/index.html OKPAY] Bitcoin payment processing for merchants
* [[File:Payfast-400.png|20px|link=https://www.payfast.co.za]] [https://www.payfast.co.za PayFast] Merchant solution for South Africa. Integrated in 60+ shopping carts. Supports credit cards, EFT bank transfers and Bitcoin. When buyers pay with Bitcoin, merchants receive the South African rand equivalent, using BitX API
* [[File:SpectroCoin.png|20px|link=https://spectrocoin.com]][https://spectrocoin.com SpectroCoin] Payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR, USD, CZK, PLN and other currencies. Debit card, exchange and wallet offered. Plugins for e-commerce and API offered for integration.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]][https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [http://xbterminal.com XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.

==See Also==

* [[Merchant Howto]]
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Tax compliance]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[BitCoins Mobile]] provides accurate up to date pricing from multiple exchanges from your Apple iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.
* [[Bitcoin PayFlow]] automates the process for accepting bitcoins
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website

[[Category:ECommerce]]
[[Category:Local]]

[[de:Bitcoin_als_Geschäft_akzeptieren]]

How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses

2016-08-28T18:58:39Z

Chevesli: /* Merchant Services */

{{merge|Merchant Howto}}

This guide is intended for small business owners who wish to help promote Bitcoin by accepting it as payment for goods and services. It's written with the assumption that you operate a regular business that sells goods or services for regular national currency such as dollars, and that you wish to accept Bitcoin as another legal way to pay, and that you intend to pay taxes on your Bitcoin income just like any other income.

With Bitcoin being touted as a way to conduct anonymous transactions and as way to compete with government currency, many small business owners wonder what's the right way to accept and account Bitcoin, or if it's legal or ethical, or whether and how they should pay taxes on income received through Bitcoin.

As far as we know, Bitcoin isn't yet formally recognized by governments and authorities as a "currency". But in practice, Bitcoin is likely no different than accepting payment in other forms, such as cash, or gold, or scrip, or gift cards or foreign currency. We think that it is pretty much the same as the local businesses of Great Barrington, Massachusetts choosing to accept their locally-printed [http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/19/us-usa-economy-berkshares-idUSN0530157720070619 "Berkshire Bucks"] to support their local economy.

====Starting to accept Bitcoin for transactions====
Accepting Bitcoin at a small business is best started in whichever manner keeps the accounting simple for you. This will vary by the type of business you are operating.

===Start with a sign===
[[{{ns:file}}:WeAcceptBitcoin.png‎]]

If you expect that the number of people interested in using Bitcoin is small, you might simply start by posting a sign or a note: "We Accept Bitcoin", and ask people to contact you directly in order to make a payment. Even if hardly anybody uses Bitcoin as a payment method, you're helping Bitcoin in two ways: one, by increasing awareness, and two, by making your customers more willing to accept Bitcoin as payment from others in the future, because now they know somewhere they can spend it.

===Utilize a merchant solution===
If you sell things on your website (goods or services), you'll want to use a [[#Merchant Services|Bitcoin merchant solution]] to accept the Bitcoins (you can usually opt to have them converted to USD or other currencies automatically with some services).

If you sell things in a brick and mortar shop, customers can pay using hardware terminals, touch screen apps or simple wallet addresses through QR Codes.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]][[File:Coinktie Bitcoin Payment Buttons.png|alt=Coinkite Bitcoin Payment Buttons|link=https://coinkite.com/merchants]]

[[File:Bitcoin-pos-terminal.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|Coinkite terminal]] [[File:Mobile_Web_App_Bitcoin_Register.jpeg|100 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|CoinBox terminal]]

[[File:Mobile_Checkout_Phone.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin Mobile Checkout|Coinify Mobile Checkout|link=https://coinify.com]]

===Smart Phone or Tablet===
You can use a wallet address with any wallet. For that it's best if you can place a QR code near your cash register to which the customers can scan with their phone and pay (use http://bitcoinqrcode.org/ to make a QR code sign). For a more convenient solution you can use a dedicated app or webapp that generates a QR code on the fly including the amount.

==== Examples ====
Solutions for smart phones and tablets:
* [[File:Airbitz mobile logo.png|20px|https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/]] [https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/ Airbitz] Merchant Mode for Android and iOS
* [https://bitcoin.co.th/merchants/ bitcoin.co.th] mobile Bitcoin Point of Sale for Thailand
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], Mobile payment terminal with EUR, USD, PLN and CZK settlements.
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] accept Bitcoin on mobile phone, tablet, computer; converts to Euro/Bitcoin (any percentage)
* [https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-for-retail BitPay] Mobile Checkout
* [https://bitpos.me/demo.html BitPOS] Merchant POS solution for Australia
* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.blockchain.merchant Blockchain] Merchant for Android
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Point of Sale solution available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/pos CoinGate] Bitcoin Point of Sale app for Android, iOS and Bitcoin Point of Sale web app which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Bitcoin Point Of Sale
* [[File:Coin_Of_Sale_logo.png|20px|link=https://coinofsale.com]] [https://coinofsale.com Coin Of Sale] - device-independent Bitcoin POS payment system
* [https://coinbase.com Coinbase] Point Of Sale for Android
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]][http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin point of sale for Android
* [https://cryptopay.me/products/ Cryptopay] HTML5-based bitcoin POS
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Simplest Point of Sale, No Fees and a peer to peer market to buy bitcoin instantly
* [https://gourl.io/ GoUrl] Bitcoin Mobile Checkout

===Point-of-Sale hardware terminal===
With custom hardware you can integrate with existing registers and point-of-sales solutions (examples: [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz]] [https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz Coinkite], [https://xbterminal.com/ XBTerminal], [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat]).

===Accounting===
When a customer makes a payment, you might simply issue a credit to their account. Ideally, you want to enter it in a way that suggests you received a payment. You could consider entering it as a "discount", but you may want to consider whether this inappropriately disguises the nature of the transaction. If on the other hand, you're giving "discounts" for Bitcoins, but then you are selling the Bitcoins for currency and then counting that as income, then chances are good that your calculation of income is making up for it. Ask your accountant.

===Businesses that offer gift cards===
If your business sells gift cards or gift certificates, you may find that the easiest way to accept Bitcoin is to accept it only for the purchase of gift cards, and then require the gift cards to be used for actual purchases of goods or services. This way, the accounting practices you already have in place for processing gift cards can be put to use. The accounting for Bitcoins would then be minimized to tracking sales of a single SKU.

This method is also ideal for retail food establishments and convenience stores, where the payment of Bitcoins through a mobile phone for a small daily food purchase might be cumbersome or disruptive, especially in front of a line of other customers. Bitcoins in this case would be best used to reload prepaid cards that can then be swiped at point-of-sale.

If you don't accept gift cards, but you already accept credit cards through a swipe terminal, consider the possibility that you could add a retail gift card system through the swipe terminal you already own. Many point-of-sale terminals, including ones from VeriFone®, are designed around the ability to support multiple applications on the same terminal. Gift cards are also highly profitable because of "breakage", or in other words, the fact that a significant percentage of them never get redeemed.

You could consider adding a private label gift card program from a provider who specializes in this, not just as a jumpstart to accepting Bitcoins, but as an extra boost to income. A private label gift card service provider necessarily have to handle your funds - they can simply provide a solution that keeps track of the balance on the cards on your behalf, including features that allow users to check their balances by phone or by web. Such a solution, of course, is also what makes the cards swipeable through the card reader.

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment.

If you have access to the programming expertise such that you can generate Bitcoin addresses programmatically, consider generating a brand new Bitcoin address for each invoice, and print it on the invoice. When a Bitcoin payment arrives, you'll automatically know where it should arrive.

Customers might wonder how much BTC they should pay in order to satisfy an invoice in full. Your invoice might suggest an amount. For example, if your invoice is for $100 and BTC's are currently worth $1.24 each, your invoice might suggest that it can be paid in full ''"with a payment of 80.65 BTC if paid by (date)"''.

You might be able to anticipate the possibility that even though a Bitcoin address can be printed on an invoice or payment stub, that they are very cumbersome for most people to type, especially being a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. However, you should probably still do it anyway. The customer is probably going to want some paper trail for his payment. Giving him a pre-printed payment stub with a pre-printed address will satisfy that, because the customer can independently and publicly prove through [[Block Explorer]] that the payment took place.

Does your business have a website? On your invoice, consider allowing them to go to a special URL to get the address to make a Bitcoin payment just by typing in their invoice number. For example, ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc'' with a form they can enter their invoice number, or just ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc/60365'' for paying invoice #60365. This way, they can see the Bitcoin address, copy and paste it directly into their Bitcoin client.

Use a brand new address for each invoice whenever possible, and use it only once. This benefits the customer as it removes any ambiguity as to which customer is making which payment and for which invoice.

Known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup, [https://coinify.com/checkout/invoice/cb/bb Coinify]

Payment companion having peer to peer encrypted invoicing using your own bitcoin address [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics]

===Avoiding fraud===

You should also consider the possible risk that fraudsters could send counterfeit invoices to your customers, and entice them to make a payment to a Bitcoin address they control, instead of you. While that isn't likely in general - it depends on how well a fraudster could find out who your customers are in the first place - it would certainly be an unpleasant situation if it ever happened. One way you could control that is, whenever possible, never let people try to type Bitcoin addresses off payment stubs - instead, force people to get the full Bitcoin address from your website via secure SSL. But, still print ''most'' of the address on the payment stub (perhaps with four or five characters starred out), so that the customer's need for a paper trail can be satisfied, so they can prove they paid if there is ever a dispute. Merchants can also use the IP address geolocation to understand the close proximity of users. There is automated solution such as [https://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] that automates the screening of Bitcoin transactions to determine risk level.

==Setting Prices==

When a business accepts bitcoins for payment, there generally is the need to convert them to the currencies used for paying suppliers, employees and shareholders. Some merchants set prices based on the current market rate at the time the price quote is presented to the customer (merchant services like [[File:Polycoin_favicon.png|20px|link=http://www.polycoin.io]] [http://www.polycoin.io Polycoin], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [http://www.bit-pay.com Bit-pay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [http://paysius.com Paysius] or [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] do this automatically).

[[Bitcoin Prices]] lists the exchange rate for many currencies on multiple exchanges.

When prices are determined using an automated process, the current market rate can be based on either a current price or on a weighted average basis. [[Bitcoin Charts]] provides a [http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api data feed that provides weighted prices]. [[Bitcoin Average]] also offers a weighted average price index, featuring average price across all exchanges reachable in the world and in over 150 currencies. 24h sliding average price index is also available and all data is [https://bitcoinaverage.com/api.htm reachable through the API].

When bitcoin funds for purchases are received, some merchants instantly exchange those proceeds into the preferred currency used (again done automatically by [[File:Polycoin_favicon.png|20px|link=http://www.polycoin.io]] [http://www.polycoin.io Polycoin], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [http://www.bit-pay.com Bit-pay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] or [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay]). Hedging for each transaction can nearly entirely eliminate exchange rate risk that the business is exposed to when accepting bitcoins for payment.

==Contract==

A sales contract might be used to ensure that specific terms are met to lessen the chances of a misunderstanding. For instance, the party sending payment is responsible for paying any [[transaction fee]] that might be necessary. A contract might specify that a transaction fee must be paid and what amount, so as to prevent the situation where the transaction is considered a low priority transaction and thus isn't confirmed quickly.

Other items that might be addressed in a contract:

* Requirement and handling of escrow through an [[:Category:Escrow_services|escrow service]].
* Jurisdiction for disputes.
* Refund policy (particularly with the exchange rate being volatile)

==Paying taxes on Bitcoin income==
[[Tax compliance]] is a topic of concern for small businesses. We aren't accountants or lawyers, and can't give legal or accounting advice.

But in many respects, Bitcoin transactions work very much like cash. Just like Bitcoin, cash is anonymous and doesn't leave a paper trail, yet is widely used in commerce every day.

Ask yourself how you would handle a cash transaction. Do you accept cash transactions? Do you normally pay taxes on cash transactions? The answer for Bitcoin should probably be the same.

As for how to decide what a Bitcoin transaction is worth... the IRS, as far as we know, has never issued a guide mentioning how to value Bitcoin transactions. But they probably have rules and guidelines on how to value transactions made in foreign currency or "cash equivalents". We imagine the accounting would be similar.

With Bitcoins, there's likely to be some difference between the value of BTC when you received them as payment, versus when you go to exchange them for another currency like USD, should you decide to do so. This scenario, likewise, would be no different if you accepted foreign currency or gold as payment. Under some scenarios, it might make sense to book the dollar value of BTC income as it is received, and then to book any difference incurred when it is exchanged for fiat currency. Under others, it might make sense to book the whole thing at the time of exchange.

Perhaps you might talk to your accountant. You don't need to get into a discussion with your accountant about block chains and private keys or the philosophy behind a decentralized currency. By comparing the fundamentals of Bitcoins to accounting concepts already well understood by the public, you can probably get all the answers you need. What would you ask your accountant if you decided that you wanted to accept ''Berkshire Bucks'' or 1-ounce gold coins as payment?

== Merchant Services ==
* [http://www.btc4erp.com Bitcoin Transaction Coordinator] Full Merchant Solution for organizations using the NetSuite Global ERP and eCommerce Platform
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Payment gateway for virtual currencies with direct settlement to PLN, CZK, EUR and USD. POS + API.
* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting Bitcoin, getting Euro or Euro/Bitcoin percentage. The Netherlands.
* [https://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Bitcoin and Credit Card payment processor
* [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay] Bitcoin payment processor with mobile checkout solution
* [https://bitpos.me BitPOS] Bitcoin payment processor for online and brick and mortar stores
* [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat] SiteCite: "As of 10-11-2015 BitStraat is discontinued as a company."
* [[File:Bitx-avatar.png|20px|link=https://bitx.co/api]] [https://bitx.co/api BitX API] Merchant API for registered businesses & developers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
* [http://blockchain.info/api/api_receive Blockchain.info] Free APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed. '''Update:''' Starting 01/2016 API2 requires an API key - account required!
* [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics] Peer to peer bitcoin invoices using your own bitcoin address.
* [https://coinbase.com/docs/merchant_tools/payment_buttons Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, checkout pages, shopping cart integration, and daily cash out to USD.
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]] [http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin Point of Sales application for Android, with integration into various exchanges. Similar to Square.
* [[Cashila]] Online bank account and payment processor. Accepts bitcoin payments, SEPA transfers and [https://www.cashila.com/ pay bills with bitcoin]
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate] Accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. E-commerce plugins, API, Point of Sale app for Android / iOS / web, payment buttons.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Payment Service Provider (PSP) specializing in the technical aspects of accepting cryptocurrencies - such as bitcoin. Supports Bitcoin Web Payments, Mobile Checkout, In-store Bitcoin Payments and Bitcoin Invoicing with recurring billing in bitcoin.
* [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com]] [https://coinkite.com Coinkite] Secure wallet multisig, payment buttons, invoice pages, hardware POS terminals, and Debit-Cards.
* [https://coinpip.com CoinPip] Online and POS bitcoin payment processor for Asia.
* [[File:Coinsnap_favicon.jpg|20px|link=http://www.coinsnap.eu]] [[Coinsnap]] European Bitcoin Payment Provider
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] European payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR and USD. Exchange and wallet integrated.
* [https://cubits.com Cubits] Platform with multisignature wallets and merchant system Cubits Pay.
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Accept Bitcoin with no internet then sell bitcoin for profit on our peer to peer exchange.
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com/docs GoCoin International payment gateway and processing platform for Merchants]
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment processor with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Membership, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [[File:inpay_favicon.png|link=https://inpay.pl/?lang=en]] [https://inpay.pl/?lang=en InPay.pl] InPay was created to enable entrepreneurs to accept Bitcoin in PLN, EUR and USD.
* [https://www.okpay.com/en/services/accept-payments/index.html OKPAY] Bitcoin payment processing for merchants
* [[File:Payfast-400.png|20px|link=https://www.payfast.co.za]] [https://www.payfast.co.za PayFast] Merchant solution for South Africa. Integrated in 60+ shopping carts. Supports credit cards, EFT bank transfers and Bitcoin. When buyers pay with Bitcoin, merchants receive the South African rand equivalent, using BitX API
* [[File:SpectroCoin.png|20px|link=https://spectrocoin.com]][https://spectrocoin.com SpectroCoin] Payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR, USD, CZK, PLN and other currencies. Debit card, exchange and wallet offered. Plugins for e-commerce and API offered for integration.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]][https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [http://xbterminal.com XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.

==See Also==

* [[Merchant Howto]]
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Tax compliance]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[BitCoins Mobile]] provides accurate up to date pricing from multiple exchanges from your Apple iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.
* [[Bitcoin PayFlow]] automates the process for accepting bitcoins
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website

[[Category:ECommerce]]
[[Category:Local]]

[[de:Bitcoin_als_Geschäft_akzeptieren]]

Merchant Howto

2016-08-28T18:58:04Z

Chevesli: /* Services */

{{merge|How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses}}

Accepting Bitcoins is easy, and there are several ways to do it.

==Manually==
# Download a bitcoin client
# When a customer wants to buy something, send them a Bitcoin address where their payment should be sent.
#* You can do this by clicking "New.." next to your address in the Bitcoin client and sending that address to the customer.
# When payment comes in to that address, send the goods to your customer. Depending on the value of what you're selling, you may wish to wait until the payment shows Confirmed.
# To issue a refund, obtain from the customer the [[Address|bitcoin address]] where the refund payment should be sent. The refund address will likely be different from the address used when the customer sent payment, especially if an [[EWallet]] was used by the customer.

==Automated==
===Pre-generating Bitcoin addresses===
You can accept Bitcoins on your website without needing to use Bitcoin APIs or third party services if you pre-generate a large number of receiving Bitcoin addresses and store them in a database on your web server, and dispense them one-by-one to customers when they are ready to pay. This way, your web server never actually handles the bitcoins - it simply gives out addresses belonging to a wallet you maintain elsewhere. By using a unique address per order, you will always know which payment belongs to which order. [https://www.casascius.com Example of website using this method]

To pre-generate addresses, use a tool such as [[Pywallet]] (which can generate a wallet.dat file) or [[Bitcoin Address Utility]] (which can generate a CSV file). In both cases, you will be generating a list of [[Address|Bitcoin address]]es along with their corresponding [[private key]]s. Only the Bitcoin addresses (not the private keys) should be loaded on the web server.

If you are shipping goods manually, you can use the Bitcoin software to check for incoming payments, or alternately consider using [[Block Explorer]] or [[Abe]] to verify payment when you're about to ship. To make this easy, make your website provide you a full hyperlink that includes the proper receiving address: ht<nowiki>tp://www</nowiki>.blockexplorer.com/address/ADDRESSGOESHERE.

If you are delivering digital goods or services and want to be able to deliver instantly upon payment and/or confirmation, you can use a third-party service such as [[Bitcoin Notify]] to tell your website when a payment has been received. This sort of service requires no significant API implementation - they will simply make a POST to your website or send you an e-mail when a payment has been received on one of your addresses.

If you keep Bitcoins off your web server, this ensures your wallet cannot be stolen if your web server experiences a security intrusion. Your risk becomes limited to the possibility that a successful intruder could add his own addresses to your address pool and steal funds from a few incoming orders until you detect the problem, however, this is a [[Deterministic_wallet|relatively controllable risk]].

===Using offchain payment networks===

[[Off-Chain_Transactions|Off chain]] networks provides various benefits to Bitcoin, such as instant confirmations and protection against double spending.

===Using a third-party plugin===
You can use an existing [[:Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces|shopping cart interface]] from a 3rd party to automatically handle all Bitcoin payments on your website. If you want to develop the system yourself, you can utilize the Bitcoin client's [[API tutorial (JSON-RPC)|JSON-RPC API]] to automatically accept payments.

Things to note if you build it yourself:
# When a customer orders something on your website it records:
#* Bitcoin address that payment should be sent to
#* Order details (delivery address etc.)
#* Customer's refund address (optional - if you wish you can ask for this later, only in cases a refund is required)
#* Payment amount
# When payment arrives, checks that they have paid the correct amount or not, and informs you
#* You dispatch the goods to the customer and mark the order as fulfilled
#* If you cannot dispatch the goods you mark the order as denied and ask the customer for a refund address (unless you already have it from earlier) to send a refund.
# Forwards the funds to bitcoin address of your choice

===If You have a retail business and do not have internet or smart phone===
You can still accept Bitcoin. [https://easybitz.com/merchant] EasyBitz.com has a very simple way to accept bitcoin with just a print out and a phone that gets sms text messages.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]]

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment. However it is possible to create automated invoices by using known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup.

==Common Errors==
It has been observed on occasion that a business funnels all its orders through the same Bitcoin address, and asks people to send some BTC, then send email describing the timing and the amount of the transaction to 'claim' it. This is '''not''' secure, since anyone can see the transaction details using a tool such as [[Block Explorer]], and then try to claim someone else's transaction as theirs.

Do not do this. Give each customer a unique Bitcoin address.

==Listing your business on the Bitcoin Trade page==

Anyone can add and update a listing on the [[Trade|trade]] page. Just register if you haven't and add to the appropriate category. If you'ld like assistance, perhaps someone in the [http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#bitcoin-marketing #bitcoin-marketing] IRC channel would be willing to assist. If you have a brick and mortar business that accepts bitcoin you can add it to the bitcoin directories. [https://easybitz.com] [http://coinmap.org]

==Services==
* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Merchant solution for Bitcoin specialized in Middle Europe (Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Czech republic)
* [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting bitcoins, getting euro's. No fee. The Netherlands.
* [[BitPay]] Merchant solutions for Bitcoin
* [http://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Payments Gateway for Latin America
* [https://coinbase.com/merchants Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, pages, iframes, shopping cart integration, subscription/recurring billing, micro-transactions, and cash out to your local currency for 1%.
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate] Accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. E-commerce plugins, API, Point of Sale app for Android / iOS / web, payment buttons.
* [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com]] [https://coinkite.com Coinkite] Secure wallet multisig, payment buttons, invoice pages, hardware POS terminals, and Debit-Cards.
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] Bitcoin merchant payment processing. UK-based, serving UK and EU clients.
* [http://www.dcpos.com DC POS] A Bitcoin browser-based Point-of-Sale app. It is hardware, OS, wallet, and browser agnostic. 0.5% transaction fee.
* [[Coinify]] Merchant solutions for Bitcoin
* [http://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] Fraud screening service for online merchants. Support transactions using Bitcoin as payment method.
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com GoCoin] International Payment Processing for Bitcoin
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment Gateway with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [[File:inpay_favicon.png|link=https://inpay.pl/?lang=en]] [https://inpay.pl/?lang=en InPay.pl] InPay was created to enable entrepreneurs to accept Bitcoin in PLN, EUR and USD.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [http://xbterminal.io XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.

==See Also==
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces|Shopping Cart Interfaces]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[Bitcoin Evolution]] handles sales tracking and order forms; requires Bitcoin client for actual payment
* [[Bitcoin API Services]] an easy solution for securely accepting Bitcoins and updating BTC prices
* [[Converter|Bitcoin Javascript Converter]] displays a price in BTCs after converting from USDs.
* [[How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses]]
* [[:Category:Marketing|Marketing]]
* [[URI Scheme]]
* [[Promotional graphics]], buttons and logos
* [https://github.com/cryptoapi/Payment-Gateway GoUrl Bitcoin Payment API] open source php payment api on Github.com
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website
* [http://snowcron.com Snowcron] Bitcoin Store Engine: Handles payments, sends your customers information they ordered (reg. codes, passwords...) No web programming required.
[[Category:ECommerce]]

Merchant Howto

2016-08-28T18:56:40Z

Chevesli: /* Services */

{{merge|How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses}}

Accepting Bitcoins is easy, and there are several ways to do it.

==Manually==
# Download a bitcoin client
# When a customer wants to buy something, send them a Bitcoin address where their payment should be sent.
#* You can do this by clicking "New.." next to your address in the Bitcoin client and sending that address to the customer.
# When payment comes in to that address, send the goods to your customer. Depending on the value of what you're selling, you may wish to wait until the payment shows Confirmed.
# To issue a refund, obtain from the customer the [[Address|bitcoin address]] where the refund payment should be sent. The refund address will likely be different from the address used when the customer sent payment, especially if an [[EWallet]] was used by the customer.

==Automated==
===Pre-generating Bitcoin addresses===
You can accept Bitcoins on your website without needing to use Bitcoin APIs or third party services if you pre-generate a large number of receiving Bitcoin addresses and store them in a database on your web server, and dispense them one-by-one to customers when they are ready to pay. This way, your web server never actually handles the bitcoins - it simply gives out addresses belonging to a wallet you maintain elsewhere. By using a unique address per order, you will always know which payment belongs to which order. [https://www.casascius.com Example of website using this method]

To pre-generate addresses, use a tool such as [[Pywallet]] (which can generate a wallet.dat file) or [[Bitcoin Address Utility]] (which can generate a CSV file). In both cases, you will be generating a list of [[Address|Bitcoin address]]es along with their corresponding [[private key]]s. Only the Bitcoin addresses (not the private keys) should be loaded on the web server.

If you are shipping goods manually, you can use the Bitcoin software to check for incoming payments, or alternately consider using [[Block Explorer]] or [[Abe]] to verify payment when you're about to ship. To make this easy, make your website provide you a full hyperlink that includes the proper receiving address: ht<nowiki>tp://www</nowiki>.blockexplorer.com/address/ADDRESSGOESHERE.

If you are delivering digital goods or services and want to be able to deliver instantly upon payment and/or confirmation, you can use a third-party service such as [[Bitcoin Notify]] to tell your website when a payment has been received. This sort of service requires no significant API implementation - they will simply make a POST to your website or send you an e-mail when a payment has been received on one of your addresses.

If you keep Bitcoins off your web server, this ensures your wallet cannot be stolen if your web server experiences a security intrusion. Your risk becomes limited to the possibility that a successful intruder could add his own addresses to your address pool and steal funds from a few incoming orders until you detect the problem, however, this is a [[Deterministic_wallet|relatively controllable risk]].

===Using offchain payment networks===

[[Off-Chain_Transactions|Off chain]] networks provides various benefits to Bitcoin, such as instant confirmations and protection against double spending.

===Using a third-party plugin===
You can use an existing [[:Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces|shopping cart interface]] from a 3rd party to automatically handle all Bitcoin payments on your website. If you want to develop the system yourself, you can utilize the Bitcoin client's [[API tutorial (JSON-RPC)|JSON-RPC API]] to automatically accept payments.

Things to note if you build it yourself:
# When a customer orders something on your website it records:
#* Bitcoin address that payment should be sent to
#* Order details (delivery address etc.)
#* Customer's refund address (optional - if you wish you can ask for this later, only in cases a refund is required)
#* Payment amount
# When payment arrives, checks that they have paid the correct amount or not, and informs you
#* You dispatch the goods to the customer and mark the order as fulfilled
#* If you cannot dispatch the goods you mark the order as denied and ask the customer for a refund address (unless you already have it from earlier) to send a refund.
# Forwards the funds to bitcoin address of your choice

===If You have a retail business and do not have internet or smart phone===
You can still accept Bitcoin. [https://easybitz.com/merchant] EasyBitz.com has a very simple way to accept bitcoin with just a print out and a phone that gets sms text messages.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]]

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment. However it is possible to create automated invoices by using known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup.

==Common Errors==
It has been observed on occasion that a business funnels all its orders through the same Bitcoin address, and asks people to send some BTC, then send email describing the timing and the amount of the transaction to 'claim' it. This is '''not''' secure, since anyone can see the transaction details using a tool such as [[Block Explorer]], and then try to claim someone else's transaction as theirs.

Do not do this. Give each customer a unique Bitcoin address.

==Listing your business on the Bitcoin Trade page==

Anyone can add and update a listing on the [[Trade|trade]] page. Just register if you haven't and add to the appropriate category. If you'ld like assistance, perhaps someone in the [http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#bitcoin-marketing #bitcoin-marketing] IRC channel would be willing to assist. If you have a brick and mortar business that accepts bitcoin you can add it to the bitcoin directories. [https://easybitz.com] [http://coinmap.org]

==Services==
* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Merchant solution for Bitcoin specialized in Middle Europe (Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Czech republic)
* [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting bitcoins, getting euro's. No fee. The Netherlands.
* [[BitPay]] Merchant solutions for Bitcoin
* [http://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Payments Gateway for Latin America
* [https://coinbase.com/merchants Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, pages, iframes, shopping cart integration, subscription/recurring billing, micro-transactions, and cash out to your local currency for 1%.
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate] Accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. E-commerce plugins, Point of Sale app, payment buttons.
* [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com]] [https://coinkite.com Coinkite] Secure wallet multisig, payment buttons, invoice pages, hardware POS terminals, and Debit-Cards.
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] Bitcoin merchant payment processing. UK-based, serving UK and EU clients.
* [http://www.dcpos.com DC POS] A Bitcoin browser-based Point-of-Sale app. It is hardware, OS, wallet, and browser agnostic. 0.5% transaction fee.
* [[Coinify]] Merchant solutions for Bitcoin
* [http://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] Fraud screening service for online merchants. Support transactions using Bitcoin as payment method.
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com GoCoin] International Payment Processing for Bitcoin
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment Gateway with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [[File:inpay_favicon.png|link=https://inpay.pl/?lang=en]] [https://inpay.pl/?lang=en InPay.pl] InPay was created to enable entrepreneurs to accept Bitcoin in PLN, EUR and USD.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [http://xbterminal.io XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.

==See Also==
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces|Shopping Cart Interfaces]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[Bitcoin Evolution]] handles sales tracking and order forms; requires Bitcoin client for actual payment
* [[Bitcoin API Services]] an easy solution for securely accepting Bitcoins and updating BTC prices
* [[Converter|Bitcoin Javascript Converter]] displays a price in BTCs after converting from USDs.
* [[How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses]]
* [[:Category:Marketing|Marketing]]
* [[URI Scheme]]
* [[Promotional graphics]], buttons and logos
* [https://github.com/cryptoapi/Payment-Gateway GoUrl Bitcoin Payment API] open source php payment api on Github.com
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website
* [http://snowcron.com Snowcron] Bitcoin Store Engine: Handles payments, sends your customers information they ordered (reg. codes, passwords...) No web programming required.
[[Category:ECommerce]]

How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses

2016-08-28T16:15:03Z

Chevesli: /* Examples */

{{merge|Merchant Howto}}

This guide is intended for small business owners who wish to help promote Bitcoin by accepting it as payment for goods and services. It's written with the assumption that you operate a regular business that sells goods or services for regular national currency such as dollars, and that you wish to accept Bitcoin as another legal way to pay, and that you intend to pay taxes on your Bitcoin income just like any other income.

With Bitcoin being touted as a way to conduct anonymous transactions and as way to compete with government currency, many small business owners wonder what's the right way to accept and account Bitcoin, or if it's legal or ethical, or whether and how they should pay taxes on income received through Bitcoin.

As far as we know, Bitcoin isn't yet formally recognized by governments and authorities as a "currency". But in practice, Bitcoin is likely no different than accepting payment in other forms, such as cash, or gold, or scrip, or gift cards or foreign currency. We think that it is pretty much the same as the local businesses of Great Barrington, Massachusetts choosing to accept their locally-printed [http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/19/us-usa-economy-berkshares-idUSN0530157720070619 "Berkshire Bucks"] to support their local economy.

====Starting to accept Bitcoin for transactions====
Accepting Bitcoin at a small business is best started in whichever manner keeps the accounting simple for you. This will vary by the type of business you are operating.

===Start with a sign===
[[{{ns:file}}:WeAcceptBitcoin.png‎]]

If you expect that the number of people interested in using Bitcoin is small, you might simply start by posting a sign or a note: "We Accept Bitcoin", and ask people to contact you directly in order to make a payment. Even if hardly anybody uses Bitcoin as a payment method, you're helping Bitcoin in two ways: one, by increasing awareness, and two, by making your customers more willing to accept Bitcoin as payment from others in the future, because now they know somewhere they can spend it.

===Utilize a merchant solution===
If you sell things on your website (goods or services), you'll want to use a [[#Merchant Services|Bitcoin merchant solution]] to accept the Bitcoins (you can usually opt to have them converted to USD or other currencies automatically with some services).

If you sell things in a brick and mortar shop, customers can pay using hardware terminals, touch screen apps or simple wallet addresses through QR Codes.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]][[File:Coinktie Bitcoin Payment Buttons.png|alt=Coinkite Bitcoin Payment Buttons|link=https://coinkite.com/merchants]]

[[File:Bitcoin-pos-terminal.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|Coinkite terminal]] [[File:Mobile_Web_App_Bitcoin_Register.jpeg|100 px|alt=Bitcoin POS Terminal|CoinBox terminal]]

[[File:Mobile_Checkout_Phone.png|200 px|alt=Bitcoin Mobile Checkout|Coinify Mobile Checkout|link=https://coinify.com]]

===Smart Phone or Tablet===
You can use a wallet address with any wallet. For that it's best if you can place a QR code near your cash register to which the customers can scan with their phone and pay (use http://bitcoinqrcode.org/ to make a QR code sign). For a more convenient solution you can use a dedicated app or webapp that generates a QR code on the fly including the amount.

==== Examples ====
Solutions for smart phones and tablets:
* [[File:Airbitz mobile logo.png|20px|https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/]] [https://airbitz.co/bitcoin-wallet/ Airbitz] Merchant Mode for Android and iOS
* [https://bitcoin.co.th/merchants/ bitcoin.co.th] mobile Bitcoin Point of Sale for Thailand
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], Mobile payment terminal with EUR, USD, PLN and CZK settlements.
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] accept Bitcoin on mobile phone, tablet, computer; converts to Euro/Bitcoin (any percentage)
* [https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-for-retail BitPay] Mobile Checkout
* [https://bitpos.me/demo.html BitPOS] Merchant POS solution for Australia
* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.blockchain.merchant Blockchain] Merchant for Android
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Point of Sale solution available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/pos CoinGate] Bitcoin Point of Sale app for Android, iOS and Bitcoin Point of Sale web app which can be accessed from any internet enabled device directly in a web browser.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Bitcoin Point Of Sale
* [[File:Coin_Of_Sale_logo.png|20px|link=https://coinofsale.com]] [https://coinofsale.com Coin Of Sale] - device-independent Bitcoin POS payment system
* [https://coinbase.com Coinbase] Point Of Sale for Android
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]][http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin point of sale for Android
* [https://cryptopay.me/products/ Cryptopay] HTML5-based bitcoin POS
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Simplest Point of Sale, No Fees and a peer to peer market to buy bitcoin instantly
* [https://gourl.io/ GoUrl] Bitcoin Mobile Checkout

===Point-of-Sale hardware terminal===
With custom hardware you can integrate with existing registers and point-of-sales solutions (examples: [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz]] [https://coinkite.com/promo/wikibiz Coinkite], [https://xbterminal.com/ XBTerminal], [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat]).

===Accounting===
When a customer makes a payment, you might simply issue a credit to their account. Ideally, you want to enter it in a way that suggests you received a payment. You could consider entering it as a "discount", but you may want to consider whether this inappropriately disguises the nature of the transaction. If on the other hand, you're giving "discounts" for Bitcoins, but then you are selling the Bitcoins for currency and then counting that as income, then chances are good that your calculation of income is making up for it. Ask your accountant.

===Businesses that offer gift cards===
If your business sells gift cards or gift certificates, you may find that the easiest way to accept Bitcoin is to accept it only for the purchase of gift cards, and then require the gift cards to be used for actual purchases of goods or services. This way, the accounting practices you already have in place for processing gift cards can be put to use. The accounting for Bitcoins would then be minimized to tracking sales of a single SKU.

This method is also ideal for retail food establishments and convenience stores, where the payment of Bitcoins through a mobile phone for a small daily food purchase might be cumbersome or disruptive, especially in front of a line of other customers. Bitcoins in this case would be best used to reload prepaid cards that can then be swiped at point-of-sale.

If you don't accept gift cards, but you already accept credit cards through a swipe terminal, consider the possibility that you could add a retail gift card system through the swipe terminal you already own. Many point-of-sale terminals, including ones from VeriFone®, are designed around the ability to support multiple applications on the same terminal. Gift cards are also highly profitable because of "breakage", or in other words, the fact that a significant percentage of them never get redeemed.

You could consider adding a private label gift card program from a provider who specializes in this, not just as a jumpstart to accepting Bitcoins, but as an extra boost to income. A private label gift card service provider necessarily have to handle your funds - they can simply provide a solution that keeps track of the balance on the cards on your behalf, including features that allow users to check their balances by phone or by web. Such a solution, of course, is also what makes the cards swipeable through the card reader.

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment.

If you have access to the programming expertise such that you can generate Bitcoin addresses programmatically, consider generating a brand new Bitcoin address for each invoice, and print it on the invoice. When a Bitcoin payment arrives, you'll automatically know where it should arrive.

Customers might wonder how much BTC they should pay in order to satisfy an invoice in full. Your invoice might suggest an amount. For example, if your invoice is for $100 and BTC's are currently worth $1.24 each, your invoice might suggest that it can be paid in full ''"with a payment of 80.65 BTC if paid by (date)"''.

You might be able to anticipate the possibility that even though a Bitcoin address can be printed on an invoice or payment stub, that they are very cumbersome for most people to type, especially being a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. However, you should probably still do it anyway. The customer is probably going to want some paper trail for his payment. Giving him a pre-printed payment stub with a pre-printed address will satisfy that, because the customer can independently and publicly prove through [[Block Explorer]] that the payment took place.

Does your business have a website? On your invoice, consider allowing them to go to a special URL to get the address to make a Bitcoin payment just by typing in their invoice number. For example, ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc'' with a form they can enter their invoice number, or just ''ht<nowiki>tps://ww</nowiki>w.yoursite.com/paybtc/60365'' for paying invoice #60365. This way, they can see the Bitcoin address, copy and paste it directly into their Bitcoin client.

Use a brand new address for each invoice whenever possible, and use it only once. This benefits the customer as it removes any ambiguity as to which customer is making which payment and for which invoice.

Known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup, [https://coinify.com/checkout/invoice/cb/bb Coinify]

Payment companion having peer to peer encrypted invoicing using your own bitcoin address [https://www.blockonomics.co Blockonomics]

===Avoiding fraud===

You should also consider the possible risk that fraudsters could send counterfeit invoices to your customers, and entice them to make a payment to a Bitcoin address they control, instead of you. While that isn't likely in general - it depends on how well a fraudster could find out who your customers are in the first place - it would certainly be an unpleasant situation if it ever happened. One way you could control that is, whenever possible, never let people try to type Bitcoin addresses off payment stubs - instead, force people to get the full Bitcoin address from your website via secure SSL. But, still print ''most'' of the address on the payment stub (perhaps with four or five characters starred out), so that the customer's need for a paper trail can be satisfied, so they can prove they paid if there is ever a dispute. Merchants can also use the IP address geolocation to understand the close proximity of users. There is automated solution such as [https://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] that automates the screening of Bitcoin transactions to determine risk level.

==Setting Prices==

When a business accepts bitcoins for payment, there generally is the need to convert them to the currencies used for paying suppliers, employees and shareholders. Some merchants set prices based on the current market rate at the time the price quote is presented to the customer (merchant services like [[File:Polycoin_favicon.png|20px|link=http://www.polycoin.io]] [http://www.polycoin.io Polycoin], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay], [http://www.bit-pay.com Bit-pay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [http://paysius.com Paysius] or [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] do this automatically).

[[Bitcoin Prices]] lists the exchange rate for many currencies on multiple exchanges.

When prices are determined using an automated process, the current market rate can be based on either a current price or on a weighted average basis. [[Bitcoin Charts]] provides a [http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api data feed that provides weighted prices]. [[Bitcoin Average]] also offers a weighted average price index, featuring average price across all exchanges reachable in the world and in over 150 currencies. 24h sliding average price index is also available and all data is [https://bitcoinaverage.com/api.htm reachable through the API].

When bitcoin funds for purchases are received, some merchants instantly exchange those proceeds into the preferred currency used (again done automatically by [[File:Polycoin_favicon.png|20px|link=http://www.polycoin.io]] [http://www.polycoin.io Polycoin], [https://coinify.com Coinify], [http://www.bit-pay.com Bit-pay], [https://coinbase.com Coinbase], [[File:Favicon-32x32_.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] or [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay]). Hedging for each transaction can nearly entirely eliminate exchange rate risk that the business is exposed to when accepting bitcoins for payment.

==Contract==

A sales contract might be used to ensure that specific terms are met to lessen the chances of a misunderstanding. For instance, the party sending payment is responsible for paying any [[transaction fee]] that might be necessary. A contract might specify that a transaction fee must be paid and what amount, so as to prevent the situation where the transaction is considered a low priority transaction and thus isn't confirmed quickly.

Other items that might be addressed in a contract:

* Requirement and handling of escrow through an [[:Category:Escrow_services|escrow service]].
* Jurisdiction for disputes.
* Refund policy (particularly with the exchange rate being volatile)

==Paying taxes on Bitcoin income==
[[Tax compliance]] is a topic of concern for small businesses. We aren't accountants or lawyers, and can't give legal or accounting advice.

But in many respects, Bitcoin transactions work very much like cash. Just like Bitcoin, cash is anonymous and doesn't leave a paper trail, yet is widely used in commerce every day.

Ask yourself how you would handle a cash transaction. Do you accept cash transactions? Do you normally pay taxes on cash transactions? The answer for Bitcoin should probably be the same.

As for how to decide what a Bitcoin transaction is worth... the IRS, as far as we know, has never issued a guide mentioning how to value Bitcoin transactions. But they probably have rules and guidelines on how to value transactions made in foreign currency or "cash equivalents". We imagine the accounting would be similar.

With Bitcoins, there's likely to be some difference between the value of BTC when you received them as payment, versus when you go to exchange them for another currency like USD, should you decide to do so. This scenario, likewise, would be no different if you accepted foreign currency or gold as payment. Under some scenarios, it might make sense to book the dollar value of BTC income as it is received, and then to book any difference incurred when it is exchanged for fiat currency. Under others, it might make sense to book the whole thing at the time of exchange.

Perhaps you might talk to your accountant. You don't need to get into a discussion with your accountant about block chains and private keys or the philosophy behind a decentralized currency. By comparing the fundamentals of Bitcoins to accounting concepts already well understood by the public, you can probably get all the answers you need. What would you ask your accountant if you decided that you wanted to accept ''Berkshire Bucks'' or 1-ounce gold coins as payment?

== Merchant Services ==
* [https://apicoin.io Apicoin.io] A robust, secure api to connect to the bitcoin network. 12/2015: link dead.
* [http://www.btc4erp.com Bitcoin Transaction Coordinator] Full Merchant Solution for organizations using the NetSuite Global ERP and eCommerce Platform
* [[File:favicon_bp.png|20px|link=https://bitcoinpay.com/static/img/]] [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Payment gateway for virtual currencies with direct settlement to PLN, CZK, EUR and USD. POS + API.
* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [[File:BitKassa_favicon.png|20px|link=https://www.BitKassa.nl]] [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting Bitcoin, getting Euro or Euro/Bitcoin percentage. The Netherlands.
* [https://bitmerch.com BitMerch] Provides HTML buttons to start accepting bitcoins instantly. No server side setup required.
* [https://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Bitcoin and Credit Card payment processor
* [https://www.bitpay.com BitPay] Bitcoin payment processor with mobile checkout solution
* [https://bitpos.me BitPOS] Bitcoin payment processor for online and brick and mortar stores
* [http://www.bitstraat.nl BitStraat] SiteCite: "As of 10-11-2015 BitStraat is discontinued as a company."
* [[File:Bitx-avatar.png|20px|link=https://bitx.co/api]] [https://bitx.co/api BitX API] Merchant API for registered businesses & developers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
* [http://blockchain.info/api/api_receive Blockchain.info] Free APIs to process bitcoin payments. No sign up or account needed. '''Update:''' Starting 01/2016 API2 requires an API key - account required!
* [https://www.btcmerch.com BTCMerch] Payment processor for bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. 0.5% transaction fee. Sandbox is available.
* [https://coinbase.com/docs/merchant_tools/payment_buttons Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, checkout pages, shopping cart integration, and daily cash out to USD.
* [[File:BitcoinRegister.gif|20px|link=http://coinbox.it/merchant]] [http://coinbox.it/merchant CoinBox] Bitcoin Point of Sales application for Android, with integration into various exchanges. Similar to Square.
* [[Cashila]] Online bank account and payment processor. Accepts bitcoin payments, SEPA transfers and [https://www.cashila.com/ pay bills with bitcoin]
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coinify.com Coinify] Payment Service Provider (PSP) specializing in the technical aspects of accepting cryptocurrencies - such as bitcoin. Supports Bitcoin Web Payments, Mobile Checkout, In-store Bitcoin Payments and Bitcoin Invoicing with recurring billing in bitcoin.
* [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com]] [https://coinkite.com/faq/terminal Coinkite] Secure wallet multisig, payment buttons, invoice pages, hardware POS terminals, and Debit-Cards.
* [https://coinpip.com/ CoinPip] Online and POS bitcoin payment processor for Asia.
* [[File:Coinsnap_favicon.jpg|20px|link=http://www.coinsnap.eu]] [[Coinsnap]] European Bitcoin Payment Provider
* [https://coinvoice.com/ Coinvoice] Invoice in USD or BTC, Get paid in USD or BTC.
* [https://coinvoy.net Coinvoy] Free Payment Gateway with built-in exchange
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] European payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR and USD. Exchange and wallet integrated.
* [https://cubits.com Cubits] Platform with multisignature wallets and merchant system Cubits Pay.
* [[File:Paxful_how-to-buy-bitcoin.png |20px|link=https://paxful.com]] [https://paxful.com Paxful] Accept Bitcoin with no internet then sell bitcoin for profit on our peer to peer exchange.
* [http://fasterco.in Fasterco.in] Bitcoin payment processing for merchants and day-traders
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com/docs GoCoin International payment gateway and processing platform for Merchants]
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment processor with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Membership, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [[File:inpay_favicon.png|link=https://inpay.pl/?lang=en]] [https://inpay.pl/?lang=en InPay.pl] InPay was created to enable entrepreneurs to accept Bitcoin in PLN, EUR and USD.
* [[File:MCS_200by200_logo-01.png|20px|link=http://www.mycoinsolution.com]][http://www.mycoinsolution.com My Coin Solution] - Bitcoin consulting services and solutions
* [https://www.okpay.com/en/services/accept-payments/index.html OKPAY] Bitcoin payment processing for merchants
* [[File:Payfast-400.png|20px|link=https://www.payfast.co.za]] [https://www.payfast.co.za PayFast] Merchant solution for South Africa. Integrated in 60+ shopping carts. Supports credit cards, EFT bank transfers and Bitcoin. When buyers pay with Bitcoin, merchants receive the South African rand equivalent, using BitX API
* [[File:Payful.png|20px|link=http://payful.io]] [http://payful.io Payful] Accept bitcoin - point of sale, shopping cart plugins and API. Supports payment processing in US dollars, Euros and Canadian dollars.
* [[File:Polycoin_favicon.png|20px|link=http://www.polycoin.io]] [http://www.polycoin.io Polycoin] Bitcoin payment processing platform with solutions for the financial sector
* [https://pocketpos.ca/ PocketPOS] Bitcoin Point of Sale for Canadians, including merchant integration for CAD / BTC exchange.
* [http://snowcron.com Snowcron] Bitcoin Store Engine: Handles payments, sends your customers information they ordered (reg. codes, passwords...) No web programming required.
* [[File:SpectroCoin.png|20px|link=https://spectrocoin.com]][https://spectrocoin.com SpectroCoin] Payment gateway with daily payouts in GBP, EUR, USD, CZK, PLN and other currencies. Debit card, exchange and wallet offered. Plugins for e-commerce and API offered for integration.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]][https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [https://xbterminal.com/ XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.
* [https://www.blockonomics.co/ Blockonomics] Peer to peer bitcoin invoices using your own bitcoin address.

==See Also==

* [[Merchant Howto]]
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Tax compliance]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[BitCoins Mobile]] provides accurate up to date pricing from multiple exchanges from your Apple iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.
* [[Bitcoin PayFlow]] automates the process for accepting bitcoins
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website

[[Category:ECommerce]]
[[Category:Local]]

[[de:Bitcoin_als_Geschäft_akzeptieren]]

Merchant Howto

2016-08-28T16:05:10Z

Chevesli: /* Services */

{{merge|How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses}}

Accepting Bitcoins is easy, and there are several ways to do it.

==Manually==
# Download a bitcoin client
# When a customer wants to buy something, send them a Bitcoin address where their payment should be sent.
#* You can do this by clicking "New.." next to your address in the Bitcoin client and sending that address to the customer.
# When payment comes in to that address, send the goods to your customer. Depending on the value of what you're selling, you may wish to wait until the payment shows Confirmed.
# To issue a refund, obtain from the customer the [[Address|bitcoin address]] where the refund payment should be sent. The refund address will likely be different from the address used when the customer sent payment, especially if an [[EWallet]] was used by the customer.

==Automated==
===Pre-generating Bitcoin addresses===
You can accept Bitcoins on your website without needing to use Bitcoin APIs or third party services if you pre-generate a large number of receiving Bitcoin addresses and store them in a database on your web server, and dispense them one-by-one to customers when they are ready to pay. This way, your web server never actually handles the bitcoins - it simply gives out addresses belonging to a wallet you maintain elsewhere. By using a unique address per order, you will always know which payment belongs to which order. [https://www.casascius.com Example of website using this method]

To pre-generate addresses, use a tool such as [[Pywallet]] (which can generate a wallet.dat file) or [[Bitcoin Address Utility]] (which can generate a CSV file). In both cases, you will be generating a list of [[Address|Bitcoin address]]es along with their corresponding [[private key]]s. Only the Bitcoin addresses (not the private keys) should be loaded on the web server.

If you are shipping goods manually, you can use the Bitcoin software to check for incoming payments, or alternately consider using [[Block Explorer]] or [[Abe]] to verify payment when you're about to ship. To make this easy, make your website provide you a full hyperlink that includes the proper receiving address: ht<nowiki>tp://www</nowiki>.blockexplorer.com/address/ADDRESSGOESHERE.

If you are delivering digital goods or services and want to be able to deliver instantly upon payment and/or confirmation, you can use a third-party service such as [[Bitcoin Notify]] to tell your website when a payment has been received. This sort of service requires no significant API implementation - they will simply make a POST to your website or send you an e-mail when a payment has been received on one of your addresses.

If you keep Bitcoins off your web server, this ensures your wallet cannot be stolen if your web server experiences a security intrusion. Your risk becomes limited to the possibility that a successful intruder could add his own addresses to your address pool and steal funds from a few incoming orders until you detect the problem, however, this is a [[Deterministic_wallet|relatively controllable risk]].

===Using offchain payment networks===

[[Off-Chain_Transactions|Off chain]] networks provides various benefits to Bitcoin, such as instant confirmations and protection against double spending.

===Using a third-party plugin===
You can use an existing [[:Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces|shopping cart interface]] from a 3rd party to automatically handle all Bitcoin payments on your website. If you want to develop the system yourself, you can utilize the Bitcoin client's [[API tutorial (JSON-RPC)|JSON-RPC API]] to automatically accept payments.

Things to note if you build it yourself:
# When a customer orders something on your website it records:
#* Bitcoin address that payment should be sent to
#* Order details (delivery address etc.)
#* Customer's refund address (optional - if you wish you can ask for this later, only in cases a refund is required)
#* Payment amount
# When payment arrives, checks that they have paid the correct amount or not, and informs you
#* You dispatch the goods to the customer and mark the order as fulfilled
#* If you cannot dispatch the goods you mark the order as denied and ask the customer for a refund address (unless you already have it from earlier) to send a refund.
# Forwards the funds to bitcoin address of your choice

===If You have a retail business and do not have internet or smart phone===
You can still accept Bitcoin. [https://easybitz.com/merchant] EasyBitz.com has a very simple way to accept bitcoin with just a print out and a phone that gets sms text messages.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]]

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment. However it is possible to create automated invoices by using known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup.

==Common Errors==
It has been observed on occasion that a business funnels all its orders through the same Bitcoin address, and asks people to send some BTC, then send email describing the timing and the amount of the transaction to 'claim' it. This is '''not''' secure, since anyone can see the transaction details using a tool such as [[Block Explorer]], and then try to claim someone else's transaction as theirs.

Do not do this. Give each customer a unique Bitcoin address.

==Listing your business on the Bitcoin Trade page==

Anyone can add and update a listing on the [[Trade|trade]] page. Just register if you haven't and add to the appropriate category. If you'ld like assistance, perhaps someone in the [http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#bitcoin-marketing #bitcoin-marketing] IRC channel would be willing to assist. If you have a brick and mortar business that accepts bitcoin you can add it to the bitcoin directories. [https://easybitz.com] [http://coinmap.org]

==Services==
* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Merchant solution for Bitcoin specialized in Middle Europe (Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Czech republic)
* [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting bitcoins, getting euro's. No fee. The Netherlands.
* [[BitPay]] Merchant solutions for Bitcoin
* [http://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Payments Gateway for Latin America
* [https://coinbase.com/merchants Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, pages, iframes, shopping cart integration, subscription/recurring billing, micro-transactions, and cash out to your local currency for 1%.
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [https://coingate.com/merchants CoinGate] Accept Bitcoin payments and receive payouts in Euros, U.S. Dollars or bitcoins. E-commerce plugins, Point of Sale app, payment buttons.
* [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com]] [https://coinkite.com Coinkite] Secure wallet multisig, payment buttons, invoice pages, hardware POS terminals, and Debit-Cards.
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] Bitcoin merchant payment processing. UK-based, serving UK and EU clients.
* [http://www.dcpos.com DC POS] A Bitcoin browser-based Point-of-Sale app. It is hardware, OS, wallet, and browser agnostic. 0.5% transaction fee.
* [[Coinify]] Merchant solutions for Bitcoin
* [http://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] Fraud screening service for online merchants. Support transactions using Bitcoin as payment method.
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com GoCoin] International Payment Processing for Bitcoin
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment Gateway with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [[File:inpay_favicon.png|link=https://inpay.pl/?lang=en]] [https://inpay.pl/?lang=en InPay.pl] InPay was created to enable entrepreneurs to accept Bitcoin in PLN, EUR and USD.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [https://xbterminal.io XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.

==See Also==
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces|Shopping Cart Interfaces]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[Bitcoin Evolution]] handles sales tracking and order forms; requires Bitcoin client for actual payment
* [[Bitcoin API Services]] an easy solution for securely accepting Bitcoins and updating BTC prices
* [[Converter|Bitcoin Javascript Converter]] displays a price in BTCs after converting from USDs.
* [[How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses]]
* [[:Category:Marketing|Marketing]]
* [[URI Scheme]]
* [[Promotional graphics]], buttons and logos
* [https://github.com/cryptoapi/Payment-Gateway GoUrl Bitcoin Payment API] open source php payment api on Github.com
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website
* [http://snowcron.com Snowcron] Bitcoin Store Engine: Handles payments, sends your customers information they ordered (reg. codes, passwords...) No web programming required.
[[Category:ECommerce]]

Merchant Howto

2016-08-28T15:58:15Z

Chevesli: /* Services */

{{merge|How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses}}

Accepting Bitcoins is easy, and there are several ways to do it.

==Manually==
# Download a bitcoin client
# When a customer wants to buy something, send them a Bitcoin address where their payment should be sent.
#* You can do this by clicking "New.." next to your address in the Bitcoin client and sending that address to the customer.
# When payment comes in to that address, send the goods to your customer. Depending on the value of what you're selling, you may wish to wait until the payment shows Confirmed.
# To issue a refund, obtain from the customer the [[Address|bitcoin address]] where the refund payment should be sent. The refund address will likely be different from the address used when the customer sent payment, especially if an [[EWallet]] was used by the customer.

==Automated==
===Pre-generating Bitcoin addresses===
You can accept Bitcoins on your website without needing to use Bitcoin APIs or third party services if you pre-generate a large number of receiving Bitcoin addresses and store them in a database on your web server, and dispense them one-by-one to customers when they are ready to pay. This way, your web server never actually handles the bitcoins - it simply gives out addresses belonging to a wallet you maintain elsewhere. By using a unique address per order, you will always know which payment belongs to which order. [https://www.casascius.com Example of website using this method]

To pre-generate addresses, use a tool such as [[Pywallet]] (which can generate a wallet.dat file) or [[Bitcoin Address Utility]] (which can generate a CSV file). In both cases, you will be generating a list of [[Address|Bitcoin address]]es along with their corresponding [[private key]]s. Only the Bitcoin addresses (not the private keys) should be loaded on the web server.

If you are shipping goods manually, you can use the Bitcoin software to check for incoming payments, or alternately consider using [[Block Explorer]] or [[Abe]] to verify payment when you're about to ship. To make this easy, make your website provide you a full hyperlink that includes the proper receiving address: ht<nowiki>tp://www</nowiki>.blockexplorer.com/address/ADDRESSGOESHERE.

If you are delivering digital goods or services and want to be able to deliver instantly upon payment and/or confirmation, you can use a third-party service such as [[Bitcoin Notify]] to tell your website when a payment has been received. This sort of service requires no significant API implementation - they will simply make a POST to your website or send you an e-mail when a payment has been received on one of your addresses.

If you keep Bitcoins off your web server, this ensures your wallet cannot be stolen if your web server experiences a security intrusion. Your risk becomes limited to the possibility that a successful intruder could add his own addresses to your address pool and steal funds from a few incoming orders until you detect the problem, however, this is a [[Deterministic_wallet|relatively controllable risk]].

===Using offchain payment networks===

[[Off-Chain_Transactions|Off chain]] networks provides various benefits to Bitcoin, such as instant confirmations and protection against double spending.

===Using a third-party plugin===
You can use an existing [[:Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces|shopping cart interface]] from a 3rd party to automatically handle all Bitcoin payments on your website. If you want to develop the system yourself, you can utilize the Bitcoin client's [[API tutorial (JSON-RPC)|JSON-RPC API]] to automatically accept payments.

Things to note if you build it yourself:
# When a customer orders something on your website it records:
#* Bitcoin address that payment should be sent to
#* Order details (delivery address etc.)
#* Customer's refund address (optional - if you wish you can ask for this later, only in cases a refund is required)
#* Payment amount
# When payment arrives, checks that they have paid the correct amount or not, and informs you
#* You dispatch the goods to the customer and mark the order as fulfilled
#* If you cannot dispatch the goods you mark the order as denied and ask the customer for a refund address (unless you already have it from earlier) to send a refund.
# Forwards the funds to bitcoin address of your choice

===If You have a retail business and do not have internet or smart phone===
You can still accept Bitcoin. [https://easybitz.com/merchant] EasyBitz.com has a very simple way to accept bitcoin with just a print out and a phone that gets sms text messages.

[[File:Easybitz bitcoin pointofsale.png|400 px|alt=Accept Bitcoin without internet|EasyBitz ZeroClick System|link=https://easybitz.com/merchant]]

===Businesses that mail invoices===
Does your business send out invoices to customers? Adding one line may make a huge impact for the Bitcoin economy. Perhaps you list it as a payment option just after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, even if that means your customer must call or e-mail to make a payment. However it is possible to create automated invoices by using known payment systems supporting invoicing, and recurring invoice setup.

==Common Errors==
It has been observed on occasion that a business funnels all its orders through the same Bitcoin address, and asks people to send some BTC, then send email describing the timing and the amount of the transaction to 'claim' it. This is '''not''' secure, since anyone can see the transaction details using a tool such as [[Block Explorer]], and then try to claim someone else's transaction as theirs.

Do not do this. Give each customer a unique Bitcoin address.

==Listing your business on the Bitcoin Trade page==

Anyone can add and update a listing on the [[Trade|trade]] page. Just register if you haven't and add to the appropriate category. If you'ld like assistance, perhaps someone in the [http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#bitcoin-marketing #bitcoin-marketing] IRC channel would be willing to assist. If you have a brick and mortar business that accepts bitcoin you can add it to the bitcoin directories. [https://easybitz.com] [http://coinmap.org]

==Services==
* [[File:Bitfavicon.png|20px|link=http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com]] [http://www.bitcoinpaygate.com Bitcoinpaygate] Bitcoin payment processing for the web & in store payments
* [https://bitcoinpay.com BitcoinPay] Merchant solution for Bitcoin specialized in Middle Europe (Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Czech republic)
* [https://www.BitKassa.nl BitKassa] Merchant solution for accepting bitcoins, getting euro's. No fee. The Netherlands.
* [[BitPay]] Merchant solutions for Bitcoin
* [http://www.bitpagos.net BitPagos] Payments Gateway for Latin America
* [https://coinbase.com/merchants Coinbase] Offers payment buttons, pages, iframes, shopping cart integration, subscription/recurring billing, micro-transactions, and cash out to your local currency for 1%.
* [[File:CoinCorner_blue_logo.png|20px|link=https://coincorner.com]] [https://www.coincorner.com/ForBusiness CoinCorner] - Integrate CoinCorner Checkout in to your eCommerce business using a simple plugin or the API for Bitcoin Payments. Point of Sale solution also available that allows physical retailers to easily accept bitcoin and automatically convert that to fiat, removing the risk of holding bitcoins.
* [[File:Coinkite.gif|20px|link=https://coinkite.com]] [https://coinkite.com Coinkite] Secure wallet multisig, payment buttons, invoice pages, hardware POS terminals, and Debit-Cards.
* [https://cryptopay.me Cryptopay] Bitcoin merchant payment processing. UK-based, serving UK and EU clients.
* [http://www.dcpos.com DC POS] A Bitcoin browser-based Point-of-Sale app. It is hardware, OS, wallet, and browser agnostic. 0.5% transaction fee.
* [[Coinify]] Merchant solutions for Bitcoin
* [http://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] Fraud screening service for online merchants. Support transactions using Bitcoin as payment method.
* [[File:gocoin-logo.png|20px|link=https://www.gocoin.com]] [https://www.gocoin.com GoCoin] International Payment Processing for Bitcoin
* [https://gourl.io Gourl.io] Bitcoin Payment Gateway with ready to use php scripts - Pay-Per-Download, Pay-Per-Product, Pay-Per-Registration.
* [[File:inpay_favicon.png|link=https://inpay.pl/?lang=en]] [https://inpay.pl/?lang=en InPay.pl] InPay was created to enable entrepreneurs to accept Bitcoin in PLN, EUR and USD.
* [[File:Spicepay-bitcoin-payment-gateway-96x96.png|20px|link=https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/]] [https://www.spicepay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway/ SpicePay] Accept Bitcoin for payments at this bitcoin processor that targets Europe, Russia and Latin America.
* [https://xbterminal.io XBTerminal] Brick-and-mortar hardware POS terminals with payment processing integrations.

==See Also==
* [[In-store Transactions]]
* [[:Category:Shopping Cart Interfaces|Shopping Cart Interfaces]]
* [[:Category:Payment_Processors|Payment Processors]]
* [[Securing online services]]
* [[Bitcoin Evolution]] handles sales tracking and order forms; requires Bitcoin client for actual payment
* [[Bitcoin API Services]] an easy solution for securely accepting Bitcoins and updating BTC prices
* [[Converter|Bitcoin Javascript Converter]] displays a price in BTCs after converting from USDs.
* [[How to accept Bitcoin, for small businesses]]
* [[:Category:Marketing|Marketing]]
* [[URI Scheme]]
* [[Promotional graphics]], buttons and logos
* [https://github.com/cryptoapi/Payment-Gateway GoUrl Bitcoin Payment API] open source php payment api on Github.com
* [[Lazy API]] The lazy (and possibly easiest?) way to accept bitcoin payments on your website
* [http://snowcron.com Snowcron] Bitcoin Store Engine: Handles payments, sends your customers information they ordered (reg. codes, passwords...) No web programming required.
[[Category:ECommerce]]