by Matt Rej
BarVision helps bars and restaurants monitor liquor inventory, detect overpours, track giveaways, and prevent employee theft.
The system works by replacing standard pour spots with BarVision’s “smart” wireless IoT spouts that track what’s being poured, when it’s poured, and how much. All the data is automatically synced to the BarVison platform, which can integrate with your POS system to match every pour against sales.
BarVision works fine as a standalone solution. But most businesses using this technology tend to (optionally) set it up for integrated payment processing.
And if you go that route, you’ll be using Shift4 as your backend processor.
How Shift4 Integrates With BarVision
For integrated payments to work in BarVision, you need two things to start:
- BarVision account
- Shift4 merchant agreement
It’s important to understand that these two things are completely independent of each other. BarVision is your technology provider for the smart spouts and liquor data, while Shift4 is your payment processor.
Once you have each of these two things in place, you’ll install BarVision as a marketplace application from the Shift4 Marketplace.
BarVision is Only Compatible With Select Shift4 POS Software
In addition to having Shift4 as your processor, you also need to have certain software from Shift4 for the integration to work.
The following POS systems from Shift4 all support the BarVision integration:
- SkyTab POS (version 1.37.0 or higher)
- Harbortouch Hospitality (version 3.7.5.4888 or higher)
- FuturePOS (version 6 or higher)
- POSitouch (version 6.41 or higher)
- Restaurant Manager (version 21 or higher)
If you’re using a non-supported version of a Shift4 POS system and you attempt to install the BarVision app from Shift4’s marketplace, you’ll be prompted to “request a POS upgrade” before you continue.
What if You’re Already Using Another Payment Processor
For those of you who are already set up with another merchant services provider, you can still use BarVision without switching to Shift4.
BarVision can still access exported data from your POS system. It just won’t be fully integrated with the payment data from your POS system.
But ultimately, it’s typically not worth switching to Shift4 if you’re already set up elsewhere.
BarVision works great for businesses that are currently using Shift4 or new businesses that want to use this platform while setting up a new merchant account at the same time.
How BarVision Pricing Works With Integrated Payment Processing
BarVison’s platform and your payment processing fees are priced completely separately. Here’s how it works.
- BarVision Subscription: Starts at $250 to $300 per month with an annual contract, billed quarterly.
- Payment Processing from Shift4: Once you set up a merchant account with Shift4, they handle all of your merchant processing fees. This includes interchange rates and assessments from the card networks, plus Shift4’s markup, POS software, transaction-based fees, and other miscellaneous charges from Shift4.
It’s important to understand that BarVision does NOT have anything to do with your payment processing rates.
This is confusing for some businesses, especially those of you who were connected to Shift4 from the BarVision website. In this scenario, BarVision is just referring you to Shift4 because that’s the only supported provider for the integrated payment integration.
It’s common for payment processors (in this case, Shift4) to pay commissions to platform providers (BarVision) for the referral. This setup can often result in slightly inflated rates on processing, as Shift4 needs to earn enough money to pay BarVision’s commission while still profiting from your account.
What to Know About Integrated Payment Processing With Shift4
Shift4 is a well-established payment processor, and they have a long history working with businesses in the bar and restaurant space.
So in terms of processing technology, capabilities, and industry-specific hardware and software, they definitely have everything your business needs to succeed.
We work with dozens of businesses that use Shift4 for payment processing (both integrated and non-integrated). My team is very familiar with Shift4’s contracts and billing structure, which is customized for each business. And here’s what you should know about them:
- Make sure you’re on a true interchange-plus pricing plan to get the best rates.
- Avoid Shift4’s “simple change” pricing model, which is similar to IC+ but ends up being more expensive.
- You need to closely monitor your statements every month, as we’ve found some mistakes on Shift4’s billing that resulted in overcharges to merchants.
- Shift4 charges an extra fee on your total payment volume if you opt for monthly billing instead of daily billing.
- Watch out for certain fees that Shift4 adds to statements in order to pad their margins.
- Expect your Shift4 rates to increase over time.
Historically, we’ve liked Shift4.
But as of the last year or two, we noticed them adding more and more junk fees to merchant accounts, which is unfortunate from what’s otherwise a high-quality processor.
One example is their Regulatory Assurance Fee, which is charged $325 per year per device. And this is in addition to Shift4’s $99 per device annual fee. We also see them charging monthly admin fees, enhanced security fees, and EMV device maintenance fees.
When you add all of these up, it’s easily thousands of dollars in “extra” fees charged to your account that aren’t tied to any benefit or service.
How to Keep Your Credit Card Processing Rates Low With Integrated Payments
It’s important for you to understand that you’re not bound by the rates set by your processor, which is Shift4 if you’re using integrated payments with BarVision.
Your rates are completely negotiable, and you can push back against Shift4’s rate increases and extra fees that they are charging to your account.
One tricky part of navigating these negotiations is the BarVision integration.
Shift4 knows that they are effectively the only game in town, as no other processors can integrate payments directly here. This gives them a bit more leverage than if there were more competition.
And while we don’t recommend changing processors, you can always threaten to leave or even get a quote from another provider (even if you have no intention of going with them).
It requires some effort, but monitoring your account for extra fees and just staying on Shift4 to remove them can save you thousands.
But a solution like BarVision, while definitely helpful to your business, shouldn’t take priority over getting the best possible deal on credit card processing. That’s why we don’t think it’s wise for you to switch to Shift4 if you’re already set up with another provider.
You can still use BarVision’s technology and get all of the insights, without having the payments integrated.