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The hospitality industry is one with a significant number of “moving parts” that you’ll have to master at any given time. Not only do you need to know how to work in an inherently dangerous environment like a commercial kitchen as safely as possible, but you’ll also need to know how to serve both food and alcohol responsibly. One area where people coming into the industry tend not to pay enough attention to, however, has to do with processing financial transactions. Being paid is arguably the most important part of the whole enterprise, so if you want to process financial transactions adequately you’ll need to keep a few key things in mind.
Always Check for ID
One of the most important factors to concern yourself with regarding the processing of financial transactions involves knowing when to check for an ID with a credit card. Food and drink purchases often show up on stolen credit cards in the event of something like identity theft specifically because they’re so difficult to dispute. After all, it’s easy to prove that a customer didn’t spend $1000 on the Internet after their card got stolen – it’s much harder to prove that they didn’t go out for a nice dinner or a couple of drinks with friends.
As a result, you should get into the habit of ALWAYS checking for identification whenever a credit card is presented to you. Not only will this ultimately help protect your customers, but it will also help to protect your business. If the credit card company does side with a customer and the charge is reversed, they’ll get their money back. Your restaurant, on the other hand, can never get back to the food or drinks that were served.
Receipt Retention
Another positive habit that you should get into involves making a business-wide policy regarding how long receipts are kept and where they’re stored. In the event of a dispute, that signed customer receipt may be the only thing standing in the way between your restaurant and a reversed charge. Familiarize yourself with the ever-changing charge dispute policies at credit card companies and use that as a guide when determining just how long credit card receipts should be kept. You also may want to look into scanning them and storing them digitally for the purposes of both security and to decrease the physical space required to hang onto them in the first place.
RSA Melbourne
These are just a few of the reasons why training and hospitality courses like the ones offered by RSA Melbourne are so important. They help provide you with the knowledge, expertise and real-world experience required to not only handle and process financial transactions, but to serve food and alcohol responsibly, and more. Hospitality training courses are one of the single best ways to advance your career in a booming industry and help you achieve all of your professional goals, regardless of where in the country you happen to live. Contact RSA Melbourne today for more information.
