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30/11/2009 -
As most businesses plan their budgets for the coming year, IT costs - especially related to merchant services such as payment processing - can be a sore spot for small businesses whose budgets are already stretched.It can also be a complicated situation for franchises, whose franchisees are often not involved in the budgeting process but are under pressure to properly maintain their POS terminals and other payment processing infrastructure, often without enough funding from the corporate office, said Todd L. Michaud for StorefrontBacktalk.com.
"The chain’s leadership should educate their franchisees on the reality of IT spending within their system and help franchisees plan their IT spend for the year, even if no specific projects are planned or business cases presented," wrote Michaud.
This is because continued IT maintenance can be more costly than small business owners realize, even if no large projects are planned. Franchisees should expect to budget out 1.2 percent of sales for IT costs, recommended Michaud.
This year may require some additional tweaking to the IT budget as payment processing security requirements are currently being revised - the PCI Security Standards Council is now in the third phase of developing the new PCI DSS code.
