Independent Payments Advisor · Michigan · Since 2015

We’re Not Selling You a POS.

We’re Finding You the Right One.

POS and payments sales is a contact sport. We do the discovery, the paperwork, the quote comparison, and the negotiation. For most merchants, we work inside our in-network provider relationships — at no cost to you.

Free
Statement review
10+ yrs
Vendor relationships
Multi
Vendor quotes
Yours
Final decision

The POS Sales Game

Why Working With a Sales Rep Is a Losing Position

POS and payment processing is one of the few industries where the seller knows the pricing math and the buyer doesn’t. That asymmetry is exactly how merchants end up locked into bad contracts with rates that creep every quarter.

Bait-and-Switch Rates

You signed at 1.95%. The first statement comes in and your effective rate is 2.85%. The rep doesn’t mention interchange downgrades, non-qualified transactions, or the “tier” pricing buried in the fine print.

3-Year Contracts

Auto-renewing. Early termination fee of $500 or more. You discovered the bad deal six months in and now you’re a hostage for the next 2.5 years.

Junk Fees

PCI non-compliance fee, monthly minimum, statement fee, batch fee, regulatory recovery fee, network access fee. Each one is $5 to $99. They add up to real money over a year.

Bundled Hardware Leases

$89 per month for 7 years on a payment terminal that costs $400 retail. Non-cancellable lease through a separate finance company that has nothing to do with the processor. Total cost: $7,476 on a $400 device.

Wrong POS for the Business

Restaurant-grade POS deployed at a retail shop because the rep’s commission was higher. The features you actually need are buried or missing. The training is a waste because the workflows don’t match your operation.

Sales Rep Ghosting

The deal closed. The rep disappeared. The phone number on your statement leads to a support center in another country, and the local relationship you thought you were buying never existed.

What We Actually Do

Your Advocate in the Conversation

  • Discovery. How your business actually takes payments today — in-store, online, mobile, recurring, invoicing, multi-channel.

  • Statement review. We decode your current rate sheet line by line and flag every fee that doesn’t need to exist.

  • Vendor sourcing. We reach out to multiple matched providers from our in-network relationships so the comparison is real, not theoretical.

  • Paperwork. Applications, financials, business documents, signed disclosures — we handle the back-and-forth so you don’t spend a week on email threads.

  • Quote comparison. Apples-to-apples, in writing, with the landmines flagged. We translate “qualified rate” vs. “effective rate” into numbers you can actually compare.

  • Recommendation. Our pick, with the reasoning, in writing. You see the math, not just a verbal pitch.

  • Go-live support. We stay involved through application approval, hardware delivery, and the first successful transaction.

  • Ongoing advocacy. If your statement looks wrong, if support is unresponsive, if something gets weird — we’re your back-channel into the provider.

Categories We Cover

Matched to Your Business Model

We don’t push one processor. We have working relationships across the major categories so the recommendation actually matches your business. Specific in-network providers vary by category and update over time — we’ll match you to the right ones on the discovery call.

Restaurants & Food

Full service, quick service, food truck, multi-location. Toast, Square for Restaurants, Clover, Lightspeed Restaurant, SpotOn — we know the strengths and weaknesses of each in the categories of business that actually use them.

Retail & Specialty

Inventory-heavy or service-mix businesses. Square, Clover Retail, Lightspeed Retail, Heartland Retail. Designed for businesses where the product catalog, vendor purchasing, and reorder discipline matter as much as the checkout.

Services & Appointments

Salons, spas, fitness studios, professional services, anyone who books before they sell. Square Appointments, Vagaro, Booker, GlossGenius — we match the platform to your booking pattern and team structure.

Pure Payment Processing

For businesses that already have a POS and just want better processing. Heartland, Worldpay, Helcim, Stax — standalone merchant accounts with transparent pricing models that don’t bury fees in the rate sheet.

How We’re Paid

Two Paths. One Straight Answer.

When you read “free advisor” elsewhere, it usually means “we have one vendor and we’re selling them.” Our model lets us tell you honestly when our in-network providers aren’t the right answer — because we have a second path.

Path 1 · Most Common
In-Network Match — $0 to You

If one of our in-network providers is a strong fit for your business — and for most merchants, one of them is — the vendor pays our referral when you sign. That fee comes from their margin, not your processing rate.

Statement review
Vendor sourcing & paperwork
Quote comparison
Recommendation + go-live
Path 2 · Specialized Cases
Out-of-Network — Paid Advisory

If your situation needs a provider outside our network — niche industry, unusual transaction volume, specific integration — we’ll quote a paid advisory engagement. You get the same independent process, with the recommendation in writing.

Same statement-review process
Broader vendor sourcing
Genuinely independent — no kickback bias
Quoted on the call, never a surprise

The statement review is always free, regardless of path. We’ll tell you which one fits before any commitment.

How a Merchant Review Works

Five Steps. Two Weeks. Your Decision.

1
30-Min Call

Your business model, your current pain, your priorities.

2
Statement Review

We decode what you’re paying now, line by line.

3
Vendor Outreach

We contact 3-5 matched providers, handle the paperwork.

4
Comparison Report

Side-by-side quotes, our recommendation in writing.

5
Your Call

Switch, stay, or take it back to your current vendor to negotiate.

By the Numbers

A Decade of Decoding Statements

100+
Merchant reviews
10+ yrs
Vendor relationships
Free
Statement review
2 wks
Typical turnaround

Questions We Hear All the Time

POS & Payments — FAQs

You can, and most people do once. They get bait-and-switched, sign a contract they regret, and then call us. Going direct means you’re negotiating against a commissioned sales rep solo, with no visibility into how the rate sheet actually works inside the industry. We come in with vendor relationships and a decade of statement reads — the negotiating leverage you can’t build by yourself.

It means we have an established working relationship with the provider — we know how their pricing actually works, who at the company picks up the phone, and what landmines to flag. When we find an in-network match for your business, the vendor pays our small referral fee when you sign. That fee comes from their margin, not from your processing rate, and there’s no cost to you.

We’ll tell you on the call. For specialized situations — niche industries, unusual transaction volumes, specific integration needs — we offer a paid advisory engagement. Same independent process as the in-network path, but you pay us instead of the vendor, which keeps the recommendation genuinely clean. We’ll quote the engagement on the call so you know what you’re getting before committing.

No. The statement review is always free, regardless of whether we end up matching you with an in-network provider or quoting an advisory engagement. We tell you which path fits before you commit to anything — including any payment.

Often, yes. Even if you don’t want to switch POS systems, the payment processing piece can frequently be moved or renegotiated. We do the same statement review and tell you honestly whether there’s a real opportunity. If there isn’t, we’ll say so — we’d rather give you a clean answer than waste your time chasing a few basis points.

None universally. The right POS depends entirely on your business. Toast is excellent for full-service restaurants, lousy for retail. Square is great for small operators, painful at scale. Lightspeed excels at inventory-heavy retail, less at fast-paced food service. We don’t have a favorite child — we have a list of platforms we know well, and we match the platform to your business.

Implementation handoff to the provider is part of the standard process — they typically include training and remote installation. We stay involved through go-live to make sure the handoff goes well, the first successful transaction happens, and you have a clear escalation path if anything goes wrong. If you want more hands-on local install and integration with your network/cabling, we offer that separately as part of our broader IT services.

You call us first. We don’t walk away after the contract closes. If your statement looks wrong, if support is unresponsive, if something gets weird — we’re your back-channel into the provider. That ongoing relationship is one of the real benefits of going through us versus direct.

Restaurants, retail shops, service businesses (salons, spas, fitness, professional services), e-commerce operations, and merchants who just need a better processing rate. Michigan-based small to mid-size operators are our sweet spot. We’ve done everything from a single-location coffee shop to a multi-property resort group.

Ready When You Are

Stop Letting the POS Rep Run the Conversation.

Get an Advocate.

Send us your most recent processing statement. We’ll decode it in writing — free, no obligation — even if you’re not actively shopping.

Real Humans, Real Conversations

844-959-5040

Northern Technology Services · Petoskey, MI · Serving Michigan since 2015