Lodgix is ending our support for Bambora (formerly Beanstream) because so few Lodgix customers use it (mostly due to high rates). We recommend switching your merchant services to Stripe Canada.
What are the first steps in moving away from Bambora?
Review your current effective rate. We want to reduce your monthly processing charges, not increase them. Therefore, it's important that you print out the last two months of your Bambora statements and calculate your effective rate. Add up all your processing and gateway charges and divide that by your charge volume, the result will be a percentage probably between 3 and 5%. Once you know your effective rate, you can compare it versus other providers.
The most simple move would be to Stripe Canada. Their pricing is located here:
If the effective rate you calculated above is >2.9% than you are probably paying too much and switching to Stripe Canada will save you money.
You are welcome to send your statements to us and we will do the analysis for you.
Stripe Canada
One of the primary benefits of moving to Stripe Canada is that they offer rapid signup (15 minutes or less), great rates and simple statements. Unlike the process of getting underwritten at Bambora / Beanstream, Stripe is super easy. You can make the switch in <30 minutes.
Integrating Stripe to Lodgix is also very simple, instructions are located here:
The Downside of leaving Bambora / Beanstream
The primary downside of moving to Stripe will be the loss of guest stored payment profiles. That simply means that when you switch to Stripe Canada, all existing guest credit card data will be lost. To re-obtain the guest credit card data, when the remaining balance is due, a payment request must be sent to the guest. This is a very simple process:
..and should not result in any inconvenience to the guest.