Sunday, February 8, 2015

Accepting Bitcoins / For small business owners looking to take a step into the future by accepting bitcoin, here are the answers to the most frequently asked questions.

Bitcointradeexperts.com writes:  Are bitcoin transactions different than those with regular currencies?
As far as your small business is concerned, payments made in bitcoin should be treated just like any other form of payment. That is to say, bitcoins are legal, and transactions completed with them should be recorded and taxed just like those made with more standard, fiat currencies.
Will customers actually use bitcoin?
The best way to get customers to use bitcoin at your store is to advertise. Put up a sign in your store and on your website proclaiming that you accept bitcoin. This will not only encourage customers who already use bitcoin to pay with it at your store, but will also give more existing customers incentive to join in on the bitcoin revolution because they now know of at least one place that will accept their new digital currency.
How will customers pay with bitcoin in my store?
For in-store bitcoin purchases, you will need either hardware terminals, an app available via smartphone, or a wallet address accessible via QR codes. For the latter, simply place your wallet QR code near your cash register for customers to scan with their phone when it comes time to pay. For payment a smartphone or tablet app, simply download on of the many available Point of Sale payment solutions available today, including BitPOS, Coin of Sale, EasyBitz, and many more. If you mail invoices, bitcoin can also be listed as a payment option much like credit cards, and then customers can complete the payment online.
How will customers pay with bitcoin online?
For online bitcoin purchases, your store will need to use a Bitcoin Merchant Solution. These solutions can usually conveniently convert bitcoin purchases into fiat currencies, such as US dollars, for easier accounting.
How do I set prices in bitcoin?
When accepting bitcoins as payment, you’ll need a service that converts them into the form of the fiat currency (US dollar, for example) with which you do the majority of your business. To do this, you will likely require a merchant service to convert your standard prices into bitcoin prices based on the current market rate. These rates are constantly changing due to the volatility of bitcoin.
Some merchant services, such as Polycoin, Coinify, Coinbase, and others, do this conversion automatically. If your merchant service does not, you can find the current exchange rate for most currencies listed on Bitcoin Prices or find a weighted average price index at Bitcoin Average.
How do I pay taxes on bitcoin?
When getting around to paying your taxes, you’ll want to calculate in your bitcoin transactions just like you would cash. The one difference comes about due to the high levels of fluctuation in bitcoin worth, which could wreak havoc on your bookkeeping if you don’t convert your bitcoin to fiat currency immediately upon receiving it.

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