Many companies both big and small are starting to see how popular bitcoins are getting. They are also beginning to develop their own strategies to start accepting bitcoins as a form of payment, for instance, many are choosing to install a bitcoin ATM on the premises. Not only can you boost your business, but you can also encourage people to use your company because it uses bitcoins. Here are some of the ways you can start preparing your business to accept bitcoins.

Create Your Bitcoin Address

Before you can start to process bitcoin, you need to set up a bitcoin wallet, which is simply an address where your customers will send their money to. It works similar to an email in that they input your address and then the amount to pay and hit send. The money will then appear in your wallet that you are using. At the end of each working day, it is advised that you empty the wallet and put the bitcoin somewhere safe. There are many places that you can store these coins, but you shouldn’t keep them all in the main business wallet.

Use a Payment Processor

You might find that your sales process might be a little too complicated to deal with bitcoin payments directly, so you might want to involve a payment processor to help you. They can also be useful if you find that you are dealing with many transactions a day. There are a few companies that offer payment processors, so you can do a little research to find the best one for you. They might charge you a percentage of the sale, or a monthly fee for processing the payments, but on average they are still cheaper than credit card companies.

Advertise That You Are Accepting Bitcoin

Your customers won’t know that you accept bitcoins unless you tell them. If you have a website, then place a banner on the front page to tell people you ‘now accept bitcoin.’ Ideally, you also want to have a payment button next to your existing PayPal and credit card buttons. If you also have stores, then get some stickers and place them on your storefront and next to the existing payment symbols. Many people that buy bitcoin like to support companies that accept them as payment, so advertising is going to get you noticed.

Think About Bookkeeping and Taxes

As with other payments, you will need to find out how you can add bitcoin transactions to your accounts and pay the right taxes. Many accounting firms have now adapted to deal with bitcoin transactions and how they need to be logged. Before you start to accept bitcoin, you should see if your accountant can help you. If they can’t, then you will need to find an accountant that can. It is important to get this part right to prevent issues later in the tax year.

Bitcoin are fast becoming a main form of currency online. That means you and your company need to think about whether accepting this currency will be worth it to you and your customers.