Flagship Review

Pros & Cons

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Flagship Overview

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For over two decades, Flagship has been helping businesses process payments through its entirely customized solutions. With experience assisting over 25,000 small business merchants, it knows what it takes to get you set up for payment processing, regardless of how you accept payments.

When you partner with Flagship, you can expect dedicated support and guaranteed low rates. Flagship’s experts truly take the time to understand your unique business needs before recommending a payment solution that fits.

Whether you need terminals, a virtual terminal, or a POS system, Flagship has the hardware you need–some of which you can get for free.

While there’s nothing that really stands out about Flagship compared to others in the industry, its longevity and focus on crafting customized solutions makes it a great choice if you want a reliable partner with a proven track record.

Flagship Plans and Pricing

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When it comes to pricing, Flagship prioritizes personalized solutions, including how much it’ll cost and what the pricing structure looks like. This consultative approach means you’ll only pay for the solutions and features that make sense for your company.

However, it also means you have no idea what your fees will look like until you talk to them.

While the lack of published prices is frustrating, Flagship’s intent is to create a plan that fits your specific business—you won’t get any sort of cookie cutter solution. During your consultation, an expert will take the time to understand your industry, transaction volume, and growth goals. They’ll then craft a pricing proposal featuring the perfect combination of software, hardware, and services.

Flagship also guarantees the lowest rates in the industry.

If you find a better offer that reduces your overall processing costs, the company will send you a $200 gift card.

Plus, all new merchant accounts come with a free Clover mini or credit card terminal. Most competitors only provide free hardware terminals, so getting a complete mini POS system at no cost is a major perk.

Payment Options

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Whether you operate online, in-store, or on-the-go, Flagship can put together a customized solution that matches your needs.

No matter what, you’ll be able to accept every type of payment imaginable–swipes, dips, taps, digital wallets, and more.

For mobile transactions, you’ll be able to use the iPayment MobilePay system. This includes a card reader that plugs into your phone’s headphone jack to accept chip cards and mag strips.

You’ll also get inventory management, barcode scanning, tip adjustments, digital receipts, and other handy features right from your phone.

When it comes to ecommerce and virtual terminals, Flagship uses Authorize.Net, an industry-wide standard. It gives you tools for invoicing, recurring billing, top-notch fraud protection, customer payment profiles for faster checkouts, and other ecommerce essentials.

In your brick-and-mortar location, Flagship offers a wide selection of POS hardware, including Clover stations. Clover solutions come with dozens of features, including onscreen signatures , digital receipts, QR code scanning, inventory management, receipt printing, and more.

No matter how a customer prefers to pay, Flagship has you covered with customized payment processing. And you’ll likely see funds in your account within two business days.

Ecommerce Functionality

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As we mentioned, Flagship leans on Authorize.Net’s ecommerce and virtual terminal solution rather than providing its own custom software. Most merchant services providers work with Authorize.Net, so it’s no surprise.

While it generally works best for established online stores, Authorize.Net has options if you’re just starting out. As long as you have a website, you don’t need anything else. You can seamlessly embed its basic customizable shopping cart into your site. However, you’ll need to know some HTML and CSS to customize the look and feel.

It’s really best for businesses with simple checkout flows that don’t require a lot of customization or advanced functionality.

But you can opt for a full ecommerce website builder (like BigCommerce or Shopify) and integrate Authorize.Net via its API if you need a full store with inventory management, customizable product listings, and shipping solutions.

Authorize.Net’s suite of services extends beyond shopping carts, though. You’ll also have access to digital invoicing tools to easily bill customers and built-in fraud protection to safeguard transactions.

You can also use the mobile or desktop app to take keyed-in payments from anywhere with no hardware required.

Customer Support

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Flagship uses a tiered system to connect you with the right support staff.

First, there’s the self-service portal. Whenever you have a quick account question or need basic information, you can find answers through the knowledge base or talk to a support agent on the phone. The portal makes handling routine issues smooth and straightforward.

Plus, it’s available any time of day, seven days a week.

However, the real jewel is your personal Flagship account representative. This go-to contact is a phone call or message away whenever you need them.

While able to answer simple questions, their true expertise lies in transferring you to the appropriate department for help with complex or nuanced issues. Rather than going through a complex phone tree, they’ll send you directly to the best person for the job.

For sensitive matters or specialized technical issues when your account manager isn’t available, Flagship has general technical support specialists ready to help 24/7.

Analytics

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Flagship offers the basics to all its customers—a dashboard to view and run reports on all of your payments. However, every customer also gets access to iAccess Insights.

This tool gives you the inside scoop on your customers, online reputation, competitors, and more.

You’ll gain valuable perspective on not only your own business, but also the broader landscape.

Beyond that, the analytics you get depend on your setup. If you process ecommerce transactions through Authorize.Net, the analytics are limited. However, pairing this with iAccess helps fill in some of the gaps.

For mobile solutions with iPayment MobilePay, the analytics cover the key transactions details you need in a simple format, right in the palm of your hand.

But you’ll get the most robust analytics with Clover hardware. Clover’s reporting and analytics tools are top-notch. You’ll get an at-a-glance view of sales by employee, item, and more. Clover also enables inventory management, employee oversight, and refund tracking. The system is highly customizable too—you can add specialized apps to help solve a wide range of problems.

Ease of Use

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Getting started with Flagship is refreshingly simple. You can kick things off with a quick phone call to answer some basic questions about your business’s processing volume, name, and contact info.

The entire approval process takes just two days or less—average compared to other providers.

Once you get your hardware, Flagship provides unlimited free training so you can become a pro before taking your first payment. This ensures new users feel completely comfortable with the tech right off the bat.

With that said, Clover devices come with a lot of features and functionality to sort through. You’ll likely need to spend some time (either on your own or with Flagship support) configuring everything for your business. But once you’ve set it up, it’s straightforward and intuitive to use on a daily basis.

In terms of software, Flagship partners with longstanding, well-known third party tools that have had years to optimize the user experience. It’s unlikely you’ll hit any major hurdles using these tools for daily payment processing.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for a trustworthy, reliable payment processing partner, Flagship is a great choice. Its partnerships with third-party tools mean you get industry standard solutions businesses like yours have been using for decades.

That paired with Flagship’s dedicated support team and built-in analytics give you everything you need to start processing payments in one simple, straightforward package.