Vanco Payment Solutions is a merchant account provider and registered ISO of Wells Fargo Bank, a multinational financial service company located in California, USA. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, the company started as Vanco Services in 1998 and acquired its current name in 2014. Veracity Payment Solutions purchased it, and the company rebranded itself to Vanco Payment Solutions.
Non-profit organizations, educational institutes, specifically schools, and faith-based organizations are the focal point for Vanco Payments. Along with payment processing, the company also caters to event ticketing and food service management. For payment processing, the provider uses Fiserv as a backend processor and offers kiosks, card swiping, mobile transactions, and online payments through texts and virtual terminals for credit and debit card processing.
Vanco Payments Solutions Features and Services
Vanco Payments runs a one-step payment plan for K-12 schools, childcare associations, community education, and non-profits. It provides solutions for all kinds of payment management and proposes flexible ways to make your business dealings stress-free. Below is a review of the provider’s products and services.
Vanco Faith
Vanco Faith is an all-in-one payment solution for faith-based organizations offering a wide range of services and products.
Vanco Online (OnlineGiving Plus)
With Vanco Online, faith-based organizations can accept donations and create a destination and separate tabs on their eGiving page for each donation. Regular members can set up a date to send funding and gifts each month. Churches can tell their stories by posting photos and sharing important announcements on an easy-to-manage platform. It can help members see the impact their donations can have. Vanco online gives individual space for each organization and provides a secure action plan for their contributions and payments.
GivePlus and Other Features
- With the Vanco GivePlus text feature, members can send their donations with just one text. They are given a link to authorize the process and receive a confirmation message within seconds
- GivePlus kiosk allows organizations to receive payments and generate their receipt with their company logo and branding. This way, members can keep records of their paid funds
- GivePlus swipe is a card reader compatible with iOS and Android devices for swiped card donations
- Vanco Live gives a platform for organizations to live stream their important events using Facebook and YouTube, helping them engage and reach out to their members in real time
Vanco Mobile
Faith-based organizations can create online groups and private chat boxes for their congregation and staff with the Vanco Payments mobile app. They can track volunteers, seating, venues, and RSVPs on this app. Members can get updates for sermons, events, bible studies, and prayer groups.
Software Integration
Over 25000 faith-based organizations trust Vanco Payments for their donations and payment processing. They integrate with partners such as Zoom, ACS Technologies, Realm, Shepherd’s Staff, Icon Systems, and others to help their consumers achieve their goals. Businesses can request a demo on the website to see if Vanco Payment Solutions integrates with their software.
Vanco Community and Education
Vanco education is a payment processing system designed for schools and other non-profit educational organizations such as community education institutes and daycares, providing them with necessary tools, services, and payment solutions.
RevTrak
With RevTrak, parents can submit their child’s fees online and save the staff from wasting hours sorting fee records manually. The schools can receive payments for various purposes such as athletics, exam fee, transportation, performance art events, uniforms and merchandise, summer registration, and technology fee on the same platform.
ASAP
ASAP is an education administration software system that manages various operations of an institute. Its features include class management, student registration, surveys, payrolls, camp management, attendance records, student database, private lesson management, facility reservations, and tuition billings.
Vanco Food
Vanco Food provides easy ways for businesses to manage cafeterias with user-friendly software. With online lunch accounts, parents can pay for their child’s lunch, pre-order meals, and get notified in case of a low balance. Schools can track all payments and speed up the process with biometric scanning, giving students more time to eat than standing in long lines to get food.
Charms
Vanco Charms is designed to manage music classes. It keeps records of the student database and allows members to customize the features needed for their program. You can sell merchandise and take donations by setting up an online store. Members can create helper accounts and assist in tasks with restricted access.
Vanco Events
With this feature, schools can create events using templates and decide the seating with the built-in seating chart. You can also promote the events on social media school’s newsletter and print QR codes on posters. Their ticket scanning app is compatible with Android and iOS, allowing members to buy tickets online while getting updates for discounts and promotion codes.
Schools can create web pages and post images, descriptions, locations, times, dates, prices, and other details for each event with their logo and embedded widgets.
Vanco Payment Solutions Contract Terms and Pricing
The company binds their consumer with a month-to-month contract with a $50 registration fee and no early termination fee. Vanco reviews indicate that it has three different pricing plans.
Start Plan
Better suited for organizations receiving less than $250,000 monthly donations, Vanco Payments start plan charges a $10 monthly service fee with 2.75%+$0.45 per transaction. The ACH fee is 1%+$0.45. Adding the GivePlus text and kiosk to this plan will charge $24 and $45, respectively.
Sustain Plan
Vanco’s sustain plan is designed for organizations getting $250,000 to $500,000 donations annually. Merchants have to pay a service fee of $49 per month with an ACH transaction fee of 0.80%+$0.25 and a processing fee of 2.35%+$0.35 per transaction. An additional $10 will be charged for GivePlus text and $45 for the kiosk.
Custom Plan
Organizations receiving more than $40k per month in donations can use the Vanco Payments custom plan. This plan’s pricing and transaction rates vary and can be customized for each organization.
Vanco GivePlus kiosk hardware service costs $1695 for a one-time purchase and $29 per month on their leasing program. The desktop card reader costs $125, and mobile processing hardware charges $45.
Vanco Payment Solutions Customer service
Customer care is often the worst-rated area of most merchant service providers. For many clients, poor customer care is the last straw, after which they choose to leave the provider for rivals. Adequate customer service can be the most important factor for low online complaints and higher customer satisfaction.
Vanco Payments provides customer support via phone, email, and live chat. The provider has enlisted phone numbers on their website for the general help center, sales department, fax number, and a number for their headquarters. But these platforms do not cover all the essential areas of customer care.
Vanco Payment Solutions Sales and Marketing
Vanco Payments partners with 30 different software companies and several faith-based organizations, hiring full-time employees as resellers and sales agents to market their services. There have been no complaints about their sales strategies by the consumers.
Vanco Payment Solutions Reviews and Complaints
The company has received ten complaints, ranging from poor customer support, payout delay, software or hardware malfunction, and undisclosed pricing. However, there are no official lawsuits or FTC complaints against the company.
BBB Report
‘Vanco Payments has two Better Business Bureau profiles for their Atlanta and Minnesota offices showing an A+ rating for both. There have been 0 complaints against the provider in the last 36 months on their BBB accredited profiles. The one informal review posted there has a positive tone.
Vanco Payment Solution Drawbacks
Few companies deal specifically with non-profit organizations and schools to provide payment processing services. Vanco Payment Solutions is a reliable service provider with a wide range of features and products to help organizations excel in their business in the best way possible. However, the provider lacks in some areas and can improve significantly.
Inadequate Pricing Information
The official website does not disclose the PCI compliance fee. The chargeback information is mentioned for Canadian organizations but not US non-profits. The cost for POS systems, mobile card readers, and swipe card readers is not mentioned either.
Moreover, the website pages for RevTrak, Charms, ASAP, or Vanco events do not disclose any pricing information. Only GivePlus website has given some pricing transparency.
Too Expensive
Even though Vanco provides payment solutions and convenient services for many non-profit organizations and educational institutes, it can be too pricy for some businesses. All the features and products come with a long list of fees that are not affordable for small businesses.
Bottom Line
When choosing a payment service provider, cost transparency plays a significant role in making up a consumer’s mind. A wide range of products and services can be of no good when a merchant cannot know if they can afford them or go bankrupt while paying off the charges in the long run. Vanco Payment Solutions has given little to no pricing information, which is visibly a drawback.
Furthermore, faith-based organizations receiving sizeable donations and large-scale businesses making enough profit can rely on Vanco Payments for their payment solutions. But it can be relatively expensive for many non-profits and small-scale educational companies, as discussed in this Vanco Payment Solutions review. Such businesses will be better off with a more affordable and cooperative provider.
