Starting An ATM Business; Part Two

Let me fill you in on where we are in the process of starting an ATM business. In the previous article we discussed several topics:

1. Is an ATM business for you?
2. Where do you put your ATM?
3. Reaching an agreement with the owner of the location.

First you must find a company to handle the ISO. An ISO company transfers the money from one account to another. Specifically, it is called ISO 8583. There are several companies that will do this for a percentage of the transaction fee or for a flat fee per transaction. Their job is to electronically transfer the requested amount of money from the ATM customer's account into your account.

The key to finding a good ISO company is to make sure they are user friendly. You must be able to track the number of transactions at each location you have a machine. Remember, to make a decent living, you will have multiple locations. Some of the things you need to look for is:

• Does the company have on-line access?
• Can I easily print off the transactions for a particular machine?
• How long does the electronic transaction take?

The type of machine you buy depends on the location. 99% of the time you will not need a unit to permanently place into a wall. This leaves only one type left; the free standing machine. Of the free standing machines available, the model you will need depends on the amount of calculated foot traffic at the desired location.

All machines come with a cassette to place the cash into your machine. Each cassette will carry between 800 to 1000 notes. If you fill up a 1000 note cassette with five dollar bills, your machine will have $5,000 in it. If you fill up a 1000 note cassette with twenty dollar bills, your machine will have $20,000 in it. For our example from Part One, you would have 285 transactions per month. If each person took $100 from your machine with twenty dollar bills in it, then you would be filling the machine every month and a half. I do not recommend starting to fill your machine with $20,000, but we will address that a little later.

My favorite machine is the Tritan 1600 with a 1,000 note cartridge. This machine is modern and easy to use. Tritan is also a very reputable ATM company who stands behind their product. You will not be disappointed with the machine.

I suggest you use http://www.atms4less.com/. They are based out of Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. The reason I suggest using this company is cost, convenience and service. As discussed earlier, you need to find an ISO company. ATMs4Less.com will provide this service for you, at no cost, when you purchase the machine from them. They do have the ability to pull up your account and ATM on-line to view transactions. They also have my favorite machine available, the Triton 1600.

You can also buy ATM's directly from manufacturers like Triton, GenMega. Hantle and Nautilus. Be careful and find your ISO first and make sure who you buy from will stand behind their product.

Each machine can cost as little as $3,848 to purchase and start. I will use the Tritan 1600 from ATMs4Less.com as an example:

• Machine will cost $1,999
• Installation will cost $349
• Fill your machine with $1500

That is a total of $3,848.

I do suggest you take a percentage of your monthly transaction receipts to increase the dollar limit in the machine. The less money you have in the machine the more times you will have to fill the machine.

Carrying around large amounts of cash is always dangerous. Owning an ATM will require you to carry large amounts of cash in order to fill you machine. Please follow these friendly tips:

• Never fill the same ATM at the same time of day or the same day of the week. Creating a reoccurring schedule makes things easy for a crook.
• Always be aware of your surroundings.
• Do not fill more than one machine a day. Filling multiple machines requires you to have more cash on you.
• If you feel weird about a situation or feel that something is out of the ordinary, trust your gut and remove yourself from the situation.
• Finally, if you do not feel comfortable filling your machine you can hire someone to do that for you. Brinks will fill your machine for a fee. The fee can be very steep if you only own one machine but the more machines you have the easier the fee is to swallow.

If this seems too much for you, then you need to find another small business idea or pay someone to start this process for you. The only person, I know of, that can do this for you is CashMan Enterprises located in Dickinson, TX. Their phone number is 409-692-3018 or their email is 4youratm@gmail.com.