I'm new at this getting paid by others thing. The person I do VA work now for pays me with paypal + shes a friend so...

But I'm putting my business site together and I'm wondering how you all go about getting paid and what you use to do it.

My local clients just pay me by check. My other clients usually pay by PayPal.

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Rebecka Melson ~ Virtual Business Services

I pretty much only accept payment via Paypal now (I used to accept direct deposit but it took forever, often there were errors, and it was just a real pain), although we just started taking checks from one client because his invoices are always so big that it's really not economical for him to pay us via Paypal (we pass on the 3.5% Paypal fee in the invoice itself) so he will send checks via FedEx directly to our home branch (he has a special form he prints out and mails with the checks that lists all necessary info to ensure the funds get where they need to go).
Otherwise - it's straight Paypal.

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I keep running into areas where Rebecka and I follow the same procedures

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Lily Chambers, The Virtual Office Goddess, LLC
Author "How to Do Your Own Small Business Bookkeeping"

Well you know what they say about great minds!

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I also only use Paypal. I email the invoice to my clients and they are able to go to the Paypal site from the invoice and pay for their services.

So far, so good.

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Perfecting Assistance Services
www.perfectingassistance.com
Allowing you time to PERFECT your Business!

I use direct deposit here in Australia and have used PayPal in the past. Have heard of freelancers including graphic designers and website designers having clients dispute their invoice just before the 3 month period is up and lodge a complaint with PayPal and their credit card company who then reverse the transaction. It is then up to you to prove to PayPal that the services were rendered. It might be different for those of you in the US but here in Australia we don't have the same kind of protection as merchants so I've set up an Internet Merchant account with my bank and am using QuickBooks as my gateway. I process the credit cards within QB and it's all entered at the same time. I also get the protection I need as a merchant.

Sorry about the long post lol.

In summary my busy friends, I use direct deposit, cheques (Aussie's only) and Credit Card.

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Kylie Short
Tilda Virtual Services - Making virtual personal

Handy Thread. Thanks Lilmissjenny.

Thanks for the extra information Kylie. We are in the process of setting up paypal. Something to be aware of for Aussie VA's.

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Michelle
http://www.virtualsos.com.au
Virtual Star Office Solutions

I have taken cheques in the past but it takes too long for them to get here. A few months ago I began offering PayPal and so far so good.

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Shari Sultana
Online Business Manager (marketing for retail ecommerce)

I only take cheques and Interact money transfer. Interact money transfer is done through on-line banking and the charge is $1.50 per transaction which is incurred by the payer, not the person being paid. It is great - you make the payment, the recipient receives an email message and you click a link to download the payment to your bank account. I got tired of PayPal's charges. They are simply too high.