After the POS service purchase and early in the onboarding process, the restaurant owner will be redirected to a form where they need to fill out their business details (KYC validation).
The business verification is required to provision the payments settings. It is mandatory that restaurant owners use real, accurate data for these forms, and it is recommended to complete all verification steps as soon as possible after receiving the notification email.
The verification is automated, considers every inserted character, and it is case sensitive. Data needs to be inserted exactly as in the supporting documents. The supporting documents (pictures or scans) should not be blurred, should be a high resolution image and include the 4 corners of the document to pass the validation.
To ensure a smooth and fast verification process, make sure you have the following information ready.
Business information: Account Holder/Legal Business Entity name, address, and Tax Identification Number.
• Account holder name must match legal business name even if DBA is different.
• Legal business name or DBA should match business banking name to be verified.
• Use exactly the same details that are in the IRS form/bank statement – including for example capital letters, a dot after Inc, etc.
US companies need to insert the Employer Identification Number (EIN). UK companies will insert the Company number.
Personal information: Signatory/Controller’s identity (this can be the same person); name/address/date of birth from a valid ID that may be requested as a supporting document (driver’s license, state issued ID, or passport). US companies also need to add the person’s last 4 digits of Social Security Number.
• The personal details should be inserted exactly as they appear in the ID. Please be sure to include middle names, initials, abbreviations, or any other particularities in the KYC form, exactly as they appear in the ID.
Banking information: bank account
• Name of bank must match the legal business name. Sometimes the system will ask for a supporting document – please have a recent bank statement or bank letter ready to upload (just the first page).
US companies will have to fill in the ACH routing number, account number and account type. UK companies will need to provide the IBAN (International Bank Account Number). Alternatively, UK companies could use the Bank code and the Account code.
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When filling out these forms, the restaurant owner may encounter some unfamiliar terms. Here are some of them:
Signatory = the person within the restaurant business who has the authority to sign signatory agreements and contracts on behalf of themselves or the restaurant business as an entity;
Controlling person = any individual(s) who exercises ultimate effective control in making decisions for the whole company. If such an individual cannot be identified, then members of senior management must be identified as controllers. At least one controlling person are required to be identified. The payment processor requires information about all individuals that fit this criterion.
For the United States of America it is required that at least one individual is identified.
Employer Identification Number (EIN) (for US restaurants) = The Employer Identification Number (EIN) is a unique nine-digit number assigned by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) (format: XX-XXXXXXXXX) to business entities operating in the United States for the purposes of identification and employment tax reporting. Other commonly used terms for EIN are Taxpayer Id, IRS Number, Tax Id, Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) etc.
If you are not sure what your company’s EIN is, please check your Employer identification number (EIN) verification letter, also known as a CP 575 or 147c letter or you can search it here.
Company number (for UK restaurants) = The Company number is displayed on your certificate of incorporation and on your listing at Companies House. It typically consists of typically 8 characters long, 8 digits or 2 letters followed by 6 digits.
Doing business as (DBA) = a fixed string that represents the name of the business. For example, My Company
When food clients check their bank statements, they need to be able to easily identify the charges they see. If the restaurant’s transaction description is not easily recognizable by the cardholder there is a higher chance your food client issues a chargeback and/or you can get a fine from the relevant card scheme related to your chargeback rate. Therefore, a restaurant should add a transaction description that must start with their brand or the merchant name that is most recognizable to the cardholder.
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The restaurant POS system is coming soon to US and UK restaurants.
