These days, if you send out an invoice that is marked "Net 30," you can consider yourself lucky if you see payment before 60 days pass. Accepting credit cards can be a surefire way to bring cash through your doors more quickly.

To accept credit cards, you need three ingredients: a credit card merchant account, a bank account, and a way to process payments. A credit card merchant account establishes your company as one that can accept credit card payments.

With a valid merchant account, payments made via credit card are transferred to a bank account you designate. While you can have your primary company bank account serve as your credit card bank account, it is not recommended. Having a separate account can help you keep better track of all the deposits and debits that are typically conducted over a month. In addition, since your merchant account provider will have full access to this account, maintaining a credit-card only bank account makes you less vulnerable to potential payment or billing disputes.

In addition to the actual bank account to accept money transfers you will need a way to process payments. If you have a retail presence where you will actually have the card in hand, you will need a physical terminal. This terminal will allow you to swipe the card number and transmit the payment information for approval.

Does your business take orders by mail, telephone or the Internet where you do not see the actual card? If so, you will need software. This software can either be the off-the-shelf variety where you install and transmit the credit card information via modem or via the Internet. Internet-based payment processing applications give you the additional flexibility of being able to verify cards that are submitted online on a real-time basis.

Trying to figure out exactly who provides which of these ingredients can be the most confusing part of this purchase. There are thousands of vendors that offer credit card-related services. They range from banks to individual resellers to credit card merchant specialists to online payment services. What can make choosing among them is that while some offer account setup only, others will bundle offline or online payment processing options as well.

Being able to accept credit cards is not inexpensive. Expect to pay both monthly and per-transaction fees for your credit card merchant account. Monthly fees, which typically include a base fee plus a statement fee, typically fall $30-$50 per month range. There is also a discount rate that is taken with every transaction, which can range up to 5% of the total charge. In addition, you will also have to pay a monthly or yearly fee for whatever method you use to process these charges.

But as costly as accepting credit cards can appear, the costs can be well worth the promise of being able to decrease the number of unpaid invoices you have. And hopefully lessen the number of times you hear that the check is in the mail.