🎄Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 2021!🎄

    

Merchant Processing Solutions wishes all our clients and friends a very Merry Christmas & a Blessed New Year! 

What's the Difference between Convenience, Surcharge & Service Fees?

 

Convenience Fee:

• A convenience fee is a fee charged by a businesses, government agencies, schools, etc for payments made by credit cards instead of cash, check, or ACH. 
• Before the decision to allow convenience fees in almost all states, only federal, state & local agencies were allowed to impose this fee when paying taxes, tickets, tuition etc! 
• A Convenience Fee is typically a fixed flat amount.
• Convenience fees are charged by businesses to cover the cost they pay for processing a credit card payment.
• There are strict policies and regulations when it comes to convenience fees and surcharges; make sure you kow them prior to setting up a program.

SURCHARGE FEE:

• A Surcharge Fee is a percentage charged by businesses/merchants to a credit card transaction to cover the merchant’s costs for processing that payment. Instead of the merchant having to absorb this expense, the customer who chooses to pay by credit card pays.
• Many know this better as "cash-discounting". The practice of offering a lower cost to customers that pay with cash instead of credit cards. 
• Surcharge Fees are still not legal in several states. 
• Rigerous posting that items or services are Cash Pricing and that use of a credit card will incur a Surcharge Fee.

SERVICE FEE: 

• Service Fees are charged by government agencies, schools, etc for payments made by credit cards instead of cash, check, or ACH. 
• A service charge is also a fee charged to customers for something specific, such as a bank charging a fee for using an ATM that's not part of its network or a vendor charging a fee for making a payment with a credit card.
• Service Fees can range from a convenience in the manner of purchase to a fee for faster response. Each merchant will impose their own Service Fee based on their business model.

Merchant Processing Solutions can help you understand your options and save money with one of our options. Give us a call today! 

Merchant Processing Solutions 

954-938-2420

So what am I paying for Merchant Processing?

I cannot tell you the number of times I ask merchants what they are paying and they do not have the slightest idea! They THINK they are paying less because they only heard part of the fees and not the whole fee structure! We, as a company, request a copy of our potential customers' statement to do an indepth analysis of their current processing and give them the results. We hope they decide to change over to our company since their company has been overcharging them for awhile. However, if they unfortunately are trapped in a long-term contract (we do not have a contract) or they are stuck using hardware or software that they are unable to get out of, they can take our analysis and ask their current provider to drop their rates! 

Merchant Processing Solutions Inc. Analysis Sheet

Merchant Processing Solutions calculated the volume of sales of each BRAND CARD (Visa/MasterCard/Discover/American Express) and multiply that by the percent charged by your processor for their services. We then add any monthly fees to calculate what they are charging. For our part, we tell you what we could have paid along with our monthly fees so you can see the difference between your current processor and our company! And of course, we would hope you make the change over to us! 

But how can I just see what I am paying myself? I mentioned in a previous post that the easiest way to keep an eye on your processing fee is to implement the NET EFFECTIVE METHOD:

•     Divide what you paid in Total to your processor in fees by the full amount of your Total sales for that same month. You will come up with the REAL percentage of what you are paying that processor. I tell merchants that if they were ONLY to do that each month, they would NEVER get abused by their processor. 

Based on the example above: 

•     Total Fees Paid to Processor: $3,206.67 divided by Total Monthly Sales: $126, 859.34 = 2.53% (See Net Effective Line in Analysis).

Merchant Statements appear to the average merchant as jibberish! So hard to understand!! Merchant Processing Solutions tries to help merchants get a handle on their merchant services costs and lower them substantially! 

If you would like to know what you are paying for merchant services or need our help to understanding your fees, call us! 

Merchant Processing Solutions 

954-938-2420