This is from one of the few merchant service providers in the country that places the majority of their accounts on and interchange plus pricing structure. This statement is similar to the credit card merchant services statement we reviewed before, but it has a few minor differences.
1. Summary of Visa credit card processing deposits. You can also see the total of all interchange costs as charged by Visa. (Interchange is the true cost to process credit cards as set forth by Visa and Mastercard.)
2. Summary of Mastercard merchant account transactions and interchange costs.
3. Summary of Discover processing and interchange costs.
4. This is the mark up on the account. It encompasses American Express, Discover, Mastercard, and Visa transaction fees, a monthly service fee, and the mark up over interchange.
5. Total of all Visa, Mastercard, and Discover merchant card services sales.
6. Total of ALL fees.
7. This the actual percentage that was paid to run all of the clients credit card sales during the month. This is calculated by dividing the total charges by the total amount of sales associated with those charges. As you can see this client pays about 2.62% on all of their sales. Keep in mind that if your merchant service sales representative told you that you would pay 1.69% on your sales, you were only getting part of hte story. Be sure to do the math, and if you pay over 2.5% then there is the possibility to save money.
1. The summary of all Visa credit card merchant services transactions as broken down by card type. You can see that the client paid 16 different interchange rates for Visa alone. These are determined by the card type that is being taken by the merchant. In other words, the business owner will not know what type of cards they are taking during the time of the sale. When they receive their bill they will see the full interchange break down and know what type of credit cards they process during the month. The least expensive category is offline debit (1.03%) while the most expensive card type was Signature preferred card not present (2.40%)
2. The summary of all Mastercard merchant service transactions over the course of the month.
1. The remainder of the Mastercard interchange summary.
2. The summary of Discover card processing and interchange fees.
3. American Express transaction fees. They are currently being charge $.20 every time they run an American Express card.
4. Discover transaction fees and mark up. They are paying $.20 every time they run a Discover card transaction. In addittion the client pays 70 basis points (1 basis point = 1/100 of 1%, so 70 basis points is the same as .70%, or .0007) to the processor for running the transaction. This is in addition to the interchange charges that are broken down in section 2.
5. Mastercard transaction fees and mark up. The client is paying $.04 per transaction and 55 basis points to Heartland.
6. Monthly service fee of $10. This covers the statement and service fee as well as all other back end costs associated with processing credit cards on a monthly basis.
7. Visa transaction fees and mark up. The client is paying $.04 per transaction plus 55 basis points.
8. Total fees charged by the processor.
9. Total fees charged for all credit card processing over the course of the month.
By making some rate adjustments for this client we were able to save them just over 10% on their monthly merchant services charges. In addition, they now receive all of their American Express funds deposited in 24 hours instead of waiting 4 days for their funds.
