Void Transaction - A voided transaction occurs when a customer wants to return merchandise before the merchant has closed his/her batch containing that transaction. Voiding a transaction before the batch is closed saves the merchant fees and only costs the transaction. Voiding a sale is similar to deleting a sales draft before taking it to the bank for deposit. Voiding a transaction before the batch is closed saves the merchant fees and only costs the transaction. The merchant does not pay the discount rate on that transaction because the batch has not settled and the sale is not “official”. If possible, void transactions before the closing the batch.

Annual fee - This once a year for maintenance and system upgrades is an automatic deduction from your checking account. An Annual Fee should not be more than $99 per year. Some processors are starting to charge this fee. Make sure to ask your ISO if there is an Annual fee.

Debit Card fees - It is much less expensive to accept a customer's debit card rather than a credit card. Most merchant service providers charge a flat fee, generally ranging from .35 to .75 for each debit card transaction. The credit card discount and transaction rates do not apply when you accept a debit card. Debit fees only apply to merchants who have this service. Please note that you will need an encrypted pin pad to process customers' debit cards so that they may key in their private four digit number into the pin pad. This will be an additional charge, and should be less than $200. It may be worth the expense as debit cards cost you much less to process than credit cards, as previously stated. While you may decide to allow your customers to pay with debit cards, it remains imperative to also allow for credit card use.

Over limit fee - When you apply for your merchant account, you indicate how much monthly volume you expect to process. Your account, approved to process that amount, will subject to an over limit fee. You can avoid the over limit fee in any given month if you believe your sales will be over the top by calling customer service and letting them know in advance. If your sales will continue to be over the limit for the following months, you can simply ask them to bump you up to the next level.

Reserve account - Processors will often identify certain merchant accounts as a higher risk. These accounts pose a high risk to a processor in terms of charge backs. In other words, the processor expects that a high risk account will have more charge backs. Processors will accept higher risk accounts but often ask the merchant to place a reserve with them to protect the processor against loss.

There are four ways that a processor will ask a merchant to start a reserve.

Place a dollar amount in a reserve account equal to one month processing limit. The processor holds this amount for the life of the account. This money is released to the merchant only after his merchant account is closed and 210 days have passed.

Allow the processor to hold in reserves the first month’s credit card sales done by the merchant The processor holds this amount for the life of the account. This money is released to the merchant only after his merchant account is closed and 210 days have passed.

The processor will hold a percentage of gross sales each month until the reserve amount equals one month processing volume. This percentage is usually anywhere from 5% to 25% of monthly gross credit card sales.

Allow the processor to establish a “sixth month rolling reserve”. The Processor will hold 5% of each months sales until the 7th Month. On Month 7, all reserve dollars from Month 1 will be released to the Merchant. On Month 8, all reserve dollars from Month 2 will be released to the Merchant and so on.

Programming or encryption fee - The ISO can charge a programming or encryption fee, reflecting the effort of your merchant service provider to make your existing terminal compatible with their system. Others do not charge this fee directly but include it in their set-up fee.

Chargeback fee - the MSP will charge a fee when someone disputes a credit card sale that originated with your business. The fee can range from $0 - $40 for each chargeback. It is imperative for you to reduce the likelihood of chargebacks through customer service intervention, fraud prevention, etc. Chargeback’s can be avoided by setting your account up properly from the beginning. Having your complete company name and customer service phone number printed on Customers statements is a great way to avoid chargebacks. That way, when a customer gets his bill and has a question about the “charge” on his account, he can immediately call you and get his questions or problems resolved.

Return - A return transaction occurs when a customer wants to return merchandise after the merchant has closed his/her batch containing that transaction. Returning a transaction after the batch is closed costs the merchant the discount fees and the transaction fees. A merchant will pay the discount rate for the initial sale if returned plus two transaction fees. For example, if a discount rate of 2.75% paid for every sale a $100 sale will cost the merchant $2.75 for the sale and $2.75 for the return of the sale for a total of $5.50. This is why many merchants often have stiff return policies or a fee for returned items. AVS fee (address verification service) – Many credit card processors offer address verification service. This service will match shipping information with the cardholder's billing address. There are different AVS codes that will indicate complete or partial match. When addresses do not match, merchants should discuss the discrepancies with their customers before shipping orders. For example, the street address may match but the zip code does not. The merchant must then decide to either ship or contact the customer for verification. Using AVS lowers fees but is not a requirement to either ship or not. To reduce confusion merchants should clarify that billing information is required regardless of the shipping address. AVS works with cards issued in the United States. AVS is a service used by merchants who take orders over the phone or the Internet and is an extremely useful tool to reduce fraud.

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Mid-qualified and non-qualified fees – Along with the discount rate, you must know these rates. The mid-qualified and non-qualified rates are surcharges (i.e. transactions that do not meet certain Visa/MasterCard requirements. For example, even if you manually key in a transaction with an AVS match, your rate may go up a little (but not as high as it would if you do not have an AVS match). If you do not batch out the transactions within 24 hours, your rate will increase, too. Furthermore, if you accept International, corporate or government cards, you rate will go up substantially. There are surcharges based on varying factors.

Termination or cancellation fee – Clients, seldom informed, may only discover this expense when they switch processors. It can be as high as $400 if you end processing with a particular merchant service provider, especially if you only employed their service for a short length of time. The fee is NOT applicable as long as you do not switch providers! Ask, or better yet, read your provider’s termination/cancellation policy in the contract.

Retrieval Request - A retrieval request is what happens when a cardholder cannot remember a credit card transaction, or the bank wants order information for some reason. The card issuer initiates a retrieval request, in which the merchant has 10 days to respond with the order information or the retrieval request will turn into a charge back. There is usually a retrieval request fee issued against the merchant also in these cases. Cost varies from $2 to $15 depending on the processor. All fees and charges are on the merchant agreement. Be sure to read it carefully.

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3. I hear American Express and Discover are not used much and is more expensive than the discount fees?