Blog

CREDIT CARD PROCESS:

Credit Card costs are made up of the fees assessed by the card-brands - Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express and the fees to the processor contracted by the business to clear sales on behalf of the card-brands. Bottom Line Concepts reviews both areas and uses its experience to analyze credit card statements, to identify and negotiate rates/fees to ensure maximum efficiency when transactions are clearing through the card-brand networks. Credit Card merchant processing statements are requested for all accounts from the processor clearing Visa, MasterCard and Discover transactions as well as from American Express, only if American Express transactions are being processed and deposited by American Express directly. 

Upon receipt of statements, Bottom Line will review all current rates and fees, identify the baseline cost, what fees are being assessed above the card-brand costs, what costs are being paid above the published card-brand fees, miscellaneous and extraneous fees, duplicate billing items, processing inefficiencies, identifying the manner in which transactions are being processed and the hardware/software solutions used to process payments . Upon identifying all processing rates and fees, Bottom Line will create both a benchmark and analysis which are reviewed with the Client and discuss strategy for implementation. Generally, this starts with an introduction to the processor over email, a request for them to review all rates/fees and come back with their best offer in one week’s time. At the same time, Bottom Line will provide the processing data to at least 2 other processors to receive blind competitive offers. After the incumbent provides their offer, Bottom Line will negotiate with them based on our understanding of the market and the other competitive proposals.

After agreeing in principle to the new terms with the current processor, the processor will generally ask for a signed addendum or amendment to the current agreement, which gets reviewed by both Bottom Line for the correct rates/fees and the Client’s legal team for language. After signing off on the document and the new fees are implemented, Bottom Line will monitor the statements each month for compliance to ensure the new rates/fees are implemented and that they are not changed as well as any recommendations for how to better process transactions are being utilized.