Saving Money on Your Monthly Processing Costs

Stop leaving money on the table every month with these easy fixes

With the summer winding down and the holidays right around the corner, many business owners will be running more credit card transactions. With that increase in sales comes an increase in costs, however, and lowering your monthly processing costs could lead to major savings.

For instance, running a non-compliant credit card transaction could end up costing you big bucks in card brand fees or chargebacks. American Express, for instance, assesses an adjustment fee of 0.75{f748b26f3a1b305e8d5b41398549632c588ef8fa9551e474b1cc4460a92082c3} of the total transaction amount when a card is run in a non-compliant manner, such as a CVV code not being entered or a ZIP code request being ignored. Plus, not getting this information could leave the door open to losing a transaction dispute, also known as a chargeback. Merchants can lose chargebacks if it is determined there was not enough information collected during the transaction to consider it “legitimate.” Train your staff not to bypass “inconvenient” security checks like the CVV/AVS or ZIP code requests. Five extra seconds of processing time could end up saving you from being on the losing end of thousands of dollars in chargebacks or assessments.

Being out of PCI compliance is another way where merchants are opening themselves up to unnecessary risks when it comes to electronic transactions. Any merchant involved with the storage, transmission, or processing of sensitive cardholder information must be PCI compliant. Not only are there major fines in the hundreds of thousands for non-PCI compliant merchants in the event of a data breach, there are also monthly non-compliance fees that eat into overall profits. Make sure you get in touch with your PCI coordinator and ensure your business is fully compliant with the PCI DSS.

Finally, treat your terminals with respect and handle them with care. They’re sensitive pieces of equipment, and are susceptible to damage from drops, liquids, and rough handling. Bars and restaurants are two very common industries where we see a lot of terminal damage, but any business can be susceptible to terminals breaking. Power surges cost merchants thousands of dollars a year, so making sure that your credit card processing equipment is plugged into a surge protector will mitigate the risk of frying out the motherboard within the machine. Machines affected by a power surge are likely not repairable, so purchasing another terminal is typically the only option.

If you feel as though you’re overpaying on your monthly credit card processing costs, evaluate your current processing setup. Most of these issues can be resolved in a few minutes or with quick employee education sessions, but can have major returns.