If you are looking to cut company spending, have you considered reviewing your merchant account statement? While completely eliminating credit card processing fees is a non-starter, reducing them is a valid option that many companies and accounting departments are simply unaware of. Three things your company can do today to immediately lower your credit card processing fees are listed below.
1. Speak With Your Current Processor
Reducing the interchange rate even a few points can have a major impact on the company’s year-end totals. Speak to your current processor to request a “Rate Review”. Processors profit from higher rates and are unlikely to let you know when your current rate is above the industry benchmark. If they are encouraged to perform a rate review, they may end up shaving off a few basis points to maintain your business.
2. Send Out An RFP To Multiple Credit Card Processors
Once you have spoken with your current processor and know your current interchange rates, send out an RFP (request for proposal) to multiple credit card processors – including your current processor. This can often result in processing agencies bidding lower interchange rates to secure your business.
3. Evaluate Your Statement For Junk Fees
Merchant account statements are notoriously difficult to navigate. With countless line items and varying entities receiving a percentage of your fees, even the best accountants struggle to fully depict what is happening on a merchant account statement. Credit card companies do this on purpose so they can throw in extra charges like “Statement Fees”, “Monthly Funding Fees”, or “Monthly Service Fees”. These fees can almost always be eliminated, or at least drastically reduced. If it has the word “monthly” in it, speak with your processor about having it removed.
Merchant Account Auditors At Verisave Can Drastically Cut Credit Card Processing Fees
By following through with the basic cost reduction tips above, businesses can see an average reduction of 3%-5% on their monthly credit card fees. However, it is possible to significantly increase your savings by 25%-35% when you hire the experts at Verisave – a professional merchant account auditing firm. We have years of experience working with a number of high level clients such as:
Having worked with such a wide variety of businesses, we have also been able to work with every platform in the industry used by processors. This includes TSYS, First Data, Elavon, Chase Paymentech, Worldpay, and Vantiv. Knowing each platform’s strengths and limitations allows us to customize saving strategies for each of our clients based on what platforms they are working with.
Our auditors also know the back-end cost structure used by ISOs and processors. Having this behind-the-scene information is a powerful tool we can utilize in negotiations as part of our cost-cutting strategies. When we know how much a processor is profiting from a merchant account, we can bring negotiations to the table that will still benefit the processor while reducing your monthly fees. By understanding and making both parties happy, we are more likely to achieve a cost reduction.
Let Verisave scrutinize your merchant accounts, work with your processor, and identify unnecessary spending to see significant savings each month via your merchant accounts. We are so confident in our money-saving abilities, your first audit is absolutely free.