How To Eliminate Hidden Processing Costs Forever
Why Getting a “Statement Analysis” is a Joke
Getting offered a merchant account “statement analysis” has become so common that it’s practically a cliché in the credit card processing industry. The problem with most statement analyses is that they are offered by someone who is trying to get you to switch your credit card processing services away from your current processor and over to their processing company. This person’s only goal is to show you a carefully manufactured side-by-side report demonstrating fees that are lower than your current processing costs. They want to make your current processor seem drastically more expensive than it will be if you move your processing to their company. But there’s often a catch.
The Slow Creep of Higher Rates
Many credit card processors want to maintain a high profit margin with your account and are only incentivized to lower your rates by a small margin over your previous processor. Business owners often report that the fees they receive with a new provider are just as expensive as they were with a previous processor. In cases where the fees are cheaper with the new provider, business owners often report that costs slowly creep up over the first two years. By the third year of processing, fees can actually exceed what they were paying with their previous processor. Little did they know that the lower fees were just a way to get them in the door. The plan was to slowly raise fees in hopes that they wouldn’t notice. Death by a million cuts. It’s a frustrating cycle of rate and fee whack-a-mole that distracts small businesses from concentrating on running their business and making sales.
How Sales Agent Commissions Increase Your Costs
Did you know that most sales people get paid a residual percentage of your processing rates? They have no incentive to actually help you understand your true costs as doing so would lower their commission on your account. They just want to give you the appearance that you will save money with them so that they can build their monthly income off of your processing fees.
How Business Owners Are Fighting Back
Many processors assess fees on your merchant account so that it is intentionally complicated and confusing. The harder it is to understand, the easier it is to overcharge you. Simply trying to research the details of your statement can be like going back to school to study business finance. In fact, there are no uniform standards across providers when it comes to how fees have to be named, described, or listed in your statement. This means statements across providers, and even by the same provider, can be drastically different from one merchant account to the next. Add to this that there are roughly six common rate and pricing schemes, along with hundreds of varying fees based on the cards that are transacted, and it can seem next to impossible to understand. This is where an independent audit from an expert who is not trying to get you to switch your merchant services can help.
What is a Merchant Account Cost Audit?
Put simply, and audit analyzes each and every transaction, rate, and fee in your merchant account statement to expose mistakes, hidden markups, and unnecessary junk fees. It will reveal the true cost of your processing with and without your provider’s markup.
Why Get an Audit
Credit card processing fees can be hidden from you in various ways. You may have heard such terms as: Tiered, Bucket, Differential, Interchange, Flat-Rate, Bill-Back, Level 1-3, and others. An audit will identify your pricing model and any hidden costs associated with it.
How an Audit Works
We will evaluate your statement and email you a report of our findings. The report will include a breakdown of where you are getting overcharged, list any mistakes that may be occurring in your pricing, and our estimate of what you could be paying with the excess charges removed.
How an Audit Will Save You Money
We can be hired to help you renegotiate your fees and, in many cases, we are also able to secure refunds of prior months’ fees. We can secure a higher amount of savings because we are experts at reading statements and know how to talk the talk. Our average client saves over $12,000 per year after hiring us, but we have helped some businesses reduce processing costs by over $500,000 per year.
Join Our Waitlist
To maintain a high level of service, we only accept a limited number of clients per month. Please join our waitlist if you are interested in learning more about how we can help you audit and optimize your merchant services costs. If you have a questions or concerns unrelated to a rate and fee audit please see our contact page.
December Giveaway!
We are choosing one business from our waitlist this holiday season for a free statement audit and cost consultation. Some stipulations may apply but there will be absolutely no cost. Join the waitlist today!