Business and Corporate Card Prompts

Each month I review my client’s merchant account statements. I want to make sure they are saving at least as much money I promised and are having their transactions qualify for the lowest rates.

I just got off the phone with a new client of mine; a winery in St. Helena, CA. They are using a Omni 3750 terminal in their tasting room and had a few corporate card transactions downgraded resulting in some higher discount rates.

I thought I would share with you what I told my client. First of all never skip a prompt on your terminal when entering a transaction, a skipped prompt almost always results in a transaction downgrade and a higher rate for that transaction.

Second, on business or corporate transactions you should be prompted for two bits of information you are not for other transactions:

1. Customer number or code - You may have an internal account number assigned to the customer, and if you do, enter that number. If you don’t have such a number make one up! I generally use 001.

2. Tax amount - always enter a tax amount according to the guidelines below, with out exception, even if you are not charging tax! The amount you enter will not increase the amount of the sale or appear on the customer’s receipt.

Visa: Sales tax amount must be between .01% and 22%.

MC: Actual sales tax amount or you can enter $0.

In some cases you can enter more information than above and further reduce your fees. If you would like more information on this e-mail me asking for more information about “Level III.”

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