- Overview
- Prerequisites
- Convenience Fee/Surcharging
- How to enable Convenience Fee/Surcharging
- Add "Pre-Surcharge" Amount to Receipts
- Video Tutorial
Overview
Merchants can add a surcharge, convenience fee, service fee, or cash discount onto their credit card transactions. Merchants need to adhere to the rules and regulations from card brands or laws from state and local governments on how much can be surcharged. Please have your merchants contact their merchant account representative and consult legal statutes to ensure compliance. The Convenience Fee/Surcharging Settings page will only change the default surcharge information in the Virtual Terminal.
Prerequisites
The merchants user will need the 'Access Administrative Options' permission to be able to see the Transaction Options heading, which is where the Convenience Fee/Surcharging Configuration page is located in. Primary users have this permission set by default and cannot be removed.
In the Merchant Portal, on the left side panel → click on Options → Settings → under Transaction Options click on Convenience Fee/Surcharging Configuration or from the homepage My Settings → All Settings → under Transaction Options click on Convenience Fee/Surcharging Configuration.
Convenience Fee/Surcharging
Before your merchant enables Convenience Fee/Surcharging on their Virtual Terminal, it is imperative that the merchant contacts their processing service to ensure compliance. Card brands and merchants acquirers/processors can provide more information, such as state level restrictions as some currently prohibit/limit surcharging, whether they require any notices from the merchant prior to adding surcharging, advise how much the merchant can surcharge, etc.
As a partner, can I remove the Convenience Fee/Surcharging configuration page from my merchant? Yes, there is an Advanced Merchant Features flag called "Prevent Merchant from Configuring Convenience Fees/Surcharges":
Surcharging is also available via the Payment API, Quickclick, and other services. To add a surcharge to any other service, please ask a support agent for instructions at support@nmi.com.
How to create a Convenience Fee/Surcharge
1. In the Convenience Fee/Surcharging settings page, the 'Activate Convenience Fee/Surcharging' box must be checked in order to use this feature:
2. Select which Surcharge Type you would like to set as your default:
3. Set the amounts you want to apply to transactions:
4. Check which Virtual Terminal Payment method you want this feature to apply to and click Save:
Once the default Surcharge options have been saved, you will see the Surcharge fields appear when you process a sale via the Virtual Terminal. For example, to process a credit card transaction go to left-hand side menu in the merchant portal and click on 'Credit Cards' → 'Sale':
- When the merchant enters an Amount, the gateway will auto-calculate the surcharge amount. The Total will equal the Amount + Surcharge.
The default Surcharge Type can be changed when running a transaction in the Virtual Terminal. The merchant may select between 'No Surcharge', 'Fixed', or 'Percentage' from the 'Surcharge Type' dropdown on a per transaction basis. The 'Fixed', and 'Percentage' amount displayed is based on what they have configured in their Convenience Fee/Surcharging settings page:
Add "Pre-Surcharge" Amount to Receipts
Merchants who use Convenience Fees/Surcharging in their Virtual Terminal can request to add an optional pre-surcharge amount to receipts. In order to change a template, please see Email Template Changes to request this change for your merchant.