TOPS reviews your merchant statements and banking setup line by line, finds the fees you shouldn't be paying, and gets them fixed. TOPS also identifies alternative payment methods that lower your costs, speed up collections, or both. You get lower costs, faster cash flow, and someone on your side of the table.
| Qualified discount 1.69% | $1,183.00 |
| Non-qualified surchargeTiered pricing: rate set by the processor, not the card | $612.40 |
| Equipment leasePaid for the terminal years ago | $79.95 |
| PCI non-compliance fee | $29.95 |
| Statement fee + "regulatory" fee | $24.90 |
| Total fees on $70,000 volume | $1,930.20 |
Illustrative figures. Effective rate: 2.76%.
Banking is choppy water for a growing business. TOPS helps you grow revenue, streamline administration, and cut costs by putting banking best practices to work.
Card processing is where most businesses lose money without noticing.
Your accounts and processes should work for you, not the bank.
Chargebacks and breaches cost small businesses far more than the fix.
Hard-won lessons from years of reading merchant statements. Follow these and you're already ahead of most businesses.
Lease equipment.A terminal lease often costs many times the price of the terminal.
Agree to a personal guarantee.
Agree to an early termination fee.
Hand your processing statements to a merchant salesperson.
Ask for interchange-plus pricing.You see the true card cost and a fixed markup. Tiered pricing hides the markup.
Review your merchant statements every month.New fees appear quietly. Catch them early.
Consider better payment methods.Cards aren't the only option. Other methods can cost less, get you paid faster, or both.
Accept EMV chip cards.Since the liability shift, counterfeit fraud on a swiped chip card is your loss.
Be polite to salespeople.They're doing their job. You're doing yours.
Your effective rate is total processing fees divided by total card volume. It's the one number that cuts through a confusing statement. Take both figures from your last monthly statement.
This is a rough guide only. The right rate depends on your card mix, ticket size and industry. A full review looks at every line.
Share two or three recent merchant and bank statements. They stay confidential.
Every fee is checked against true interchange and network costs.
TOPS negotiates with your current processor or helps you move to a fair one.
Ongoing monthly monitoring catches new fees before they add up.
Email or call Tom Engle for a free, no-obligation review of your merchant statement.