Merchants can charge their customers a convenience fee for accepting non-primary payment methods. You can set up convenience fees for an individual merchant account or a group of merchants. This tutorial shows you how to create a convenience fee that triggers when one of your merchants charges a cardholder using an alternative payment method.
Audience: Partner
Set Up a Convenience Fee
Ensure that you complete the prerequisites and all tasks in a section to enable the respective fee.
Important!
Convenience fees can cause legal complications, so correctly configuring the fee is important. A convenience fee must meet general card brand network requirements, including the following:
Convenience fees must be disclosed to the customer before completion of a transaction.
You must allow cardholders to cancel the transaction upon reading this disclosure.
Convenience fees are only allowed for credit and signature debit card types.
Convenience fees are only allowed for card-not-present transaction types.
Convenience fees cannot be applied to recurring, subscription, or installment transactions.
Prerequisites
Before attempting this tutorial, you must:
Meet the general prerequisites described in Get Started with Use Case Tutorials.
Understand the types of fees you can create and how to structure them.
Set Up a Convenience Fee for a Group of Merchants
Complete all steps in the following sections.
Open the Group Profile
Click GROUPS in the left navigation panel to open the Groups page.
Locate the group in the table and select any information in the table row to open the Group Profile page.
Add a Fee to the Group Profile
Click FEES in the list of tabs on the left side of the page.
Click ADD FEE in the upper-right corner of the page to open the Add Fee dialog on the page.
Click the When to Schedule Fee dropdown menu and choose CAPTURE.
Click the How Much is the Fee dropdown menu and then select from the following: Actual, Percentage, or Surcharge.
Enter the fee in the Amount field.
Tip
If you’re unsure how much to charge for a specific fee type, refer to the Visa and Mastercard card brand network guidelines.
Enter the date on which the fee becomes effective.
Tip
Using today’s date as the Fee Start Date is recommended to make the fee effective immediately.
The start date default setting in the Add Fee dialog will use today’s date. If you need to change or reset the fee start date, click on the CALENDAR icon under the Fee Start Date section and select the start date.
Click ADVANCED OPTIONS to open the Advanced section.
Click the Conditional Rules dropdown menu and select TRANSACTION ORIGINATES FROM.
Click on the dropdown menu that appears to the right of the Conditional Rules dropdown menu, and select one of the following alternative payment methods:
Terminal
E-commerce
Mail/Telephone order
Recurring
PayFrame
Note
To trigger a convenience fee for more than one type of alternative payment method, you must create a separate fee for each method (for example, separate fees for E-commerce and mail order/telephone order (MOTO) transactions).
Click ADD to finish the setup.
Result: The fee is now visible in the group profile fees tab. The fee will automatically trigger any time one of your merchants processes a transaction using an alternative payment method for their customer.
Set Up a Convenience Fee for an Individual Merchant
Complete all steps in the following sections.
Open the Merchant Profile
Click MERCHANTS in the left navigation panel to open the Merchants page.
Locate the Merchant in the table and select any information in the table row to open the Merchant Profile page.
Add a Fee to the Merchant Profile
Click FEES in the list of tabs on the left side of the page.
Click ADD FEE in the upper-right corner of the page to open the Add Fee dialog on the page.
Click the When to Schedule Fee dropdown menu and choose CAPTURE.
Click the How Much is the Fee dropdown menu and then select ACTUAL.
Enter the fee in the Amount field.
Tip
If you’re unsure how much to charge for a specific fee type, refer to the Visa and Mastercard card brand network guidelines.
Enter the date on which the fee becomes effective.
Tip
Using today’s date as the Fee Start Date is recommended to make the fee effective immediately.
The start date default setting in the Add Fee dialog will use today’s date. If you need to change or reset the fee start date, click on the CALENDAR icon under the Fee Start Date section and select the start date.
Click ADVANCED OPTIONS to open the Advanced section.
Click the Transaction Fee checkbox.
Click the Conditional Rules dropdown menu and select TRANSACTION ORIGINATES FROM.
Click on the dropdown menu that appears to the right of the Conditional Rules dropdown menu, and select one of the following alternative payment methods:
Terminal
E-commerce
Mail/Telephone order
Recurring
PayFrame
Note
To trigger a convenience fee for more than one type of alternative payment method, you must create a separate fee for each method (for example, separate fees for E-commerce and Mail/Telephone order transactions).
Click ADD to finish the setup.
Result: The fee is now visible in the Merchant profile fees tab. The fee will automatically trigger any time your merchant processes a transaction using an alternative payment method for their customer.
Next Steps
After adding the new fee, review the following guides for information on related topics:
Set Up a Transaction Fee: Set up transaction fees for a Merchant account or group.
Enable Transaction Event Alerts: Create an email alert that will trigger when a transaction is created or updated by you or one of your users.