Point of Sale

The privatization of the POS (point-of-sale) industry provides an opportunity for merchants to acquire better options for payment terms by their customers. The private terminal allows the merchant the option to set a modest surcharge or convenience fee, paid by the cardholders to make payments with their Interact debit cards. Merchants are not required to surcharge; it is a choice each business owner makes when analyzing his/her options

All users are notified of the user fee on the pin pad and have the option to exit from the transaction and make payment by other means. Our test sites have indicated no change in sales with a private terminal using a surcharge.

VISA and MasterCard collectively have a large number of different interchange increases. There are two main reasons why your charges will downgrade (fall into a higher interchange qualification rate):

  1. The type of card that you accept - Corporate credit cards, rewards credit cards, government cards, and more will all downgrade to a higher qualification bracket.
  2. The way you charge a card – VISA/Master Card require all card-not-present merchants, such as all online merchants, to use (and match) the address verification service (AVS) in order for a merchant to qualify a transaction. Of course, this is assuming that the card in not inherently downgraded like those mentioned above.

There are two main pricing schemes and structures that most merchant accounts follow:

  1. The first is a tiered-grid pricing system following a qualified and non-qualified rate system where a merchant service provider (MSP) will dictate where each card type and method of card charges will fall.
  2. The second is called interchange-plus, or enhanced reduced recovery/reduction (ERR). This method is most advantageous to the merchant, but requires a substantial processing volume before most providers will consider offering it because it has a lower residual profit flow.

 

NOTES:

You must accept all card types – Master Card & Visa want to offer rewards but expect the merchants to pay for them. Merchants are required to accept all card types without knowing the type of card that you are accepting.

 

Testimonials

  • The bottom line is very important for our little shop.  I was shocked to find out how much we had been overpaying on simple monthly bills.  We are now using those dollars on the upgrades that we had been putting off.  Thank-you!

    Hans, Machine Shop

  • Dealing with your firm was “my pleasure”.   I was so impressed with the results of your service that I recommended my church use your services too.  It is only too bad that you don’t offer this for homes.

    Georgette, Flower & Chocolate Boutique

  • I would recommend Mackenzie Hope Analytics if you are looking for affordable, easy to use POS. Sonia Bakalchuk, Owner of Fulfilling Souls

    Sonia Bakalchuk, Owner of Fulfilling Souls

  • I knew I didn’t have a full grasp of the charges that were on my statements, so it was nice to have a professional audit that allowed us to get those much better rates.  I’m quite happy with the service you provided - especially seeing as it didn’t cost me anything!

    Sandra, Full Service Spa