Notch offers the Credit Card Surcharge feature, which allows payment collectors to offset the cost of payment processing fees without having to manually adjust each invoice. The fees are applied at the point of payment and are displayed on the payment receipts. If your customer is paying with a credit card, you can pass on the processing fees as a surcharge added to the invoice.
What is credit card surcharge?
A credit card surcharge is a fee added when a customer chooses to pay by credit card. It differs from a convenience fee, which merchants can add to any transaction regardless of the payment method. A credit card surcharge is only applied to credit card transactions.
- As a supplier, you can decide how much the surcharge percentage is.
- Only credit card fees can be passed on to your customers.
- With passed-on fees, your payout reports will need to be adjusted to reflect the fees versus the net payout amount.
- In the Notch dashboard, you can add a surcharge by percentage for each individual customer or apply it as a bulk setting.
To maintain transparency, you must inform your customers when adding a credit card surcharge fee to transactions.
Canadian merchants have a maximum surcharge limit of 2.4%.
You must fill out this form prior to charging surcharges to your customers: https://www.mastercard.ca/en-ca/surcharge-disclosure-webform.html
How does it work?
Do you know you have the option of credit card surcharging at the Brand level or the Product level?
- Brand level surcharge: the surcharge must be the same across all credit cards for that specific payment card network (i.e. Visa, Mastercard, or American Express)
- Product level surcharge: the surcharge may differ between categories of credit card (i.e. a Standard credit card vs premium credit card)
Once the credit card surcharge is set, these fees will be added to the charge flow, you'll find additional fees added on top of the invoice amount. The calculation of the fees can vary depending on the brand of the payment method selected (e.g., Visa, Mastercard, or American Express).
When an invoice is created in your Notch dashboard,
How will it appear on my payout report?
Once you pass the surcharge on to your customer, Notch's system will calculate the total fee owed by you. The surcharge you collected will offset and reduce the total payable fees, so you'll see a lower deduction on your payout from Notch.