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How do I pass credit card fees onto my customer?

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    BarsinBarsin Member, Moderator Posts: 2,041 ✭✭✭

    Hey there @Covert1

    My apologies for being the bearer of bad news once again however we don't have any updates at this time. We are very aware of this request and we will update our payments users when this gets implemented. Thanks for your comments in our community!

    edited September 16, 2020
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    My_Name_Is_RyanMy_Name_Is_Ryan Member Posts: 2

    Hey everyone,
    I found this article pertaining to the rules and restrictions of passing these fees onto your customers/clients.
    https://www.valuepenguin.com/credit-card-surcharges-convenience-fees

    TLDR;
    • Surcharges are prohibited in these states - Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, and Texas.
    • Merchants cannot charge more than the actual cost of credit card processing or 4%, whichever is lower.
    • Surcharges can only be applied to Credit Cards (Not Debit).
    • When refunding a purchase, the surcharge must be included.
    • Surcharges can be applied based on the brand or card.
    • Surcharges must be included on the POS and the receipt.
    • Card companies must be notified at least 30 days in advance of when you'll begin charging the surcharge to your customers/clients.
    https://usa.visa.com/support/small-business/regulations-fees.html
    https://www.discoverglobalnetwork.com/en-us/partner-with-us/business-owners
    https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/business/overview.html

    edited September 18, 2020
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    My_Name_Is_RyanMy_Name_Is_Ryan Member Posts: 2

    Due to the fact that you're not legally permitted to apply the surcharge fee to debit cards and some cards have a higher rate than others, it'd be great if we could set custom surcharge rules for debit vs. credit cards and for specific card companies.

    Looking forward to this being in place! :smiley:

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    valeriemvaleriem Member Posts: 7

    Please add this functionality as @SherlocksEscapes described. We need this as well.

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    KelleyMKelleyM Member Posts: 1

    If .971 is used for the 2.9% transactions, what is used for the 3.4% card and 1% bank transactions? Can you please also share the formulas for calculating these other transactions?! TIA!!

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    AlexLAlexL Member Posts: 2,869 ✭✭✭

    Hi @KelleyM , for an amex transaction of 3.4%, you can change .971 to .966 which will accurately account for the difference.

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    JCVJCV Member Posts: 1

    Just a note from another business owner who would like Wave to allow for the option to pass along the 2.9% fee to customers IF/WHEN they select credit card for payment.

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    JVizzelJVizzel Member Posts: 1

    I'm strongly considering leaving Wave because this feature isn't automatic. It's 2020. I'm seeing that some direct competitors are offering this feature built into the invoice as an option. Not all of us understand how to implement code and how to calculate transaction fees very well and the fees I eat up are becoming a barrier to wanting to stay on with Wave for my invoicing.

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    PaintingProSingaporePaintingProSingapore Member Posts: 1
    Yes, please make this an automatic feature. We are having to ask customers how they would like to pay and manually informing each one of them that credit card payments incur a surcharge of 3.4% + $0.50 which we have to manually calculate and amend in the invoice. Then if they change their mind, we have to amend the invoice again.
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    Angela_T2Angela_T2 Member Posts: 1

    This is a must feature, its crazy that this needs to be done manually, we don't know how people are going to pay before we send them an invoice. You cant add this if you don't know and then we are stuck out of pocket. The automatic credit card charge feature should absolutely be included and it should be a preference to turn on and off like credit card function.

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    benjofischbenjofisch Member Posts: 5

    Also adding my vote to say this would be a great feature to have. In the end, it's credit card company lobbyists who are responsible for these totally insane laws in the first place. It isn't really the place of accounting/invoicing software to decide what I can and can't bill to my customers. I can imagine that Waveapps has to play it cool with CC companies, but not having this feature is a disservice to small businesses. My customers understand that paying via CC will incur a fee for the convenience to them, so why not make it as simple as possible, especially given that it is actually on-the-books legal in many states.

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    benjofischbenjofisch Member Posts: 5

    For anyone who is interested here is my workaround:
    1) Create a 2.9% sales tax account in Settings called "Credit Card Fee". Make sure it is a compound tax, because the fee is processed on the total transaction amount including the "real" sales tax
    2) The issue now is that you have now created a liability account which will mess up your Balance Sheet and count these collected fees against your total profit. Create a Cash and Bank Asset account called "CC Fee Clearing Account"
    3) Create an Income account called "Credit Card Fees - Collected"
    4) Periodically, or whenever you collect credit card fees, add an income transaction to the CC Fee Clearing Account in the amount collected. Categorize it using the income account from (3). Then add an expense in the same account and amount. Categorize it as a Sales Tax Payment to Government --> Credit Card Fee

    Your accounts should now be balanced: The false liability initially created in the invoice has now been offset by the income transaction, then mutually annihilated (a la matter/antimatter) on the balance sheet by the expense transaction.

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    sipowiczsipowicz Member Posts: 2

    Gonna jump on the band wagon here. This should be a built in feature. As others have already mentioned small business should not have to foot that bill. I don't care what CC Company lobbyists have achieved. We don't have the option to integrate our own payment option. We should have the ability to forward the fee's for offering electronic payments. Hope this gets added soon. Would be one more reason to continue down this path.

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    TheBest2020TheBest2020 Member Posts: 3

    WoW!

    I actually find this feature request, and the amount of angst over it somewhat disturbing. :)

    Transactions performed through 3rd party services were always expected to be a COST of doing business, should they not?! You don't have to take credit cards, but by doing so you're providing the convenience for yourself as well, why the heck you charging your client for it? If they're anything like me, they can't stand being charged MORE than what they were told the cost of the product or service was going to be, particularly if they're paying $5000+ on a CC. They don't expect to be billed and ADD of $150 just because they want to use they're own line of credit, an amount they will already have to pay interest on. That fee should be on you boss, you want to be paid on credit so you can get your money with less hassle, and not have to take cash to the bank... or worry about a check bouncing fee, so my friend, the convenience is ALSO YOUR OWN.

    Stop whining about adding more fees to your customer's expense, especially to the company that provides you free accounting software, and may already understand this idea. If you understood the principle of "mark-up", you'd set your prices to cover the cost yourself . SMH

    Seriously,

    LB

    edited November 18, 2020
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    918Scott918Scott Member Posts: 5

    @TheBest2020
    I understand your point and it is a good one but something to consider.. Many of us try to keep our prices very competitive. If we add this into our mark-up it would be a solution but, I feel it is not morally correct to charge my customer a CC surcharge that was built into the mark-up if they pay by cash, check, Venmo or Zelle. Those cash, check, Venmo or Zelle paying customers are getting charged for something they are not using. I know it might seem selfish that I do not want to be charged a surcharge at the hardware or grocery store but please remember, they are large corporations that have financial officers that work the fees into their P&L's. Most of us are small businesses that try to keep our costs and charges at a minimum so we can continue to be competitive and remain profitable.
    Lastly, I am sure that we are all very thankful for Wave and allowing us to use this for free. They do receive some revenue (the + charge) off the CC charges which is expected as it funds this great platform. I personally do not want to make money on the charges, I just want the option not loose money due to them.

    edited November 21, 2020
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    benjofischbenjofisch Member Posts: 5

    @TheBest2020
    Actually no, I don't want to be paid on credit. My considerations amount to what service I can provide and the cost to me of providing that service. If someone wants to buy my services, that's on them to figure out. However, I do place most of the blame on CC companies and their powerful lobbies for making credit such a seemingly foundational pillar of American consumerism. Criticism of a system is not whining, and it's very telling that you rush to the defense of highly profitable credit card companies rather than small businesses. I hope you at least charge them a fee for your advocacy

    Besides -- and I'm sure someone as fiscally literate as yourself would agree -- no one should be financing their purchases at 16-25% monthly interest (compounded daily). If that is something you think people should have the option of doing (god help you), then what is a 2.9% flat fee for the convenience of being able to do so? A drop in the bucket so to speak.

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    TheBest2020TheBest2020 Member Posts: 3

    And as I suspected, opinions always differ. No, I don't want my business service to be paid for in credit myself either, but I know many who prefer it for tracking receipts over cash. All I know is there's no getting away from the 3% fee for CC purchases anytime soon, so you either have to live with it or include these costs in your mark-ups. I guess I'm just one of the few who don't feel that passing on that fee onto the consumer at the point of sale is the right way to do business. If anyone's markups are so marginal that you are squeaking by just to get a few % points of profit, you should probably find a more profitable niche to work in.

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    Andy_RAndy_R Member Posts: 12

    @Angela_T2 said:
    This is a must feature, its crazy that this needs to be done manually, we don't know how people are going to pay before we send them an invoice. You cant add this if you don't know and then we are stuck out of pocket. The automatic credit card charge feature should absolutely be included and it should be a preference to turn on and off like credit card function.

    Agreed! On the invoice there is a box that says "Pay Securely Online." In that box there could be a disclaimer that says "There will be a convenience fee if paying online." Then if a client chooses to pay online, the invoice total could automatically update to reflect the additional charges. One would think.

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    andyfarmerandyfarmer Member Posts: 3

    Can you create an option that works like a tax with a percentage but is not a tax?

    A percentage calculation that i can use for packing and shipping ie... packing and shipping costs me 16.9% per invoice if i'm shipping the item and I want to be able to rename it as packing and shipping rather than tax.

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    EricaMEricaM Member Posts: 1

    I don't know if my clients are going to pay by credit card or send a check. Can you make a way for them to CHOOSE? This would really help streamline my process.

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    RoseEllenCampbellRoseEllenCampbell Member Posts: 3

    Have there been any updates on this feature? As we can't always foretell how the client is going to pay an invoice, and many would ignore or not read a statement on the invoice stating that there is an extra fee for credit card processing, a pop-up feature would be ideal. Then, we could choose whether or not we wanted to implement the extra charge. I for one, would definitely go for it. On large invoices, we're losing a substantial sum, especially as you charge on top of the tax (and that money gets paid out as well).

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    JenWilliamsIntlJenWilliamsIntl Member Posts: 1

    Since 2001, my business and nonprofit services have been paid in advance before any work was performed without a single problem. In the beginning, I accepted credit cards and checks (not one ever bounced). With the advent of peer to peer instant money transfer, new and existing clients prefer to pay using the Cash app or Zelle (which is absolutely fine with me!) affording me the avoidance of all credit card merchant fees and the retention of more income.

    I simply customized my invoice and renamed it "Invoice/Receipt." In the "Notes" section are the Payment Options to choose from, which include my cash app name, Zelle email address and post office box for those who prefer to mail a check. Since no one ever chooses to pay by credit card, I disabled that feature on the Invoice/Receipt. I simply invoice the client and offer them the opportunity to pay in full if they can. Because my niche market is business and nonprofit startups, many can't afford to and if they can't, I work with them and allow them to pay me the biggest down payment as possible for me to get started on their documents and make payments as they can. This has been a HUGE "win-win" for both me and my clients as it helps them launch their dream and helps me with cash flow. Because I'm not a bill collector (LOL), I only do as much as they pay me which takes the pressure off of them. My business is built on trust and has generated a ton of word of mouth referrals to the point I stopped marketing long time ago. I realize this is a unique situation and might not work for most but it has worked flawlessly for me (and them!) Can Wave include a peer to peer money transfer option like Cash app or Zelle in the invoicing as a payment option? Thanks.

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    KristenVKristenV Member Posts: 121 admin

    Hi @EricaM @RoseEllenCampbell , at this time, the workaround we recommend is to manually add a line item to your invoices to account for the processing fees that will be incurred. That being said, I can definitely understand the issue of not knowing beforehand how your customers will choose to pay, since their method of payment will affect your calculations. In cases like this, an option is to determine yourself how you'd like to be paid, and only provide that payment method to your customer.

    For example, if you determine that you want to be paid by bank payment for the invoice, you are able to do the manual calculation of the bank payment processing fee and add that to your invoice. Then before sending the invoice to your customer, you are able to turn off the option to pay that invoice by credit card. This way you can ensure that the calculation you did is correct based on the method of payment used. Check out this Help Centre article for more information on how to do this.

    Hi @JenWilliamsIntl , thank you so much for taking the time to share your personal process here! Congratulations on the success of your business and the great relationship you have with your customers! At this time Wave does not have a feature which allows your customers to pay by Cash App or Zelle directly through Wave invoices, I'm afraid. That being said, I do appreciate you bringing this to our attention. Our Developers are always looking through our Community threads for feature ideas suggested by our users. Please feel free to let us know more about how this feature would be helpful to you!

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    firefox15firefox15 Member Posts: 1

    It is very frustrating that this isn't a core feature in a product that is otherwise very good. I understand that some people believe this is the cost of doing business, but we run a small HOA and want to use this feature, and our members are not going to want us subsidizing everyone who wants to use either a bank account or a CC to pay us the annual dues. (Our dues are only $100/year, so asking the HOA is give up ~3% of the annual budget to this is a non-starter).

    To properly workaround this for now, we would effectively need to send our members four different invoices and ask them to pay whichever one that is appropriate for their method of payment:

    • $100 (mailed check)
    • $101 (ACH)
    • $103.30 (normal CC)
    • $103.83 (AmEx CC)

    We cannot confuse our members like this, and it is making this so much harder than it needs to be. Most of our members want mailed invoices (for now), and we aren't going to send four of them. I can think of many services that I pay for that have no problem telling me I need to pay a convenience fee or processing fee for paying with a CC or another online method, so I do not understand why it is such a show-stopper for Wave.

    If there is some weird legal reason this cannot be done, can Wave develop a way to work around it? What if we could have optional invoice charges that the user can check or uncheck but that become mandatory if they select a certain payment method that could cover the processing expense? It's just frustrating because this is the only thing holding us back from going all digital for our dues collection, but I do not know how people are going to want to pay, and therefore I cannot use the online payments feature at all.

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    thimmig2thimmig2 Member Posts: 1

    How is this still not a feature!? Default the feature to off and make the end user responsible for determining if it is legal in their jurisdiction. This seems like common sense. Providing the functionality is totally justifiable based on the fact that you operate globally. Please add this ASAP

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    Pkripper67Pkripper67 Member Posts: 5
    I will not turn on accepting bank and credit card payments until you implement the ability to DYNAMICALLY add the fee onto the invoice total. This HAS to be a feature you need to develop!
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    cekentinccekentinc Member Posts: 11

    I'm increasingly inclined to just use Stripe. It's fast, affordable, INCREDIBLY flexible... While it doesn't directly integrate with Wave, you can subscribe to Zapier and have every payment automatically added to Wave (it's a fee-based service).

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    beliciousbethbeliciousbeth Member Posts: 4

    I agree with all the comments below that there needs to be a way to pass the fee on in an easier fashion and only when the customer actually uses a card to pay! I am not going to use your payments feature until I can pass that convenience fee on to the customer. I should not have to cover that as a small business just because the customer can't get around to e transferring the money. I do have customers that ask to pay with a card but I can't figure out how to add the fee to the invoice and also is there a way to turn the payments feature on for just a specific invoice?

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    KiahDKiahD Administrator Posts: 267 admin

    hey @beliciousbeth !

    The fee is added to the invoice as a separate line item, so you would need to create a new product/service for the fee to do so.

    To only accept payments on specific invoices, first turn payments off for all invoices, by heading to Settings > Payments, and toggling both options to "Off". Then you can turn Online Payments on for the specific invoices of your choosing, by clicking the Online Payments button when viewing the invoice, and toggling one or both options to "On".

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    PatGPatG Member Posts: 13 ✭✭

    Really my comment was delete? WTF is going on at Wave? Frustrating it's users is what your tag line should be.

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