DOLLARS ON THE NET will save you more than it costs. It's like getting a check every month ...

... and you don't have to change your merchant services relationship!

The return on the investment in a new system is often difficult to determine. Savings are often defined in terms of saved man-hours, productivity and efficiency. While Shift4's powerful solutions will save man-hours, increase customer satisfaction and eliminate mistakes, the return from DOLLARS ON THE NET can also be described in terms of direct dollar savings. In order to describe the kind of savings realized from this powerful solution, please consider the following areas in which DOLLARS ON THE NET directly enables you to save money.

American Express Transactions

By processing American Express (AMEX) transactions directly with American Express, you can save the fees associated with doing so through a third party bankcard processor, often upwards of 17 cents a transaction. While it may not be obvious that you are being charged this fee, because it is often buried in their bankcard rates (called blended rates), you almost always are.

Communications Cost

Most MSP's are charged fees per transaction for dial-up communication costs, which they pass onto you, the merchant. They often bury these communications costs into their bankcard rates to pass them on to their customers. With DOLLARS ON THE NET, they will save money with their processor and can and should in turn pass those savings on to you.

Foreign Transaction Rebates

With Shift4's Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) functionality, you make money on every foreign cardholder transaction. DOLLARS ON THE NET with DCC spins off all foreign transactions to Planet Payment, a transaction processor that specializes in foreign currency conversions and that maintains an “inventory” of foreign currency. In turn, Planet Payment, which charges the same amount for the transaction as the issuing bank would (approximately 3%), kicks a portion of the fee back to you the merchant.

Downgrades

Generally, a large portion of the costs associated with credit cards is the downgrading of transactions. These are the transactions that don't meet the data content or transaction-timing regulations set by the Card Associations. DOLLARS ON THE NET is a powerful tool to combat transaction downgrades. We have found that we consistently save our customers from 25-50% of their downgrades. In some instances, through the vigilance afforded through the use of DOLLARS ON THE NET, savings of up to 100% can be realized.

Credits

Most merchants don't realize how much credits cost them. While most MSP's charge nothing for credit transactions (except for a transaction fee), they do charge for the original charge that the credit is intended to correct. A simple example can show how this cost works. A clerk keys a transaction that was intended to be $150.00 adding only an extra zero making the transaction $1500.00. In a system without the ability to audit before settlement, the transaction for $1500 is processed at a discount rate of say 2%. The cost of the original transaction would be $30. The cost of the transaction to the merchant should have been $3 but depending on how the transaction is corrected, it will cost the merchant $30 to $33. A powerful audit tool like the one in DOLLARS ON THE NET gives merchants the chance to correct errant transactions before they cost a merchant money or customers. We have found that use of DOLLARS ON THE NET allows our merchants to issue 50% fewer credits.

Retrieval Requests and Charge Backs

Each time a cardholder complains to their issuing bank that a charge was not valid, the MSP issues a retrieval request. In responding to a retrieval request most merchants spend at least $10 and up to $15 per request. This is generally from the labor involved, but sometimes MSP's charge a fee for each retrieval request. If merchants don't respond on a timely basis, they can also be charged a timeliness fee, which can be very high and can even cause them to lose the transaction completely. The comprehensive 24-month archive of transactions and the powerful search functionality of DOLLARS ON THE NET allows you to quickly and efficiently respond to charge back requests. Our merchants tell us they save far in excess of $10 per retrieval request with DOLLARS ON THE NET.

Duplicate Tickets or Batches

The credit card settlement process is greatly affected by problems in telecommunications. For that reason, many merchants experience one or more batches of transactions each month that are doubled at the processor. The cost of this problem is related to the credits that must be issued to correct the problem. Shift4, however, suspends batches with communications errors, not allowing them to complete until such time as the processor has been called to verify that the batch or part of the batch did not get through. This process can eliminate all duplicated batches or transactions and the costs they generate.

Trusted Employee Fraud

A major problem in the acceptance of credit cards is "Internal Trusted Employee Fraud" whereby trusted employees (clerks/auditors/accountants) issue credits to their own cards and the cards of their friends. This type of fraud typically costs hotels, restaurants and retail establishments about 0.1% to 2.5% of their gross credit card revenue each month. Fraud Sentry, our unique and proprietary system, can virtually eliminate these costs.

To calculate the specific ROI for your organization, click here.