Professional B2B Card Solutions
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Card Acceptance Consultants
Our Knowledge
Leveraging decades of experience, and a wealth of industry relationships to tailor make a solution for your card acceptance needs. While we can analyze any merchants card acceptance situation, we focus on two of the more complicated verticals, Business to Business(B2B) card processing and Hospitality POS. We show B2B merchants how to reduce costs by up to 40% through interchange optimization and Level II and Level III processing. And since Hospitality POS and card acceptance have become intertwined our team can analyze your POS needs and not only find you the best solution for your needs but in many cases be able to reduce the costs you would pay by finding those solutions on your own.
About Us and What We Do For You
With decades of experience in the Payments industry, Card Acceptance Consultants has narrowed their focus to a couple of the less understood processing verticals, namely Business to Business, or B2B, and Hospitality POS.
The U.S. B2B market has been estimated between 10 and 20 trillion dollars, close to three times that of the B2C market. But whereas over 70% of the B2C market is on plastic that is only true of about 8% of the B2B market. The reason for that is the perceived cost of plastic in relation to check, ach, or wire. Card Acceptance Consultants performs a detailed analysis using your own numbers that analyzes the true cost of check, ACH, or wire in comparison to plastic. By lowering your cost of card acceptance through interchange optimization and analyzing the true cost of check, ACH, or wire the actual cost difference is much smaller than what is typically initially perceived.
The hospitality POS market has changed more in the last 5 years than it had changed in the previous 15 often making it difficult to assess what is best for your particular restaurant, bar, or nightclub. In the past most Legacy POS systems were processor agnostic, meaning you could integrate any card processor with the POS system. Oracle’s Micros or NCR’s Aloha would be prime examples. Now with more and more systems the card processor and POS manufacturer are one and the same. Think, Fiserv’s Clover, Toast, or Shift4’s SkyTab. At Card Acceptance Consultants we assess what your current pain points are, what you are looking for in a system and make recommendations based on your needs. Due to our relationships with many different vendors we can typically negotiate a lower cost than you might obtain on your own.
Reduce your cost of card acceptance by 35% by obtaining Level II and Level III processing rates through interchange optimization
Obviously, with the cost reductions that can be obtained Level II and Level III processing makes sense, so how do you go about it? This is where you need to an expert that not only knows what needs to be done but has the tools to make this effortless. First of all some processors only offer Level I, some only Level 1 and II and even less offer Level III. Secondly, you need a Gateway that passes Level II and Level III information. If your processor passes Level III but your Gateway doesn’t, then your transactions are downgrading to a higher rate. Lastly, while the needed information to obtain Level II or Level III can be manually done this not only costs time and money but obviously leaves room for human error. Not only do the processors and Gateways we recommend pass all needed data but the Gateways we recommend are “fully automated, taking away the time, expense and risk of human error. So once you are set up properly, you can have a serious cost reduction with no more effort on your part.
Level II & III
The card brands (Visa MasterCard Discover AMEX) have over 300 different “interchange”rates with business, corporate, or government cards being among the highest. While a consumer card without any rewards can come in the 1.5% range, corporate and government cards can be in the 3% range. These interchange rates are non-negotiable and set by the card brands themselves, however, with business, corporate, or government cards if certain criteria are met the merchant can qualify for level II or level III rates which can be significantly less as shown by the chart below taken from Visa’s current interchange rate schedule.
So as an example let’s say your current provider gave you a .5% markup over interchange. If you are not correctly set up for interchange optimization you could be paying 2.7% + .5% = 3.2 % or 2.95% + .5% = 3.45% on a commercial card. By qualifying for Level III, that same transaction would result in 1.90% + .5% = 2.4%.
So why do the card brands offer these better levels and what are the criteria to meet them? The reason the card brands offer these levels is because part of the criteria is that you pass along more information during the transaction and this extra information lowers the chance of fraud and chargebacks.
The criteria for Level I is the same as for consumer cards and this is the default level for all card transactions. It simply consists of:
• Merchant name
• Billing zip code
• Purchase amount
• Purchase date
•
Level II criteria is the same as Level I but in addition:
• Merchant TIN
• Sales tax indicator amount
• Invoice number
• Order number
• Customer code, applicable only to government /purchasing cards
Level III criteria is the same as level two but in addition:
• Product code
• Product/SKU description
• Unit quantity
• Unit price and unit unit of measure
• Debit/credit indicator
• Discount applied and item total
• Freight and/or shipping cost
• Duty and/or import taxes assessed
Interchange Optimization
With decades of experience in the Payments industry, Card Acceptance Consultants has narrowed their focus to a couple of the less understood processing verticals, namely Business to Business, or B2B, and Hospitality POS.
The U.S. B2B market has been estimated between 10 and 20 trillion dollars, close to three times that of the B2C market. But whereas over 70% of the B2C market is on plastic that is only true of about 8% of the B2B market. The reason for that is the perceived cost of plastic in relation to check, ach, or wire. Card Acceptance Consultants performs a detailed analysis using your own numbers that analyzes the true cost of check, ACH, or wire in comparison to plastic. By lowering your cost of card acceptance through interchange optimization and analyzing the true cost of check, ACH, or wire the actual cost difference is much smaller than what is typically initially perceived.
The hospitality POS market has changed more in the last 5 years than it had changed in the previous 15 often making it difficult to assess what is best for your particular restaurant, bar, or nightclub. In the past most Legacy POS systems were processor agnostic, meaning you could integrate any card processor with the POS system. Oracle’s Micros or NCR’s Aloha would be prime examples. Now with more and more systems the card processor and POS manufacturer are one and the same. Think, Fiserv’s Clover, Toast, or Shift4’s SkyTab. At Card Acceptance Consultants we assess what your current pain points are, what you are looking for in a system and make recommendations based on your needs. Due to our relationships with many different vendors we can typically negotiate a lower cost than you might obtain on your own.
Reduce your cost of card acceptance by 35% by obtaining Level II and Level III processing rates through interchange optimization.
The card brands (Visa MasterCard Discover AMEX) have over 300 different “interchange”rates with business, corporate, or government cards being among the highest. While a consumer card without any rewards can come in the 1.5% range, corporate and government cards can be in the 3% range. These interchange rates are non-negotiable and set by the card brands themselves, however, with business, corporate, or government cards if certain criteria are met the merchant can qualify for level II or level III rates which can be significantly less as shown by the chart below taken from Visa’s current interchange rate schedule.
So as an example let’s say your current provider gave you a .5% markup over interchange. If you are not correctly set up for interchange optimization you could be paying 2.7% + .5% = 3.2 % or 2.95% + .5% = 3.45% on a commercial card. By qualifying for Level III, that same transaction would result in 1.90% + .5% = 2.4%.
So why do the card brands offer these better levels and what are the criteria to meet them? The reason the card brands offer these levels is because part of the criteria is that you pass along more information during the transaction and this extra information lowers the chance of fraud and chargebacks.
The criteria for Level I is the same as for consumer cards and this is the default level for all card transactions. It simply consists of:
• Merchant name
• Billing zip code
• Purchase amount
• Purchase date
•
Level II criteria is the same as Level I but in addition:
• Merchant TIN
• Sales tax indicator amount
• Invoice number
• Order number
• Customer code, applicable only to government /purchasing cards
Level III criteria is the same as level two but in addition:
• Product code
• Product/SKU description
• Unit quantity
• Unit price and unit unit of measure
• Debit/credit indicator
• Discount applied and item total
• Freight and/or shipping cost
• Duty and/or import taxes assessed
Obviously, with the cost reductions that can be obtained Level II and Level III processing makes sense, so how do you go about it? This is where you need to an expert that not only knows what needs to be done but has the tools to make this effortless. First of all some processors only offer Level I, some only Level 1 and II and even less offer Level III. Secondly, you need a Gateway that passes Level II and Level III information. If your processor passes Level III but your Gateway doesn’t, then your transactions are downgrading to a higher rate. Lastly, while the needed information to obtain Level II or Level III can be manually done this not only costs time and money but obviously leaves room for human error. Not only do the processors and Gateways we recommend pass all needed data but the Gateways we recommend are “fully automated, taking away the time, expense and risk of human error. So once you are set up properly, you can have a serious cost reduction with no more effort on your part.
Our Benefits For Your Business
We offer a wide range of cards and stationery, from classic and timeless designs to bold and colorful prints. Whether you're looking for the perfect birthday card, a heartfelt thank you note, or elegant wedding invitations, we've got you covered.
Our Mission
Our mission is to help people connect with each other through the power of words. We believe that every message has the potential to make a difference, and we're committed to making it easy and enjoyable for our customers to express themselves and share their thoughts and feelings.