A merchant statement is a document that is given to merchants at the end of every month that details customer transactions that have been processed and fees that are included for payment processing. Typically, statements appear with a deposit summary, breakdown of fees paid to the card issuing companies, and fees charged by the processor.
What is a merchant statement?
The merchant statement refers to a document that is provided to you, the merchant, every month. The merchant statement provides details of all processed customer transactions and the fees paid for the payment processing. Merchant statements usually appear with the deposit summary, which is a breakdown of all the fees paid to the associated card issuers. The deposit summary also details any fees the processor charges.
Some merchants don’t bother to review their merchant statement because it looks so intimidating. However, not reviewing merchant statements on a regular basis is a bad practice. They should always be reviewed to ensure accuracy of money being deposited into your account and fees being assessed.
How do you understand what you’re looking at?
At the top of your merchant statement, you’ll see your Merchant Number. This is also known as your Merchant ID (MID). This is the number that you’ll want to have handy anytime you contact your payment provider.
Further down the statement, you’ll find the “Companies” section. This will list the total deposits and withdrawals made to and from your account by location. Below this area is the deposit details section which will list all your deposits by type. This will show, for instance, if your deposit was done by credit, debit or ACH. It also will show the total number of transactions and the total dollar amount of sales received.
The section called “Offset to Sales” provides information on any transactions that have been subtracted from your total sales. This might include things like chargebacks or refunds. There is then a section called “Net Sales” and it shows the total dollar amount released to you for all of the various types of deposits entered. Finally, “Released to Accounts” shows the total dollar amount released to you for each applicable settlement account. If you are looking for a quick summary, or snapshot, of the deposit information, you can reference the section titled “Deposit Detail Summary.”
Just below you’ll come across the “Interchange Billing Details.” This section will show you your processing volumes, number of transactions, and the total interchange fees charged for each category. The “Billing Details Charges” section lists the fees and assessments that were processed during the billing period, the number of times they were processed, the associated rate for the various charge types, and the dollar amount of the adjustment for each charge listed. There is an “Interchange Detail” section that shows all the interchange programs that you qualify for, the number of transactions processed for each program, the total dollar amount, the rate range for each program, and all of the fees associated. You are then able to view the total number of transactions in dollar amounts for volumes and fees, as well as the combined totals for all programs under each card type.
The “Chargeback Detail” section shows you all chargebacks listed by date, location, transaction date, invoice number, card number, reason and the amount. The Deposit Currency Summary follows and shows your sales counts and amounts, as well as any offset to sales. Finally, at the bottom is the “Merchant Statement Message” section that will show any updates to industry fees, latest product offerings and any other general messages that need to be communicated.
Making sense of processing fees.
As noted, there are many different types of processing fees. Statements can sometimes be challenging to review and understand how the various fees impact the money that is ultimately deposited into your account. With a transparent breakdown of all fees pertaining to processing, the Merchant Processing Statement shouldn’t be a confusing document to review. As always, if there are ever any questions about fees, or anything on the statement, you should be sure to ask your payments processor for an explanation.
At North American Bancard, our goal is to take the guesswork out of payment processing and make things as simple as possible. Be sure to check out our video that explains the Merchant Processing Statement or contact us if you have any questions.
