Use Case: Set Up a Convenience Fee

You can charge a Merchant for accepting non-primary payment methods by setting up a convenience fee. Convenience fees can be set up for either an individual Merchant account or a group of Merchants. This tutorial will walk you through the steps to create a convenience fee.

Screenshot 2024-01-09 160812 uc fee 1.png

Objective

Create a new fee that will trigger when one of your Merchants charges a cardholder using an alternative payment method.

Audience

Facilitators
Referrers

Environment

Portal (Sandbox)
Portal (Production)

Prerequisites

Prerequisites:

You must have a fully boarded Payrix account to perform any of the actions described in the use case guides.
Make sure you’re familiar with the following terms and information:
- Fee Types - The different categories of fees that can be created and charged.
- Fee Structure - Overview of the basic layout for a Fee configuration.
  - Fee Schedules - Available time or event-based triggers used to initiate a Fee charge.
  - Fee Rules - Options to further refine the criteria of the Fee Schedule.
  - Fee Modifiers - Options to redirect the Fee collection flow and who will pay the Fee.
  - Fee Collection Process - Overview of how Fee payments are collected and where they can be found.

Warnings

Warnings will provide insight or advice to avoid risk, visibility, and overall product performance issues during this use case.

Warning: Convenience fees can cause legal complications, so it is important to ensure that the fee is configured correctly. A convenience fee must meet general card brand network requirements, including the following:

Convenience Fees must be disclosed to the customer before completion of a transaction.
You must allow cardholders to cancel the transaction upon reading this disclosure.
Convenience Fees are only allowed for credit and signature debit card types.
Convenience Fees are only allowed for card-not-present transaction types.
Convenience fees cannot be applied to recurring, subscription, or installment transactions.

Tips

Tips will provide suggestions to streamline or better prepare you to apply this use case tutorial.

Tip: If you’re unsure how much to charge for a specific fee type, refer to the Visa and MasterCard card brand network guidelines.

Additional Resources

For more information about fees and your account, see the Fee Management page.

Set Up a Convenience Fee

Set Up a Convenience Fee for a Group of Merchants

Click here to set up a fee for a group of Merchants.

1. Open the Group Profile

Step 1: Click GROUPS in the left-hand navigation panel to open the Groups page.
Step 2: Locate the group in the table and click on any information in the table row to open the Group Profile page.

2. Add a Fee to the Group Profile

Step 1: Click FEES in the list of tabs on the left-hand side of the page.
Step 2: Click the ADD FEE button in the upper right-hand corner of the page to open the Add Fee lightbox on the page.
Step 3: Click the When to Schedule Fee drop-down menu and choose CAPTURE.
Step 4: Click the How Much is the Fee drop-down menu and then select from the following: Actual, Percentage, or Surcharge.
Step 5: Enter the fee in the Amount field.

Tip: Using “today’s” date as the Fee Start Date is recommended to make the fee effective immediately.

The start date default setting in the Add Fee lightbox will use today’s date. If you need to change or reset the fee start date, click on the CALENDAR icon under the Fee Start Date section and select the start date.

Step 6: Click ADVANCED OPTIONS to open the Advanced section.
Step 7: Click the Conditional Rules drop-down menu and select TRANSACTION ORIGINATES FROM.
Step 8: Click on the drop-down menu that appears to the right of the Conditional Rules drop-down, and select an alternative payment method from one of the following items:
- Terminal
- E-commerce
- Mail/Telephone order
- Recurring
- PayFrame

Warning: To trigger a convenience fee for more than one type of alternative payment method, you must create a separate fee for each method (i.e. separate fees for E-commerce and Mail/Telephone order transactions).

Step 7: Click ADD to finish set up.

Result: The fee is now visible in the group profile fees tab, and will trigger when a transaction from any Merchant associated with the group occurs using the alternative payment method.

Set Up a Convenience Fee for an Individual Merchant

Click here to set up a fee for an individual Merchant.

1. Open the Merchant Profile

Step 1: Click MERCHANTS in the left-hand navigation panel to open the Merchants page.
Step 2: Locate the Merchant in the table and click on any information in the table row to open the Merchant Profile page.

2. Add a Fee to the Merchant Profile

Step 1: Click FEES in the list of tabs on the left-hand side of the page.
Step 2: Click the ADD FEE button in the upper right-hand corner of the page to open the Add Fee lightbox on the page.
Step 3: Click the When to Schedule Fee drop-down menu and choose CAPTURE.
Step 4: Click the How Much is the Fee drop-down menu and then select ACTUAL.
Step 5: Enter the fee in the Amount field.

Tip: Using “today’s” date as the Fee Start Date is recommended to make the fee effective immediately.

The start date default setting in the Add Fee lightbox will use today’s date. If you need to change or reset the fee start date, click on the CALENDAR icon under the Fee Start Date section and select the start date.

Step 6: Click ADVANCED OPTIONS to open the Advanced section.
Step 7: Click the Transaction Fee checkbox.
Step 7: Click the Conditional Rules drop-down menu and select TRANSACTION ORIGINATES FROM.
Step 8: Click on the drop-down menu that appears to the right of the Conditional Rules drop-down, and select an alternative payment method from one of the following items:
- Terminal
- E-commerce
- Mail/Telephone order
- Recurring
- PayFrame

Warning: To trigger a convenience fee for more than one type of alternative payment method, you must create a separate fee for each method (i.e. separate fees for E-commerce and Mail/Telephone order transactions).

Step 7: Click ADD to finish set up.

Result: The fee is now visible in the Merchant profile fees tab, and will trigger when a transaction occurs using the alternative payment method.

Next Steps

Once the new fee is added, review the following use case guides for additional information on related topics:

Set Up Transaction Fees: Set up transaction fees for a Merchant account or group using the Set Up Transaction Fees use case.
Enable Transaction Event Alerts: Create an email alert that will trigger when a transaction is created or updated by you or one of your users using the Enable Transaction Event Alerts use case.

Conclusion

Once the fee is created, it will automatically trigger any time one of your Merchants’ accounts processes a transaction using an alternative payment method for their customer.

References

Click the links or items below to access any of the following pages:

Groups page [Referrer][Facilitator]
Group Profile page [Referrer][Facilitator]
Fees menu [Referrer][Facilitator]
Merchants page [Referrer][Facilitator]
Merchant Profile page [Referrer][Facilitator]
Fee Management
Set Up Transaction Fees
Enable Transaction Event Alerts