credit card fees to be paid by members
Our members love being able to pay their membership dues by credit card. However, our biggest gripe with the payment systems that apricot supports is that there doesn't appear to be a way to give the credit card processing fee to the member, rather than our company. Since our membership costs are very high ($36,750), these small (~ 3.5%) fees really cost us a lot of money ($1,286.25), and it would be very helpful if we could pass these fees back on to the member.
For example, if there was a way to allow members to manually enter in the amount they want to pay by credit card (including the 3.5% fee), rather than automatically having to pay the full invoice amount (less the 3.5% fee). I know Intuit QuickBooks allows the members to add the fee to their payment, but Apricot doesn't support intuit quickbooks online payments.
Amanduh157
shared this idea
Many thanks for your comments and feedback in this thread - it was super helpful for us in analysis and design of the feature.
I'm happy to announce that we're working on adding donations to compensate payment processing fees. This feature will be released later this year.Some design decisions I wanted to speak out explicitly:
1. We decided to proceed with optional donations to compensate credit card processing fees as opposed to surcharges/convenience fee.
Main reasons for this is that there are too many regulations around mandatory charges to compensate fees: it's illegal in some countries/states, there are caps on how much you could charge, etc. To avoid all of this legal complications we decided to suggest members to opt-in to compensate processing fees, as opposed to make them obligatory.
All these transactions will be recorded as donations in WA and can be later used for tax deduction.
2. You will be able to set the amount of donation based on amount of payment (e.g. 2.9% +$0.3) based on your average transaction fees.
Reason for this is that it's technically almost impossible to calculate amount of fee before transactions is done - there are too many variables in place: currency conversions, cross-border fees, different fees for credit card brands, etc.
Thanks again for you support, votes and feedback. We really appreciate it!
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Larry Gomes
commented
We would also like to be able to add a $2.00 convenience fee to the membership amount. It could work similar to the way the tax feature works except it would be a fixed amount and not a percentage.
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pmet
commented
Looked through the string here but don't see an answer, it is legal to add a surcharge for CC payments and as noted it adds up so would hope WA has or is working payment option surcharge. Please let me know.
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Marielise Watts
commented
Our Not-for-profit would love to be able to offer online payments but the fees eat up too much. Would need to be able to add a service charge or convenience fee so we can pass along the cost to the members who choose to pay by card.
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[Deleted User]
commented
*******, I think your credit card fee info is a bid dated. I looked into to this is great detail 5 years back and after a court ruling that allowed several major companies to charge these fee the limitations on smaller companies has also been pretty relaxed. We deal with paypal and it isn't ilegal to pass on the fees but is against against their policy.
A supervisor at paypal, point blank told me that their isn't any paypal police watching for who is doing this but they don't think you should and feel it it a bad business plan. We confirmed with them we can offer a cash discount price and paypal price. One last point, I believe it was discover credit card allowed the passing on of the fees but only if you pass it on for all credit cards you accept.
A workaround would be to use the tax feature and allow us to re-label it paypal fee. -
Thanks for a comment, Jennifer.
Convenience fee might be a solution here, but this needs deeper investigation. I'll come back as soon as I have any news.Oleg, Product Designer @ Payments Team
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Jennifer Mackey
commented
I'd love to see this too. You are allowed to do it if you call it a convenience fee or at least that is what I have been told.
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Andy
commented
The ability to add a surcharge to online payments would be very much appreciated. As mentioned before, the payments systems often charge fees. I would like to be able to add this fee to event and membership fees when payed online.
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Annette
commented
A 3.5% fee would cover Paypal fees. Many organizations, including government organizations (even electric companies) charge online service fees for using a credit card.
It would appears that since others can do this, it could be done with WA as well similar to "tax" page when taxes get added. If a person checked, I will pay online (with a small blurp that a 3.5% payment processing fee will be added), then this amount could be charged to the invoice like taxes would be added.
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Meaghan Davis
commented
include processing fees universally to invoices. A certain percentage.
Like how taxes are included in forms.
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Edward Allison
commented
OK what about PayPal fees? no restriction many companies in Australia also pass on the mastercard fees?
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Kim: that what people do, but strictly speaking your contract with credit card providers does not allow you do this. You are not allowed to give then preference of payments in cash versus credit card.
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Kim Skimmons
commented
Evgeny: You should be able to give a discount for non-credit-card transactions without violating the merchant contract. So instead of a 3% surcharge for credit card transactions, set the base price higher and allow a 2.9% discount (the equivalent).
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Edward Allison
commented
I would like to be able to add an surcharge like Paypal fees to the members renewal page. ie 12 months is set to $50.00 if you wish to pay by PayPal then the surcharge is automatically added to the total payment coats
Regards
Ed -
Guillaume - I'm not aware of a workaround.
I also want to mention, that as far as I know, MasterCard and Visa merchant rules do not allow to charge a fee (surcharge) when you use credit card. May I ask you, how do you overcome this requirement when you suggest different price for cash and credits?
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Guillaume
commented
Right now it forces to create 2 Membership levels - one with the fees included and one without. Or is there a better way?
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Amanduh157
commented
Our members pay by credit card, check, or ACH transaction, or bank wire transfer so we cannot build the credit card fee into the membership fee.
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Evgeny Zaritovskiy
commented
Do your members have to pay by credit card only or you also accept check payments? If credit cards only, why don't you add the fee into membership fee itself and add a note that credit card fee is included into the price?
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Phil Anderson
commented
I'm fairly sure you can set a % fee like a credit card surcharge in the tax settings - tax rules. I use this for events but would assume it works for membership renewals?
