How Much Can You Make Selling Merchant Services? | Schedule A Training

Thursday, December 31 2020

When you're new to selling merchant services, lots of things can get confusing, but one of the most confusing things that you will have to deal with is understanding all of the statements that affect your residuals, and especially the fee schedules that determine your costs. Many times, this can be so cryptic that your partner company may actually spend some time and effort explaining the fees to you. At the very least, they should provide you with some kind of written material that demystifies things. Even still, things might not always be totally clear.

In order for you to have a better idea of your Schedule A as a new Merchant Services Sales Agent, let's break down the various sections so that you're not completely in the dark:

Authorization and Capture / Settlement Per Item Fee - A key part of your Schedule A, you'll want to pay close attention to this section specifically. These fees are associated with the front-end platform. Should the processor that you work with offer more than one front-end, this section might look a bit different, as they may break everything down further and have different costs listed for different front-ends.

First and foremost, you need to have your Schedule A on hand, so make sure that you ask your payment processor or merchant services provider for a copy. After that, you're going to have to figure out whether these three fees are depicted as one entire line or if they are broken down. Depending on your provider, they may be expressed differently. For example, you might find an “Authorization” line with a fee listed as $0.02, and that might seem uncommonly generous, but then there will be a “Capture” line that lists a fee of $0.07, and then a “Settlement” fee of $0.01, bringing the fees up to a total of $0.10. Other times, things will be combined already; for another example, you might see a line that reads “Authorize and Capture” with a fee of $0.06, and below that a “Settlement” fee of $0.02, making the total front-end transaction cost $0.08.

Since this is kind of complicated, you usually won't bother to break things down for merchants. As you explain things to them, just tell them about the total transaction fee and don't have them worry about the details. For you personally, though, these broken down fees will mean a lot more because they can certainly affect your residuals. To illustrate how your fees can make a huge difference in your profit margin, let's say you have a portfolio of 100 merchants and, on average, they perform 500 transactions per month per merchant. Now, let's say that you charge $0.10 for your transaction fee. With 50,000 transactions, that means you are grossing $5,000 in revenue every month. How much of that will you keep? Well, if you're being charged $0.05 total per item by your processor, then your margins are 50%, and you take home $2,500. However, if your fees per item are $0.08, then you're only making $1,000 per month in profit. That's quite a difference. As you can see, your profit margins will depend largely on your fees, so you need to stay on top of them.

Settlement Fees and Batch Fees - If you think that your Schedule A gets less confusing after all that authorization and capture stuff, then you're in for an unpleasant surprise. You might find that in addition to a settlement fee per item, there is also a fee per “batch.” The point of this fee may not be immediately obvious, but it's basically like this:

For instance, maybe one of your merchants performs 100 transactions via credit card one day. You would be charged a settlement fee that applies “per item” for each of these individual transactions. When your merchant is closing up for the day, however, and they settle by sending the batch of daily transactions to the processor, then there will also be a “batch fee.”

More than likely, your processor will have this fee on the Schedule A. Almost all of them do, so be sure to look at this section for how much you are being charged and pass the cost onto your merchant accordingly. As another example, your processor might charge $0.07 per batch (your cost), and you might decide to charge your merchant $0.25 per batch (your revenue). In this case, you're making $0.18 in profit whenever that terminal is settled at the end of the day.

Bank Identification Number (BIN) Sponsorship - You might find this section expressed a few different ways. All this really means is that your processor is keeping a tiny percentage of the profits (measured usually in a few basis points) before they give you your share. In case you were wondering what a basis point is, it's just 1% of 1%, or 1/100th of 1/100th (1%) if you want to break it down. So for instance, let's say your merchant processes $20,000. If the BIN sponsorship fee is 5 basis points, then your processor is keeping $10.00 before giving you your share of the profit.

Now, there are definitely more items on your Schedule A than just these, but they're the key lines that you should keep a close eye on, and they're the basic items that you will find with most processors. For information about other sections that may appear on your Schedule A, you should ask your processor for an explanation. In essence, these three line items are important because they are what is going to determine how much you charge your merchant. As with any business, you're going to have to deal with costs compared to your revenue, which is what determines profit—and the fees are basically your cost. You're going to use your Schedule A as a detailed list of your costs, and from there you can come up with a fair and profitable fee schedule for your merchants. That difference between revenue (the fees your merchant pays) and cost (the fees your processor charges) every month is what will give you your merchant residuals.

Posted by: SMG Admin AT 07:39 am | Permalink | Email

ISO Agent Partnership

Become a payment service provider today and take your business to the next level. If you are a sales-oriented individual with vast experience in the world of payment processing or you are a driven and motivated professional looking for a new challenge, the SMG ISO agent program might be a great fit for you. With the highest paying commission structure in the industry, superior products, and sales support, our program will see to it that you are rewarded for your efforts.

For anyone with a sales background or a passion for the payments industry, SMG is the ideal partnership. There are dozens of reasons to become a sales partner with Shaw Merchant Group, but don’t just take our word for it. Here are some of the top reasons that we were given when we asked our ISO agent participants why they chose us and why they continue to work with our highly lucrative program.

Sales Partner Portal

With our industry leading partner portal, you’ll have access to online enrollment, training sessions, marketing materials, and you’ll always be ahead of the game with the latest news and promotions.

Alerts

Stay up-to-date on merchant issues and their resolutions via automated emails and text messages that include a detailed ticket number describing what the merchant’s concern was and how it was resolved.

Registered DBA (White Label)

With our program, you’ll be able to market under your own brand, without paying costly fees! Your brand will be seen on the partner portal, marketing communications, merchant statements, and more.

Free Equipment for Your Merchants

Selling businesses on a new processing plan is much easier when you are able to effortlessly jump over the hurdle of the cost of the equipment. With this program, you can offer your clients free equipment that they will need for their processing provider change. This lowers the barrier to switching and creates a higher conversion rate for you.

Lifetime Passive Income

You will recieve 50–70% of residual income based on the pay structure you select. You will share income on every available revenue stream. With SMG, you get a True Interchange Revenue Split. Unlike other ISO agent programs, there is no basis points off the top for BIN sponsorship or for what they call hidden losses. Our sales partners earn more residual income with our 50/50 partner program than you would with our competition who claim to offer a higher percentage because thier interchange cost (buy rate) is higher.

$20K Performance Bonus

We offer a performance-based fast start bonus that is payable for anyone that onboards more than the standard threshold of clients in the first 4 months. This program is designed to reward those experienced sales members that join our team and quickly learn how to sell this product. The bonus can reach up to $20,000, making it one of the most lucrative and competitive in the industry.

Profitability Based Bonuses

We will look at how much profit is generated on the account after they have been processing for one month and you earn 14 times of the total profit. Example: If we retain $100 in residuals in that month, the bonus would be 14 x $100 or $1,400. You would have already been paid $600, so we would pay you an additional $800 on that account. This bonus is capped at a max of $10,000 per merchant per location. With our dual pricing program it is easier than ever to earn huge bonuses with a 14x profitability bonus. This dual pricing model enables you to maximize your bonus at $10,000 on almost every merchant processing over $90k.

Dual Pricing Program

When you are selling merchant services, one of the best assets of any partner program is more rewards and incentive programs that save your client money. The Edge dual pricing program is one of the hottest new commodities in credit card processing, as it is designed to save the client thousands of dollars in credit card processing cost, instead passing on the fee to the consumer in a way that isn’t damaging to their own conversion rate and revenue. We offer this program to our clients and make it easy to understand and present for our sales partners.

Medical Benefits

With some sales jobs, you don’t even have the option for medical coverage. With the SMG ISO agent program, you’ll have the resources that you need to provide healthcare coverage to you and your family at an affordable rate. We take care of our own, and when you are in our program you will have access to these benefits.

White Label ISO Program

Grow Your Merchant Services ISO with White-Label Payment Solutions

As an independent sales organization (ISO), you can upgrade your business by providing merchant processing services under your own brand. You may dismiss the idea at first, probably thinking that you don’t have the infrastructure or expertise to set up your own payment processing company. However, with white label payment processing, all you really need is a good ISO partner.

How a White Label ISO Program Works

To offer payment processing services under your own brand, your ISO partner will provide you with an online application page that doesn’t identify their company. This “white label” solution is ready for your brand and includes your logo, colors, and contact information, so your merchants only identify the payment solutions with your company. It eliminates any confusion among your merchant customers about who their service provider and primary contact should be. Your brand is the only thing the merchant will see on your website, merchant portal, and marketing materials.

Your payments ISO partner becomes a silent partner, providing technology, payments functionality, and services. This puts you in more control, allowing you to deliver seamless, consistent customer experiences in all interactions – and enhance your brand’s reputation. With this white label payment solution, you won’t need to overcome negative perceptions a prospect may have about the company your working with. This is because you are creating a unique customer experience. Better still, you don't have to fall in line with another company's existing customer experience.

Once you start providing white label payment services, you will also find that you build stronger, longer lasting relationships with your merchants. They'll begin to view you as a payments expert and an expert in the other solutions you provide. You may even find you are able to grow your customer base, as merchants in every vertical or niche can benefit from accepting payments, enabling you to market to more types of businesses.

Remember: white label payment processing enables you to earn huge residual income.

Our White Label Program Will Save You Thousands in Fees

Put your brand on merchant statements and applications — build your brand with your sub-agents and merchants. Full white label payment solution with your logo and branding on applications, statements, online enrollment, merchant and partner portals.

We at Shaw Merchant Group have an awesome white label solution. There is no huge package of documents for you to fill out, no approval process by Visa and Mastercard and the sponsor banks, and best of all no annual dues. Here are some details on the “White Label ISO” program:

Roughly 4–5 weeks to fully set up once we get the signed license document back.
Executed addendum from you saying it’s OK for us to use your brand too.
This program can run on our standard schedule A’s with bonus and free equipment and has no other obligations. from you other than the standard agent agreement.
When we set up the DBA you will have access to EPX/BMO Harris for submitting merchants under your brand.

What do we brand?

Paper Applications
Online Applications (Simplified Enrollment)
Partner.PaymentsHub for your back office.
PaymentsHub for your merchants — It’s generic when your merchant logs in and then show your brand once inside.
Merchant Support Email — TMS (ticket management system) which emails you and your merchant each time we speak with your merchant and shows the proper brand in the notice and as the from address on the email.
Merchant Support Phone — Our call centers answer with a generic “merchant services” then once they have the MID identified, they represent your brand.
Deployment Packages — Generic boxes and welcome docs inside with proper brand.

What we need:

A letter authorizing EPX to register your DBA on your company letterhead.
A high resolution image of your company logo.
A certificate of good standing from the state you are registered in. It may not be called a certificate of 'good standing' in some states.
The ISO Branding request form.