Instant Merchant Statement Review Terms

RapidCents reads a merchant processing statement and returns, usually within three to five minutes, what that statement actually charged: the effective rate, every fee separated into interchange, network fees and the processor’s markup, the ancillary charges, and a comparison against RapidCents interchange-plus pricing. This document explains how the review works, what you must be entitled to upload, what RapidCents keeps and may do with it, and why the rate in a comparison is an estimate rather than a guaranteed price.

1. What the statement review is

Upload a recent processing statement and, usually within three to five minutes, you get back what you are really paying: your effective rate, every fee separated into interchange, network fees and your processor’s markup, and what the same volume would cost on RapidCents interchange-plus pricing.

The RapidCents instant merchant statement review (the “Statement Review”) is the tool published at rapidcents.com/pricing/#rapidcents-comparison. You upload a recent merchant processing statement; the Statement Review reads it and returns an itemized analysis of what that statement actually charged you, together with a comparison against RapidCents interchange-plus pricing. A review is normally complete within three to five minutes of a readable statement being uploaded.

A processing statement is the only honest source for what a merchant pays. An advertised rate describes a card type, not a card mix, and an effective rate quoted by a salesperson is a projection. The Statement Review exists because the arithmetic that turns a statement into an effective rate is tedious, easy to get wrong, and is the single step most merchants never take — which is exactly why a statement can carry a padded markup, a tiered downgrade, an ancillary fee or an annual increase for years without being noticed.

These terms govern your use of the Statement Review. They apply whether you use it as a prospective merchant, as an existing RapidCents merchant, or as an adviser acting for a business. By uploading a statement or requesting a review you accept them.

The Statement Review is a free informational tool. It is not the RapidCents Services, it does not open an account, and using it places you under no obligation to apply, to accept a quote or to switch processor.

2. How it works, step by step

The statement is read automatically, every line is classified, the totals are rebuilt and checked against the statement’s own totals, and the result is compared to RapidCents pricing. A person checks anything the software could not read confidently.

A review runs in six steps:

• Upload. You submit a statement as a PDF, an image or a scan, together with the contact and business details the form asks for. More than one month can be submitted, and more than one month produces a better result.
• Extraction. The document is read: the pages are converted to text, including by optical character recognition where the statement is a scan or an image, and the figures, labels, dates and totals are located on the page.
• Classification. Every charge found on the statement is classified into interchange, network and brand fees, the processor’s markup, authorization and transaction fees, and ancillary fees such as monthly, statement, PCI, regulatory, batch, gateway, terminal, minimum-volume and annual charges. Chargeback, retrieval and fine entries are identified separately, as is anything the statement did not label clearly.
• Normalization. Volume, transaction count, average ticket, card mix and presentation method are derived from the statement so that the months and the processors being compared are on the same basis. Where a statement reports a figure in a way that is not comparable, it is restated and the restatement is shown.
• Reconciliation. The reconstructed totals are checked back against the totals printed on the statement. A difference that cannot be reconciled is reported in the analysis rather than absorbed into it, and a statement that cannot be reconciled at all is flagged as such.
• Comparison and report. The analysis returns the effective rate for the period, the breakdown above, the amount of the total attributable to the processor rather than to the networks, and what the same volume and mix would have cost under RapidCents interchange-plus pricing at the markup available to a merchant of that profile. The comparison states its assumptions.

Steps two to five are automated. Where the software cannot read a figure confidently, cannot classify a line, or cannot reconcile the totals, a RapidCents analyst reviews the statement before the result is released. That is why a review takes minutes rather than seconds, and it is also why a result is not produced at all for a document the tool cannot read.

The Statement Review interface and the processing behind it are delivered through a service operated for RapidCents and loaded into the RapidCents website. What you upload passes to that service. It is covered by the RapidCents Privacy Policy, is handled by a subprocessor listed in the Subprocessor Register under the terms in the Subprocessors page, and is subject to the same confidentiality obligations as the rest of the Services.

Results are delivered on screen and, where you ask for one or where the form says so, by email to the address you give. A result delivered by email travels over ordinary email, which is not a secure channel; if that matters to you, read the result on screen instead.

3. What the analysis tells you, and what it is worth

A completed review gives you, at a minimum: the effective rate for the statement period, expressed as total fees divided by processed volume; the split between what the card networks charged and what your processor kept; the ancillary fees charged in the period and what each appears to be for; the card mix and presentation methods behind the cost; anything on the statement that could not be classified or reconciled; and a comparison against RapidCents pricing for the same volume and mix.

That is useful whether or not you ever contact RapidCents. The effective rate is the number to put beside any competing quote; the network-versus-processor split tells you how much of your bill is actually negotiable; and the ancillary fee list is where the charges a merchant did not know they were paying usually appear.

What the analysis is not: it is not an audit, an assurance engagement, an accounting opinion, a legal opinion, a regulatory assessment or financial advice. It does not verify that your processor applied the correct interchange category to any transaction, because a statement does not contain the transaction-level data that would be needed to check that. It reports what the statement says and what the statement implies, nothing more.

4. What you must be entitled to upload

Only upload a statement you are allowed to share. Do not upload anyone’s card numbers, and do not upload a document you are contractually barred from disclosing.

By uploading a statement you represent and warrant that:

• (a) The statement relates to a business you own, operate, control or are authorized to act for, and you are authorized to disclose it to RapidCents for the purpose of obtaining the analysis.
• (b) Disclosing it to RapidCents does not breach a contract, a confidentiality obligation or a duty you owe to anyone, including your current processor, acquirer, bank, franchisor or software provider. You are responsible for checking this; RapidCents cannot.
• (c) The document does not contain a full card number, the contents of a magnetic stripe or chip, a card verification value, a PIN, or any other cardholder data beyond a truncated card number. Redact anything of that kind before uploading.
• (d) You have redacted, or consent to RapidCents receiving, any personal information of another individual that appears in the document and that is not necessary for the analysis.
• (e) The contact details you give are yours or are given with the authority of the person they belong to, and the business details you give are accurate.

RapidCents may decline to process, and may delete without processing, any document that appears to contain cardholder data, that appears to have been obtained without authority, or that is not a merchant processing statement.

You will indemnify RapidCents against any claim, loss, fine or cost arising from a breach of the representations in this clause, including a claim by a third party whose information or document you uploaded without the authority to do so.

5. Accuracy: what the result depends on

The analysis is only as good as the statement you give it. One month is a snapshot, a scan can be misread, and an unusual month will produce an unusual result. Check it against your own records before you act on it.

The Statement Review is provided for information. RapidCents prepares it carefully and reconciles it where it can, but the result depends on inputs RapidCents does not control, and RapidCents does not warrant that it is complete, accurate or free from error. In particular:

• A single statement is a snapshot. One month with an unusual card mix, a seasonal peak, an annual fee, a one-off chargeback or an incomplete billing cycle will not represent your ordinary cost. Several consecutive months give a result you can rely on more.
• Statements differ. Processors label, group and present fees differently, some bundle charges that others itemize, and some do not disclose interchange at all. Where a statement does not separate a component, the analysis estimates it and says that it has.
• A scan can be misread. Optical character recognition on a low-quality scan, a photograph, a skewed page or a statement with unusual typography can misread a figure. The reconciliation step is designed to catch that, and does not catch everything.
• A partial upload gives a partial answer. A statement submitted without its fee detail pages, its interchange summary or its ancillary charges produces an analysis of what was submitted, not of what you pay.
• The comparison is modelled. The RapidCents figure applies RapidCents pricing to the volume and mix found in your statement. It is an estimate of what the same months would have cost, not a quotation, and not a prediction of future months.

Verify the analysis against your own statements and records before acting on it. You are responsible for any decision you make on the strength of it, including a decision to change processor, to renegotiate, to terminate an agreement or to dispute a charge, and RapidCents is not liable for the outcome of that decision. Clause 11 applies.

6. What RapidCents keeps, and what it may do with it

We keep what you upload and the analysis we produce from it. We may use it to run and improve the tool, and we may use aggregated, de-identified data from it without limit. We do not sell it, and we do not give your statement to your current processor.

RapidCents retains the statements you upload, the data extracted from them, the analysis produced, the contact and business details you submitted, and the record of your use of the tool (together, “Review Data”). Retention is not incidental: without the statement RapidCents cannot show how a figure was reached, cannot answer a question about it, cannot correct an error in it, and cannot evidence what it told you if the analysis is later disputed.

You grant RapidCents a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, copy, process, analyze and display Review Data for the purposes in this clause. You keep ownership of your statement; this licence lets RapidCents use it, not own it.

RapidCents uses Review Data to:

• (a) Produce the analysis, deliver it to you, answer questions about it and correct it.
• (b) Prepare a quotation or a proposal for you, assess an application you later make, and underwrite an account under clause B.1 of the Services Agreement.
• (c) Contact you about the analysis and, where clause 10 permits, about RapidCents products and services.
• (d) Operate, test, debug, monitor, secure and improve the Statement Review itself, including improving how statements are read and classified.
• (e) Detect and prevent fraud and misuse of the tool, as section 5A of the Privacy Policy describes.
• (f) Meet a legal, regulatory, tax, audit or card network obligation, and establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.
• (g) Produce aggregated and de-identified statistics, benchmarks, models and research about processing costs, fee structures and market practice.

Aggregated and de-identified data. RapidCents may create aggregated and de-identified data from Review Data — figures from which your identity, your business and your statement cannot reasonably be re-identified, whether alone or with other information RapidCents holds — and may retain and use that data indefinitely and for any lawful purpose, including publishing market research, training and improving its software and models, and developing products. RapidCents will not attempt to re-identify it and will not permit anyone else to. Aggregated and de-identified data does not cease to be RapidCents’ to use when your identifiable Review Data is deleted.

Identifiable Review Data. Review Data that identifies you, an individual or your business is handled under the RapidCents Privacy Policy, is used only for the purposes in this clause, and is kept for as long as needed for them and for the period any legal, regulatory or limitation requirement applies, after which it is deleted or de-identified. If you do not become a RapidCents merchant, you may ask RapidCents to delete it by writing to the Privacy Officer as section 12 of the Privacy Policy describes, and RapidCents will do so except where it must keep a record to meet an obligation or to defend a claim. If you do become a merchant, it forms part of your account record and is kept under section 7 of the Privacy Policy.

What RapidCents does not do with it. RapidCents does not sell Review Data. It does not disclose your statement, or the analysis of it, to your current or former processor, acquirer, bank or any competitor of yours. It does not use the content of your statement to target advertising to you, and it does not send the content of your statement to the advertising and analytics services described in section 4A of the Privacy Policy. Disclosure to a subprocessor is governed by the Subprocessors page and the Data Processing Addendum; disclosure to anyone else happens only as section 6 of the Privacy Policy permits.

Confidentiality. RapidCents treats an uploaded statement as confidential information of the business it relates to, and clause E.2 of the Services Agreement applies to it as if it were Confidential Information under that Agreement.

7. How you may and may not use the tool

You may use the Statement Review for your own business, or for a business you advise or act for, to understand what it pays and to compare it with RapidCents.

You may not: submit a document you are not entitled to submit; submit a fabricated, altered or synthetic statement; use the tool to benchmark, price against or develop a competing product or service; submit statements in bulk, by script, by scraping or by any automated means; resell, syndicate or publish the analysis as your own work or as an independent assessment; circumvent a rate limit or an access control; or reverse engineer, decompile or attempt to derive the classification rules, models or pricing logic behind the tool.

The Statement Review, its interface, its classification logic, its models and the form and presentation of its output are RapidCents intellectual property, and clause E.1 of the Services Agreement applies to them. You may use and share an analysis of your own statement for your own business purposes, including showing it to your accountant, your adviser or another processor; that permission does not extend to the tool itself.

RapidCents may limit, suspend or refuse access to the Statement Review, for anyone, where it is used contrary to this clause, where a submission appears fraudulent or automated, where capacity requires it, or for a security reason, and may do so without notice.

8. Availability of the tool

The Statement Review is provided as is and as available. RapidCents does not warrant that it will be available at any particular time, that a review will complete within three to five minutes or at all, that it will read any particular statement format, or that it will remain available in its present form. RapidCents may change, restrict or withdraw it at any time.

A review that cannot be completed produces no result rather than an unreliable one. Where that happens RapidCents will tell you, and may offer to review the statement manually.

9. A quote from a review is not a guaranteed rate

The RapidCents figure in an analysis, and any quote that follows it, reflect pricing and promotions available on that day for a merchant of that profile. They are not a binding offer. The rate you actually get is the one in the Fee Schedule you are given before you sign, and it may differ.

The RapidCents comparison in an analysis, any saving it shows, and any rate, quote or proposal that follows from it are estimates prepared on the day they are produced, from the statement you supplied and the pricing and promotions available at that moment to a merchant of the profile the statement describes. They are not an offer capable of acceptance, are not a guarantee, do not reserve a rate, and do not become a term of any agreement.

The rate that binds RapidCents is the one in the Fee Schedule issued to you before you accept the Services Agreement, and only that. It may differ from a figure shown in an analysis because interchange and network fees have been revised, because a promotion has ended or changed, because underwriting assessed your business differently, because your real card mix differs from the month you uploaded, or because the information in the statement was incomplete or atypical. Clause 9 of the Fee Disclosures sets this out in full and applies to the Statement Review.

Promotional pricing is available only while the promotion is open and only to merchants who meet its conditions. The promotion that can be applied to you is the one available on the day you apply, which may not be the one available on the day you ran a review. RapidCents may withdraw or change a promotion at any time before you accept the Services Agreement.

An analysis does not commit RapidCents to approve an application, to offer any particular pricing, or to offer the Services at all. Every account is subject to clause B.1 of the Services Agreement, the KYC Policy and the Acceptable Use Policy.

10. Being contacted after a review

RapidCents will use the contact details you submit to deliver the analysis and to answer questions about it. That is not marketing and does not depend on a consent box.

RapidCents may also contact you about its products and services where you consented on the form, or where the law allows a message to be sent to a business contact who has made an enquiry. Section 11 of the Privacy Policy sets out the basis in each market and every marketing message carries an unsubscribe. Unsubscribing does not withdraw the analysis or affect your ability to use the tool.

11. Disclaimer and limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law permits, the Statement Review and every analysis it produces are provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranty of accuracy, completeness, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement.

To the fullest extent the law permits, RapidCents is not liable for any loss arising from your use of, or reliance on, the Statement Review or an analysis, including loss of profit, loss of savings expected but not realized, the cost of changing or not changing processor, a sum paid or not recovered from another provider, or any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive loss, however caused and whether or not RapidCents was advised that such loss was possible.

Where liability cannot be excluded, RapidCents’ total liability in connection with the Statement Review does not exceed one hundred Canadian dollars (CA$100), which reflects that the tool is provided free of charge.

Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including for fraud, for fraudulent misrepresentation, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence. If you are an existing RapidCents merchant, clause E.5 of the Services Agreement also applies and the lower limit governs.

12. Changes, law and contact

RapidCents may change these terms. The version published at the time you upload a statement is the one that applies to that review, and the effective date and revision date appear at the top of this page.

These terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada. A dispute about them is resolved in the manner set out in clause E.7 and clause H.10 of the RapidCents Services Agreement, which apply to these terms as if set out here.

For a question about an analysis, a correction, or a request to delete what you uploaded, write to [email protected] or to the Privacy Officer at the address in section 12 of the Privacy Policy, or call +1 (844) 957-2743.

Governing law

The laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada, with disputes resolved as clause E.7 and clause H.10 of the RapidCents Services Agreement provide.