Payment processing: cards, ACH and a statement you can audit

Who it's for

• Growing retailers

  Stores adding online checkout or a second location need one processor for every channel.

• Service businesses

  Contractors and clinics collect deposits in the field and balances by phone without switching providers.

• Finance teams

  Controllers reconcile deposits against POS and e-commerce exports from a single reporting hub.

Core capabilities

• Multi-channel authorization

  Route in-person, online, keyed and bank-rail transactions through one merchant account.

• Interchange-plus statements

  Pass-through interchange and card brand assessments, plus a disclosed RapidCents markup, line by line.

• Authorization lifecycle

  Sale, pre-authorization then capture, incremental auth, force post, void and refund — each is a different network step.

• Bank rails beside cards

  ACH in the United States; ACH and PAD worldwide; real-time credit on RTP, FedNow or FedNow and RTP. Flat cost, not a card percentage.

• Settlement reconciliation

  Match batch totals to bank deposits with location and channel filters, cards and bank debits in one view.

• Refund and void controls

  Issue full or partial refunds with role-based permissions. Void before settlement; refund after.

• Next-day funding

  Eligible merchants receive deposits on a predictable schedule with the fee breakdown on the same report.

The terms, each on the page that owns them

• Interchange and card brand feesInterchange, assessments, authorization and cross-border fees: the schedule the network publishes, not the processor.
• Effective rate, EMDR and Fee CheckEffective merchant discount rate is total fees divided by volume. Fee Check computes it from your statement.
• ACH, RTP and FedNowUS bank debits run on ACH. Same-day and real-time credit use RTP and FedNow. All of them sit beside card volume on one account.
• Virtual terminal, keyed entry and force postMOTO keyed sales, pre-authorization then capture, and force post when the authorization already happened offline.
• Payment gatewayThe software layer that carries an authorization from a website, app or virtual terminal onto the card networks.
• Terminals and PIN debitChip, tap and PIN debit at the counter — the card-present channel, cheaper than a keyed or online sale.
• TokenizationSwap a card number for a token your systems can store, so repeat billing works without keeping PAN in PCI scope.
• Payment glossaryEvery statement term — interchange, assessment, batch, capture, chargeback — defined the way it appears on a bill.

What a card payment actually costs

• Interchange, paid to the issuer

  The largest line on most statements, and the one no processor can discount. Interchange is set by the card networks and paid to the bank that issued the customer's card. Visa, Mastercard, Amex and Discover each publish a schedule by card product, merchant category and how the card was presented. The interchange-plus page names those schedules and links the primary sources.

• Assessment and other card brand fees

  The network's own charge for carrying the transaction: an assessment on volume, a flat authorization or network-access fee, plus cross-border, currency conversion and card-not-present add-ons when they apply. Like interchange, assessments are published and identical at every processor. They are not a RapidCents markup.

• The processor markup — the only negotiated line

  Interchange-plus states this separately, as a percentage, a per-item amount, or both. Bundled, flat-rate and tiered quotes hide it inside one blended number, which is why two providers quoting '2.5%' are rarely quoting the same thing. Compare markup, not the headline rate.

• Avoidable network penalties

  Integrity, misuse and downgrade fees fire when a sale misses the network's own rules: an authorization not captured in time, a missing AVS match, a batch left open. They are configuration, not pricing, and they are the fees most worth chasing on a statement.

• What moves the category on one sale

  Card product (debit vs standard credit vs rewards vs commercial), card-present vs card-not-present, merchant category code, whether the card is domestic, and whether Level 2 or Level 3 data went with a commercial card. The same $100 can land in three different interchange buckets.

Effective rate, EMDR and the discount fee

• Effective merchant discount rate (EMDR)

  Total processing cost divided by total processed volume, for one period, expressed as a percentage. It is also called effective rate or, loosely, merchant discount rate. The formula is the only honest comparison between two providers, because it folds interchange, assessments, markup, per-item fees, monthly fees, PCI, gateway and chargeback fees into one number.

• Discount fee is not a discount

  On a statement, 'discount fee' is the merchant's cost of accepting the card — historically a single blended percentage taken off the deposit. On interchange-plus it should unpack into interchange + assessment + markup. If the line still arrives as one percentage, the statement is bundled even if the sales deck said otherwise.

• Quoted rate vs effective rate

  A quote usually describes one qualified card-present sale. EMDR is the average of every card you actually took: rewards, commercial, foreign, keyed and online, plus the fixed fees that do not care about volume. Fee Check starts from the statement you already have, not from a brochure rate.

• Nothing in the formula is a RapidCents rate

  Interchange schedules change on the networks' timetable. This page does not publish a number that would go stale. For the current tables, use the primary sources on the interchange-plus page; for your number, run Fee Check or send a statement.

Authorization, pre-auth, capture and force post

• Sale — authorize and capture together

  A retail tap or an e-commerce charge that is captured immediately. The issuer holds the amount and the capture is sent in the same flow, then the batch settles. This is the default for a known final total.

• Pre-authorization, then capture

  Used when the final amount is not known yet: a bar tab, a hotel incidental hold, a pump, a rental deposit. The issuer holds an estimated amount; later you capture the actual total, within network rules. An uncaptured pre-auth expires and the hold releases. Restaurants capture after tip adjust; many online merchants capture at shipment.

• Incremental authorization

  When a pre-auth is no longer enough — the tab grew, the stay extended — a second authorization is added against the same card rather than opening a new sale. Missing this step is a common source of downgrade fees and of captures that exceed the original hold.

• Force post, voice auth and offline

  A force post (sometimes 'force capture' or 'force sale') submits a capture against an approval code that was obtained outside the normal online path: a voice-authorized sale when the network was down, a store-and-forward ticket, or a delayed close. It is not a way to charge a card that was declined. The virtual terminal is where keyed MOTO and many force posts are entered.

• Void versus refund

  A void cancels an authorization before it settles, so no money moves and no interchange is earned. A refund is a new transaction after settlement, with its own network cost. Closing the batch on time is what keeps voids available; once the batch has gone, the only reversal is a refund.

Card-present, keyed, MOTO and Level 2 / 3 data

• Card-present vs card-not-present

  A tap, chip or swipe at a terminal is card-present: the chip or NFC cryptogram proves the card was there, so interchange is lower. Online checkout, payment links, the virtual terminal and any keyed sale are card-not-present (CNP). Same card, same dollar, different network category — which is why a blended quote that ignores mix is not a forecast.

• Keyed entry and MOTO

  Mail-order / telephone-order (MOTO) is a keyed CNP sale: the number is typed, not read. It is the highest-interchange everyday path short of a commercial card, and it is the path most likely to fire AVS, CVV and downgrade fees when those checks are skipped. The virtual terminal is where RapidCents keyed and MOTO sales are entered.

• PIN debit is still a card rail

  A PIN debit at the terminal (PIN debit worldwide; Visa, Mastercard or a PIN-debit network in the US) is not ACH or ACH. It has its own interchange or flat network fee. Quoting 'debit' as one rate is how a bundled statement hides that PIN debit, signature debit and a bank pull are three prices.

• Level 2 and Level 3 data

  Commercial and purchasing cards qualify for lower interchange when the sale carries tax, invoice and line-item detail. Missing that data is one of the quiet reasons a B2B merchant's EMDR sits above the quote. MCC (merchant category code), assigned at underwriting, is the other silent lever: the wrong MCC can price every sale in the wrong bucket.

Batch, settlement, funding and chargebacks

• Authorization is not money yet

  The issuer holds the amount; funds move when the capture is batched and the batch settles. Closing the batch on time is what keeps next-day funding on schedule. An open batch delays every sale in it, card and otherwise.

• Funding vs settlement

  Settlement is the network clearing the captured sale. Funding is RapidCents depositing the net to your bank. They are consecutive, not identical: interchange, assessments, markup, chargebacks and ACH returns all hit the deposit, which is why the statement and the bank line rarely match dollar-for-dollar without the fee file.

• Chargeback is not a refund

  A refund is the merchant reversing a settled sale. A chargeback is the issuer pulling the funds after a dispute, plus a network fee. Representment is the evidence path. Prevention (descriptor, receipt, 3-D Secure, AVS) is cheaper than fighting. Chargeback protection is the product page for that workflow.

• PCI is scope, not a line item to hide

  Tokenization and hosted checkout keep PAN out of merchant systems so a PCI DSS assessment stays a short questionnaire. A 'PCI non-compliance fee' on a competitor statement is usually a penalty for skipping that work, not a network cost. RapidCents standard plans do not hide one.

Bank rails in the United States

• ACH, the everyday US bank debit

  The Automated Clearing House moves money between US bank accounts in batches, typically next-day or same-day, as a debit pull or a credit push. It is the rail for invoices, rent, payroll and B2B where a card percentage is the wrong tool. Same-day ACH is faster; it is still not instant. RapidCents collects ACH on the same merchant account as cards.

• RTP and FedNow — the real-time credit rails

  RTP is The Clearing House's Real-Time Payments network. FedNow is the Federal Reserve's instant rail. Both are 24/7 credit pushes with immediate finality — the US counterparts to the country's FedNow and RTP. They are not ACH, and they are not a card authorization. A 'real-time payment' on a checkout is usually one of these two, not a faster Visa sale.

• Wires are still a third thing

  A domestic or international wire is a bank instruction outside ACH and RTP, used for large, one-off transfers. It does not reverse like an ACH debit and it does not belong in card settlement reporting. If a buyer wants to pay a deposit by wire, that is a different operations path from ACH invoicing.

• PIN debit versus ACH

  A PIN debit at the terminal is still a card network transaction, routed through Visa, Mastercard or a PIN-debit network, with interchange (and, for larger issuers, Regulation II). ACH never uses a card number. Quoting them as one 'debit rate' is how a blended statement hides two prices.

How it works

Common processing workflows

• Retail counter sale

  Chip, tap or swipe at checkout with automatic tip and receipt — authorize and capture together.

• Pre-auth then capture

  Open a bar tab, hotel hold or pump estimate, then capture the final total within network rules.

• Keyed MOTO and force post

  Phone and mail orders through the virtual terminal; force post a voice-authorized sale when the network was down.

• E-commerce capture at ship

  Authorize online, capture when the order ships, void what never left the warehouse.

• Invoice on a bank rail

  Collect a high-value invoice by ACH (US) or ACH / PAD () instead of putting it on a commercial card.

• End-of-day close

  Review batch totals, resolve exceptions, confirm expected deposit and the EMDR for the day.

Integrations

• QuickBooks Online

  Sync settled transactions and fees for automated bookkeeping.

• Shopify

  Native checkout and payout reconciliation for e-commerce merchants.

• Major POS partners

  Certified integrations reduce double entry at the register.

Security

• PCI-compliant vault

  Card data tokenized at capture to reduce merchant PCI scope.

• Fraud monitoring

  Velocity checks and AVS/CVV screening on card-not-present flows.

• Role-based access

  Limit refunds, voids and reporting exports by staff role.

Implementation

• Discovery call

  Map your channels, volume and integration requirements.

• Underwriting

  Submit business details and receive approval typically within days.

• Channel setup

  Deploy terminals, gateway credentials or virtual terminal access.

• Go-live support

  Test transactions and training for front-line staff.

Pricing

• Interchange-plus, read as EMDR

  Pay pass-through interchange and card brand assessments plus a disclosed RapidCents markup. Effective merchant discount rate is total fees over volume — Fee Check computes it from a statement. No hidden PCI non-compliance fees on standard plans.