Buddy the Banking Badger

Buddy’s Money Saving Tips

Short videos from Buddy with practical ways to keep more money in your business. Pick a tip below to watch.

A Regular Statement Review

Across every specific fee, downgrade, and pricing model discussed throughout this collection, there's one underlying habit that ties them all together and, more than any single tactic, determines whether a business is actually paying a fair, competitive rate over time: whether anyone is regularly and carefully reviewing the actual statement, line by line, rather than glancing at the total and moving on. Most business owners genuinely have never had every single line of their merchant statement explained to them in plain language — not because they're inattentive, but because statements are, frankly, often designed in a way that makes this kind of careful review more effort than most people have time for in a normal week. That gap between "what the statement actually contains" and "what the business owner actually understands about it" is precisely where avoidable junk fees, downgrades, and creeping rate increases tend to live undisturbed for months or years at a time. The fix doesn't require expertise — it requires making the review a standing habit rather than a one-time event: pulling your statement at least annually (more often if your volume or business has changed significantly) and either working through it methodically yourself using the concepts covered in this collection, or having your processor walk through every line item with you directly and explain what each one is for. Of every tactic covered here, this single habit — genuinely understanding your own statement on a recurring basis — is consistently the highest-return activity available to a business owner looking to control their processing costs over the long run.

More tips from Buddy

A Regular Statement Review Most merchants have never had someone actually explain every line of their statement to them — and that gap is exactly where avoidable fees hide. A regular statement review (annually, or any time your processor changes pricing) is often the single highest-ROI thing a business owner can do for their bottom line.

Interchange Back on a Refund When you refund a sale, you generally don't get back the interchange fee you originally paid — even though the money is going back to the customer. Some processors do return a portion; most don't automatically. It's a good line item to specifically ask your processor about, since it affects the true cost of any return-heavy business.

Virtual Terminals: Useful, But Priced Like Keyed Transactions A virtual terminal lets you manually process phone or mail orders through a web browser — handy for taking payment without a physical card reader. But because the card isn't present, expect the same higher, "keyed" interchange rate that applies to any card-not-present transaction, plus sometimes a separate monthly access fee for the tool itself.

CVV Checks: A Small Check With a Big Fraud Impact Requiring the 3- or 4-digit security code on the back (or front, for Amex) of a card adds negligible checkout friction but meaningfully reduces card-not-present fraud, since that number isn't stored on a card's magnetic stripe or chip. If you're not requiring it on every online or phone transaction, it's one of the easiest fraud-prevention wins available.

If You Surcharge, Follow the Rules Exactly Card networks set hard limits regardless of state law: surcharges are capped around 3% (Visa) or the lower of your actual processing cost, must be clearly disclosed with signage and on the receipt, and can never be applied to debit or prepaid cards — even ones that route as "credit." Getting this wrong risks losing your surcharging privileges or your merchant account entirely.