Payment Settings {In-depth Overview}

How to set up the "Payment Settings" area of your InvoiceSherpa account.

Setting #1. "Largest Amount to Allow Credit Card Payment Option"

Fill in the maximum amount you're willing to process with a credit card on any single invoice. A good best practice is to keep this number close to the "Maximum Ticket" amount assigned to you by your merchant processor. This will keep you from paying larger fees than anticipated and from seeing a "velocity error" in InvoiceSherpa.

If you do not wish to set a limit - leave this field blank.

Note: A "Velocity Error" is the error notice you will see in InvoiceSherpa if your payment gateway/merchant processor will not process a charge due to you being over your processing limit. Maximum limits will vary based on your business's processing history and are controlled by the Processing Partner(not InvoiceSherpa). They are (typically) assigned at the ticket (individual charge), daily and monthly levels.

Setting #2. "Show eCheck First"

Check this box if you've already integrated (or plan to integrate) a Payment Gateway that allows you to accept eCheck or ACH payments from your customers. When a customer is inputting payment information the system will default to asking them for their eCheck/ACH information. Customers who wish to pay via credit card will still be able to do so, but it will be shown as a secondary option.

This encourages your clients to transition to paying you via eCheck/ACH which is preferred by many business owners as the fees are significantly less.

Setting #3. "Store Payment Method Option Selected By Default in Payment Forms"

Check this box to enable InvoiceSherpa to store the Payment Method information your customers enter when paying an invoice through the system.

Check this box if:

• You plan on putting any of your clients on Automatic Payments or Payment Plans.
• You want to make paying your invoices via Invoice Reminders more convenient for your clients  (they won't have to reenter their credit card information each time they click "Pay Invoice").

Leave this box blank if:

• You do not have permission to store your customer's payment information                                            (even via a PCI-compliant Payment Gateway).
• You do not ever foresee turning on Automatic Payments.
• Your customers prefer to reenter their payment information each time you send them a new invoice.

Setting #4. "Force Surcharge When Possible"

The ability to pay an invoice with a credit card or ACH payment via an online merchant processor (like QuickBooks Payments, LawPay, etc.) is a huge convenience for your clients (not to mention a time saver when you factor in you're saving them a trip to the post office and a stamp). Funds are settled faster and it makes everyone's lives easier. Merchants keep a portion of the funds they process for a business as a fee (typically between 3-4%). It's not uncommon for businesses to pass the cost of these fees along to their clients (vs. losing the extra points off your profit margin). To make it easy to incorporate a surcharge or "convenience fee" into your monthly Accounts Receivable workflow InvoiceSherpa has built "Surcharges" as a feature. If you plan on charging a surcharge to some or all of your customer's payments - check the box associated with this setting.

This will enable and apply the surcharge whenever possible without you having to manually take any action.

Note: You'll set the percentage to be applied to each applicable transaction when you configure Payment Setting #9.

Setting #5. "Disable Credit Card Option In Illegal States"

There are a few US states and Canadian Providences' where adding a surcharge for merchant processing is not allowed. Even in states that have laws against this, they vary by industry and how the fee is accounted for. InvoiceSherpa keeps itself up to date on where surcharges are generally not allowed so you don't have to.  Although there can be exceptions by the state if you'd like to eliminate a surcharge being applied to any one of your customers who have a billing address in a state where surcharges like these can be problematic then check this box!

Note: Billing addresses are entered by your customers when they input payment information into InvoiceSherpa or will correlate to what you have on file in your Credit Card Preauthorization Form. Your customer is responsible for notifying you if they've changed their billing address.

Setting #6. "Don't Charge Surcharge For Automatic Payments"

A great way to incentivize new clients to set up Automatic Payments and/or reward the clients who already have done so is to waive any surcharges or convenience fees for Merchant Processing. It's like a built-in loyalty rewards program for your clients!

If you check this setting box any of your customers currently using Automatic Payments (or who turn it on in the future), will not have the Surcharge configured (here) in your payment settings applied to their invoices or transactions (even if you've checked "Force Surcharge When Possible").

Setting #7. "Enable Recurring Credit Card Charges"

This setting simply tells your integrated payment gateway that you plan on processing credit cards regularly.

Check the box for this setting if you'd like to...

• Reduce your Daily Sales Outstanding metric (aka get paid faster).
• Have your clients pay upon receipt.
• Put your clients on Automatic Payments.

Turning this setting on will not automatically charge any of your clients (you need to set them up on Automatic Payments to do that).

Setting #8. Credit Card Surcharge Tax Code

In this field enter the Tax Code you want to be associated with any funds collected by the Surcharge feature in InvoiceSherpa. This should map back to a Tax Code in your Accounting Platform and help assure that any sales tax (if applicable) is applied at the appropriate rate.

Note: Tax codes vary by business, industry and state. The most frequently used Tax Codes for this type of Surcharge are "Fees" or "Services"

Note: If you do not have a Surcharge enabled you can leave this field blank.

Setting #9. "Credit Card Surcharge Percentage"

If you plan on applying a Credit Card Surcharge - use this field to tell InvoiceSherpa the designated amount you'd like to enforce per transaction. Typically this amount is close to or equal to the percentage of each transaction kept by your Merchant Processor. For example, if your Processor fees are 2.9% then you would enter 2.9 or 3 in this field.

Setting #10. Credit Card Surcharges Account

This setting lets InvoiceSherpa know where to tell your accounting software to deposit any funds collected from Credit Card Surcharges. You will want to match the text entered into this field to the logic you use in your accounting workflow. You might use the name of the bank account (for example Chase Bank) or the category of the income (for example "Other Income").

If you need help deciding what to put here - check your accounting software to see how (category) and where (bank account) income comes from any current fees or service charges on your invoices are being mapped.

Note: If you work with an accountant or bookkeeper, this is a great question to ask them!