1. How business card surcharging works
Surcharging lets you pass business card processing fees back to your customer, so you keep the full invoice amount.
When your customer enters their card details:
Adfin checks the card type automatically.
If the card can be surcharged, your customer sees the surcharge and the new total before they pay, and is given a confirmation action on whether to go ahead.
The payment total is increased to cover the surcharge.
Once the payment goes through:
You receive the full original payment amount.
The surcharge is collected separately by Adfin.
You are not charged any fees for the transaction
Your accounting and reconciliation stay simple, because the surcharge never passes through your balance.
What the surcharge costs your customer
The surcharge is a flat 2.9% of the invoice amount.
For example, on a £1,000 invoice paid on a business card:
Your customer is charged £1,029, made up of the £1,000 invoice and a £29 surcharge.
You receive the full £1,000.
What the surcharge costs you
There is a fixed 20p fee charged to you per transaction
For example, on the £1000 invoice example above,
You would be charged 20p
A couple of things to know before you switch it on:
Surcharging only applies to business card payments.
When surcharging is on, Apple Pay and Google Pay aren't offered as payment options, as those wallets can't be surcharged.
See further information on our rates here adfin/pricing
2. Which card types can be surcharged
Under UK law, only business cards (sometimes called commercial cards) can be surcharged. These are cards issued to a business rather than to an individual.
Adfin automatically detects whether a card can be surcharged at the point of payment, and only applies it to eligible business cards. Personal cards are never surcharged.
There are no card tiers
Every business card is surcharged at the same rate. A basic business debit card and a corporate purchasing card are treated identically, so a customer paying on a more premium business card is never charged more than one paying on a standard business card.
3. How to turn surcharging on
Surcharging is a skill on each of your customer agents.
Go to Customer agents in Adfin.
Open the customer agent you want to update.
Find the Skills section.
Turn on Business card surcharging.
Save the agent.
Surcharging then applies to the customers handled by that agent. Repeat for any other agents you'd like it on. You'll find the skill on agents that take card payments (your On Demand method), not on direct debit only agents.
4. Managing surcharging for individual customers
You can turn surcharging on or off for a single customer, regardless of the agent's default.
Open the customer's record.
Go to their customer agent settings.
Turn Business card surcharging on or off for that customer.
Changes apply immediately to that customer's future payments.
