Key reports in TAC  

        tell you the state of  

         your business. 

Clear Computing offers 4 reports that should be run at the beginning of each month, so you know how your business is doing. (Run year and month reports for the last three years)

1. Rental rate analysis with re-occurring rental projection
2. Sales year and month
3. Receivables year and month
4. Rental unit analysis by type unit year and month

If you take either the YTD receivables (cash business or sales if accrual) and subtract the YTD expenses from your accounting package (Quick Books, Peachtree, etc) you will have you Basic Gross Profit before taxes.

This will show you how you company is trending from previous years and tells you how you are doing with minimal of effort.

Click HERE to read more! 

Rate reviews are completely normal and part of the service we provide.  We review your first statement  to make sure everything has been entered correctly.  We also do rate reviews on the anniversary of your merchant account being opened up.  This way we can make sure you are on the best program for you.

So, I pulled out this merchant's statement to look for possible savings.  Starting with the usual culprits I asked:

• Is their effective rate in line with the type of cards they accept (rewards, debit, government, etc) - Yes it is
• Are they paying any downgrades perhaps for not entering the tax amount in a B2B transaction?  No
• Are they getting the Durbin bonus on their Regulated Debit transactions? - Yes
• Are they getting any EIRF transactions because they aren't entering the address or zip code information?  - No.
• Are they paying the right acquirer fees from Visa and MC? - Yes

And then I saw their PCI Compliance status - Not compliant!

Right there on the statement is the PCI non-compliance fee, costing them $19.95 this month.  Instead of taking 20 minutes to complete the questionnaire, they are throwing away over $150 every year.

I know I harp on PCI Compliance.  I know that every time you see a column from me in the Clear Computing newsletter it is likely I'm advising you to become PCI Compliant.  But this time, it isn't only for reasons of security, but for monetary ones.  Merchants work hard to keep their business costs down, and often they overlook this avoidable fee.