Free tool

Statement translator

Processing statements read like they were written to confuse you. Type any line item below and get a plain-English explanation: what it is, which bucket it belongs to, who sets it, and whether you can negotiate it.

20 most-looked-up terms

JavaScript is off, so here is the short list. With JavaScript on, the search box above covers all 60 terms.

EIRF — the network's label for interchange on chip transactions; wholesale, not negotiable.
Discount rate — the processor's percentage cut; the number you negotiate.
Interchange fee — the cardholder's bank's fee; identical at every processor.
Batch fee — charged each time you settle the day's transactions.
PCI compliance fee — monthly charge for the processor's security program; negotiable.
Monthly minimum — a floor on the processor's monthly earnings from you.
Downgrade — a transaction that missed program rules and fell to a higher rate.
Assessment fee — the card network's own cut of volume; not negotiable.
FANF — Visa's fixed monthly network fee per location.
NABU — Mastercard's network access and brand usage fee.
Statement fee — a monthly charge just for producing your statement; pure markup.
Chargeback fee — billed when a customer disputes a charge, on top of the reversed sale.
Early termination fee (ETF) — the penalty for leaving a contract early.
Qualified rate — the lowest interchange tier; transactions that met every rule.
Non-qualified rate — the highest interchange tier; transactions that failed the rules.
AVS — the billing-address check; a small per-use network fee.
Monthly account fee — the processor's flat monthly charge; negotiable.
Transaction fee — the processor's per-transaction charge on top of wholesale.
HST/GST on fees — sales tax on the processor's charges; government-set.
Tiered pricing — qualified / mid-qualified / non-qualified buckets; padding hides in the definitions.

How the buckets work

Wholesale — interchange plus network assessments. Nobody can price below this; it is your cost floor.
Processor markup — everything your processor keeps: the discount rate, monthly fees, batch fees. This is the negotiable part — and where padding lives.
Pass-through — fees collected for someone else (debit networks, the government). Fixed, but worth verifying they are passed through at cost.

Found a line that looks like markup? Estimate how much padding you are paying, or skip straight to the free audit — we read twelve months of statements line by line.