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Setting Up Credit Card Surcharges with Transaction Services (TRX) Payment Processing

In order to use credit card surcharges, you must have an Advanced Payment Processing Module license. In “Configuration Settings,” select “Optional Features.” Scroll down to “Credit Card Surcharges” and select “Yes” to enable.

Please contact Sales to purchase this module if you have not already done so.

Please follow this article to learn how to set up credit card surcharges in Artisan while using Transaction Services (TRX) as your payment processor.


What are Surcharges?

Recently, retailers have been trying to recoup some or all of their credit card processing costs through the customer. There are two approaches that Artisan supports: cash discounts or credit card surcharges. 

With cash discounts, customers are charged the regular price of an item for using a credit card. If the customer uses cash, they receive a discounted price. More details on cash discounts and Artisan coming soon.

With the surcharge option enabled, a charge is added to the sale. Please note that this is only legal for customers using credit cards. Surcharges cannot be applied to sales that use debit cards.

You must notify the credit card companies you accept (ex. MasterCard, Visa, etc.) at least 30 days before beginning surcharges.

Surcharges are not legal in every state. Please confirm that your state allows surcharges before continuing.

Surcharges must be no more than your actual cost and are currently capped at 3% by Visa.

With the following settings configured, Artisan will automatically add a surcharge to the sales screen. Then, when the payment is taken, Artisan will verify that a credit card is being used and will go through with the surcharge.


TRX Payment Processing Settings

After following the steps in the note above, scroll down to “Business and Financial Settings.” 

Expand “Payment Processing Settings.”

Create a new Payment Processing Profile for TRX.

For “Payment Processing Method,” select “Transaction Services (TRX) Direct.”

Enter the terminal’s IP address. To access this, press 159 on the PIN pad at once.

Press down once on the gray button on the PIN Pad to select “Com Control,” then press the green button to confirm your selection.

Select “Lan” (using the green button on the PIN Pad).

Select “Status.”

Look for the “IP Address” section.

Leave “Port #” as-is.

 

The next few settings are based on your preferences – such as credit card time out. We suggest leaving these as-is unless instructed otherwise.

The next relevant field is the “Surcharge Item” field. We’ll need to create an Item Record for this surcharge, then enter its Item Code here.

Create an Item Record. 

The Item Description shows on the customer’s receipt. Please keep this in mind if you would like to give the surcharge a different description for the customer to see.

You’ll need to enter the Item Code for this record (do not leave this as auto-generated if you have that option enabled). For convenience, we’ve called our record CCS (which is short for credit card surcharge).

Next, we’ll need to create a surcharge category. Scroll down and select “Edit List” to create a new one, or select the “Categories” toolbar shortcut.

Name the category “CC Surcharge” or something similar.

Select “Services and Store Surcharges (Sales)” as the “Inventory Classification” field. Save the category record.

Return to the Item Record. Make sure “Inventory Tracking” is set to “Off.” Save the record.

In “Configuration Settings,” enter the Item Code for the surcharge record that you created. 

Save your changes.

Updated on September 15, 2023

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