Surcharging FAQs

Surcharging is the practice of adding a fee to a credit card transaction to recover payment processing costs. It is a legal and regulated alternative to raising prices in many states and is subject to strict rules by Visa, Mastercard, and other card networks.

Consider the following before implementing surcharging at your practice:

• Pet owner perception and how the front desk will address their concerns.
• State-specific laws and regulations, including disclosures.
  Example: What cards can be surcharged, and by how much.
• Typically, surcharging requires passing a higher fee to customers than what practices pay.

Yes. Surcharging is available to IDEXX Payments customers starting in Cornerstone 9.7.

Surcharging is automatically available in Cornerstone 9.7. There is no setup within Cornerstone for surcharge; the only requirement is that the Fiserv/CardConnect account has surcharge enabled.  This is done by Fiserv/CardConnect only, and for existing customers takes effect on the first of the next month.  For new customers, timing will be decided during onboarding.

Cornerstone does not manage the surcharge amount.  It is determined by Fiserv/CardConnect and is added to the charge on the terminal (or online payment) automatically based on card type and Postal Code.

To enable surcharging in Cornerstone, please fill out the form on the bottom of this page: software.idexx.com/surcharging-faq.

The total plus surcharge displays on the credit card terminal and as a line item on the invoice.

All reports related to balancing or reconciliation have had surcharge added appropriately.

• Payment totals on all reports INCLUDE the surcharge amount, as this is how you would report/record credit card totals.
• If a report has balancing or reconciliation, then a surcharge line has been added to show the fees to balance out the amount added to the payment totals.
• Daily and Itemized Audit Trail include a surcharge line.
• Daily Summary Report shows surcharge fees.
• General Ledger Report and Batch includes a surcharge fee entry.
• EOM/EOY Sales Tax Summary include a surcharge line for income reconciliation.
• Productivity by Staff – The Provider Paid Totals has surcharge fees REMOVED from the total so that providers are not getting paid for the surcharge amount added.

To enable surcharging in Cornerstone, please fill out the form on the bottom of this page: software.idexx.com/surcharging-faq.

• Apply cash discounts using the Manual Discount option.
• Build your effective rate into the cost of your goods/services using the Mass Markup tool.