Note: If you are planning on using the Stripe Payment System (no monthly fee’s, higher transaction rate), you do not need to apply for a merchant account. We will help you get set up directly on your forms.
One of the very first things we created when we developed Digital PTO was the ability to collect credit card payments online. Digital PTO Premium Plus Credit Card Plan Members can quickly add credit card payment options to any online form they create. Carnival Tickets, Donation Drives, Membership Dues and more. Parents can pay online from the convenience of home. This differs from our Premium Plus Paypal Plan as the credit card processing is built directly into your site and users are not re-directed to Paypal to make payment.
To make things even better, we have negotiated extremely low rates for Digital PTO schools and can offer bulk discounts to individual PTOs and PTAs on Authorize.net accounts and Merchant Processing Accounts. Processing Percentages are only 1.99%!
Applying for a Merchant Account is recommended for Parent Groups that expect to process more than $20,000 annually online in credit card transactions. If you plan to process less, you might want to look at the Stripe option instead.
Special PTA and PTO Offer!
No Monthly Fee’s for the first month!
Credit Card payments available to Premium Plus Credit Card Plans
Credit Card processing requires a subscription to the Premium Plus Credit Cards Plan. Upgrading to Premium Plus Credit Cards also can add the ability to collect credit card payment via your website, iphone or other smart phone device. Additionally, many other online services can be connected to your Authorize.net account in the future.
How Credit Card Processing Works
When you set up Credit Card Processing via Authorize.net with Digital PTO’s partner (Capital Merchant Solutions) you will be opening an account to process credit card transactions as well as opening an account for the online gateway (Authorize.net) required to make payments online. This information will then be added to the forms of your choice and credit card payments will immediately be active on your website. There is a monthly fee to have these two accounts, but the Discount Rate (percentage charged per sale) is much lower than the Stripe plan with no monthly fees.
Opening up the authorize.net account will also allow your PTA or PTO to accept payments on their smart phones and provide a way to collect funds while in the field. Imagine how much easier the carnival will be when you can accept credit cards at the gate. The possibilities are endless.
Start accepting Credit Cards Online »
What do the fee’s mean?
We have seen increases of up to 25% in funds raised when PTAs and PTOs start accepting credit cards on their website as opposed to only accepting cash and checks. Accepting credit cards does add an additional fee to your bottom line, but as long as you make up for it in volume, it will benefit you a lot.
The fee’s are hard to understand, so we will try to make it as simple as possible.
The main fee is the “Discount Rate”. This is the rate that the credit card company is going to charge you for the ability to accept their credit cards. This rate is charged on every transaction. Our negotiated rate is 1.99%, which is incredibly low.
The “Per Transaction Fee” is a small fee that is added to each transaction. Our rate is $0.20
The “Monthly Statement Fee” is essentially the monthly fee. It’s $6 and is charged monthly.
The “Monthly Minimum” is the minimum payment you can make on your transaction fee’s (the Discount Rate Fees). If you go over $10 in percentage fee’s this fee does not apply. If you are less than $10 in fee’s, the fee is rounded up to $10 for the month.
the “Monthly Gateway Fee” is the fee for the online portion of the credit card processing. This fee is paid to Authorize.net for their services. This is a fixed $10
So in summary, your minimum monthly fee will be $26 ($6 + $10 + $10) and it will go up slowly from there if your fee’s exceed $10 on any given month. In our opinion, $26 is a small (almost invisible) price to pay to accept credit cards online for a PTA or PTO.