Merchant Statement Analyzer

How to Read a Merchant Statement

Learn to read a merchant statement line by line: sales, interchange, assessments, processor markup, monthly fees and chargebacks, with a free analyzer.

A merchant statement is the monthly report your card processor sends you. It shows what your customers paid by card, what was deposited to your bank, and every fee that came out in between. Most owners glance at the deposit total and file it. This guide shows you how to read the whole thing in about ten minutes.

What is a merchant statement?

Your processor (or the bank behind it) issues a statement for each statement period, usually one calendar month. Fiserv defines it as the document you receive at the end of every month by email or mail, and the statement period as the summary of transactions accrued during that period.

A statement is not a bill. First Data's statement layout prints "THIS IS NOT A BILL" on the first page because fees are already deducted from your deposits or debited from your bank account. The statement is the record of what was taken.

Some processors do not mail a traditional statement at all. Square, Stripe and Toast publish fee reports inside their dashboards instead. The sections below apply to both formats.

The six sections of almost every statement

Chase describes its statement in these parts, and most processors follow a similar order:

Section What it shows
Cover page or summary Account details, statement period, totals for the month
Deposit or funding summary Daily deposits, with chargebacks, reversals, adjustments and fees
Card summary Sales and returns by card brand, number of transactions, average ticket
Chargebacks and reversals Payments taken back after a customer dispute or a bank correction
Adjustments Manual corrections and reconciliation entries
Charges and fees Every fee line, usually grouped by type

The summary math on a First Data statement reads: amount submitted, minus third-party transactions, chargebacks, adjustments and fees charged, equals the amount funded to your bank. If you can tie those numbers to your bank deposits, the rest of the statement is detail.

Step 1: Find your total card sales

Look for "amount submitted," "gross sales," "total payments" or "net sales." Note whether refunds are already subtracted. Toast, for example, lists Payments and Refunds as separate lines.

Step 2: Find your total fees

Look for "fees charged," "total fees," "service charges" or "discount." Some statements split fees across two or three sections. Add them all. If fees for one month appear on the next statement (First Data notes that November activity fees appear on the December statement), make sure you are matching the right periods.

Step 3: Calculate your effective rate

Divide total fees by total card sales. That percentage is your effective rate, the single number that lets you compare any statement with any other. The full method and a worked example are in Effective Rate: How to Calculate Your Card Processing Rate.

Step 4: Sort the fees into three layers

Every card fee belongs to one of three layers:

  1. Interchange, paid to the bank that issued the customer's card.
  2. Assessments and network fees, paid to Visa, Mastercard, Discover or American Express.
  3. Processor markup, the part your processor keeps.

Only the third layer is set by your processor. The first two pass through at the same cost no matter who processes your cards. How to tell them apart on paper is covered in Interchange, Assessments and Markup: 3 Layers of Card Fees.

Step 5: Check the fixed and occasional fees

These are the lines that are easy to miss because they are small or appear once a year:

  • Monthly or statement fee
  • PCI compliance or PCI non-compliance fee
  • Monthly minimum
  • Batch, authorization and per-item fees
  • Chargeback fees
  • Annual fee
  • Early termination fee (only if you close the account)

Each one is defined in Merchant Statement Fees Glossary: Every Line Item Defined.

Step 6: Identify your pricing model

The way fees are grouped tells you how you are priced. Interchange-plus statements list interchange categories plus a separate markup. Tiered statements group sales into qualified, mid-qualified and non-qualified buckets. Flat-rate processors show one rate per payment type. Subscription plans show a membership fee plus per-transaction costs. Cash discount and surcharge programs show the amounts customers paid toward processing. The differences, and what to look for on each, are in Credit Card Processing Pricing Models Explained and Cash Discount vs Surcharging: Rules, Caps and State Limits.

Where to find your statement, by processor

Processor Where the fee data lives
Square Reports > Accounting > Fees in Square Dashboard
Stripe Fees report and Balance summary report in the Dashboard
Clover Depends on your merchant account provider; see the guide
Toast Reports > Payments > Processing statements in Toast Web
Worldpay The iQ portal
Fiserv / First Data Business Track, ClientLine Reporting > Monthly Statements

Step-by-step guides: Square Fees Report: How to Read Your Square Statement, Stripe Fees Report and Balance Summary: How to Read Them, Clover Statement: Where to Find It and How to Read It, Toast Processing Statement: How to Read Every Line, Worldpay Statement: How to Find and Read It in iQ, Fiserv (First Data) Statement: How to Read It.

Common things people find on a first read

  • A rate that is higher than the rate they were quoted, because the quote covered only one tier or one card type.
  • Fees for services they do not use, such as a gateway or a paper statement.
  • A PCI non-compliance fee charged every month because an annual questionnaire was never completed.
  • Chargebacks they never saw, because the notice went to an old email address.
  • Debit cards priced the same as rewards credit cards on a flat-rate or tiered plan.

None of these are automatically wrong. Some are contract terms you agreed to. But each is a line you can question, and some are money you can reclaim by changing a setting, completing a form or renegotiating.

FAQ

How often do I get a merchant statement?

Usually once a month, covering the previous calendar month. Processors with dashboard reporting let you pick any date range instead.

Why is my deposit less than my sales?

Fees, refunds, chargebacks and adjustments are subtracted before funds reach your bank. Some processors deduct fees daily and others once a month, so the gap can vary by day.

What is a good effective rate?

There is no single answer. It depends on your card mix, average ticket, how cards are accepted (tapped, keyed, online) and your industry. Compare your rate across months and against what other pricing models would have cost on the same transactions.

Can I get my statement in a spreadsheet?

Most processors export CSV or Excel from their portal. Stripe, Square and Fiserv's ClientLine all offer exports.

Do I need a merchant statement to use Merchant Statement Analyzer?

Yes. Upload last month's statement or fee report as a PDF, and Merchant Statement Analyzer reads the lines and explains each one.

Try it on your own statement

Merchant Statement Analyzer is free. Upload last month's statement to the analyzer and see every fee explained, your effective rate, and what other pricing plans would have cost on the same statement.

Sources

See it on your own statement

Upload last month's processing statement. Your card sales, total fees and effective rate come first. The full report explains every fee line and what other plans would cost on the same sales.

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