Accepting credit cards as a form of payment requires a department to accept the economic, compliance and administrative responsibilities of handling them.
A good place to start collecting information on those requirements is Policy 330-35. The policy provides insight into the types of merchants and the process to request authorization to become a merchant.
Merchant Responsibilities
| Economic | Card brands charge discount fees approximately 2.5% to 2.75% of the transaction volume. The discount fees are applied to the designated ledger account monthly via a journal voucher generated by Banking and Merchant Services. Journals are completed by card type (Visa/Mastercard, Discover, American Express). A complete breakdown of the fee calculation is explained in the Interchange Rate Schedule (insert 2015 Interchange Rate Schedule here). |
| Compliance | PCI Security Standards are technical and operational requirements set by the PCI Security Standards Council to protect cardholder data. Compliance with the PCI Security Standards is enforced by the payment card brands. The standards apply to all organizations that store, process or transmit cardholder data. If you are a merchant that accepts payment cards, you are required to be compliant with the PCI Data Security Standard and all applicable requirements. To validate compliance, merchants will participate in an annual on-site audit by a third party QSA (qualified security assessor) who will be responsible for the review of merchant credit card handling processes, reviewing required policies and physical inspection of system/devices that process credit cards. Please see the link below to access the PCI Security Standards Council website. Using the PCI Standards & Documents tab and the Documents Library tab, see the version 3.0 Self-Assessment Questionnaires as a guide. NON-Compliance may result in termination of merchant account. |
| Administrative | Credit card activity for all merchants is recorded on the ledger using data received directly from our acquiring bank – Bank of America Merchant Services (BAMS). The bank file is used to generate Credit Card Receipt (CCR) documents. CCR documents either auto approve or route to a departmental group for approval. If the department elects route for approval, the CCR must be approved within five calendar days or it will auto approve and post to the default account number selected by the department. Routing for approval allows the department to change the account used before the activity is posted to the ledger. Learn more about Credit Card Receipt documents. |