➤ Product: OfficeRnD Flex
➤ Who: Admins
➤ Where: Admin Portal, under Settings > Billing > Billing Rules
➤ Availability: All Flex plans
Every card payment you accept costs you a transaction fee from your payment gateway. Absorb it yourself for long enough, and it eats into your revenue every month. OfficeRnD Flex helps you avoid that by automatically adding a processing fee to the invoice, so the member covers that cost instead of you. The fee adjusts the moment the payment method changes, so you're never stuck recalculating it by hand.
Processing fees sit inside your billing configuration alongside billing plans, revenue accounts, and your payment gateway connection. This article will help you understand how the system calculates, recalculates, and removes these fees across every billing scenario, so you can read an invoice with confidence and troubleshoot fee discrepancies when they come up.
In this article:
Set up processing fees and turn them off for debit cards.
See how the system picks the fee percentage on a new invoice.
Understand how partial payments and payment method changes affect the fee.
Override the default rate for a specific location.
Handle billing locks, refunds, and alternative payment methods.
Before you start
Confirm the following before you activate processing fees.
Start with the basics. Read Processing Fees for Credit Card Payments – Start Here for an overview of how this feature fits into your billing setup.
Set up processing fees first. Open the Flex Admin Portal and go to
Settings > Billing > Billing Rules, open the Fees tab, and click Activate Processing Fees.Confirm you have an active payment gateway connection. Fees only apply when card payments are processed through an active payment gateway such as Stripe or GoCardless.
Check your billing lock settings. If a billing lock date is active, the system cannot add or update processing fees on locked invoices.
Important: Some regions require you to disclose card surcharges to members in writing, or get their consent, before you charge them. Confirm your local requirements first.
How processing fees protect your revenue
Without automatic fees, every one of these situations means a manual invoice edit, or revenue you regularly absorb instead of the member:
An invoice has been generated with a fee, but the member ends up paying by bank transfer or cash instead of a card.
An invoice has been generated with a fee sized for one card type, but the member pays with a different card that carries a different rate.
An invoice has been generated with no fee at all, because no card was on file, and later the member adds a card and pays with it.
The rest of this article walks through exactly how the system handles each case.
How processing fees work
Processing fees are automatically generated through a system-created billing plan once an operator specifies the revenue account where they should be recorded. This configuration also determines whether fees are taxable or non-taxable, depending on the revenue account's tax settings.
Once processing fees are active, they are determined by the Payment Method assigned to an invoice. You can select this payment method manually or apply it automatically based on the Company/Member Payment Method billing setting.
Every invoice can include at most 1 processing fee line item, no matter how many card payments or card types are involved.
If you have an active Stripe integration, you can remove card processing fees. To do that:
Open the Flex Admin Portal and go to
Settings > Billing > Billing RulesOpen the Fees tab and select Remove processing fees for debit cards.
How the system decides which fee is applied
The following table describes the possible scenarios and how the system decides which processing fee to apply in each.
Scenario | Saved cards on the profile? | Fee applied |
Payment Method is empty or Auto | No saved cards | No fee is added |
Payment Method is empty or Auto | 1 or more saved cards | Calculated on the first card in the profile |
Payment Method is empty or Auto | A direct debit account plus 1 or more cards | No fee is added. The system assumes the invoice will be paid by direct debit |
Payment Method is set to Credit Card | Any | Calculated on the first card saved to the profile |
A specific card is selected manually at payment time | Any | The selected card determines the processing fee percentage applied, regardless of the Payment Method setting |
For invoices automatically generated through a bill run, the logic described above only works if a card is saved to the profile and the preferred payment method is 'Auto', or if the preferred payment method is set to 'Card', whether or not a card is saved yet. For invoices you create manually, the fee is skipped whenever card details are missing, or no payment method is specified at creation.
Processing fee rules for partial payments
When an invoice is expected to be paid by credit card, a processing fee is added during invoice creation.
The following rules apply when partial payments, credit notes, or overpayments occur.
In every scenario below, the first card payment made against an invoice determines the fee percentage. Later card payments never change that rate, only the amount it's calculated against.
Before a credit card payment
Before any card payment lands on the invoice, these are the triggers that change the fee:
Condition | Effect on the processing fee |
A credit note or an overpayment is applied | Processing fee recalculated based on the remaining balance |
Both a credit note and an overpayment are applied | Processing fee recalculated based on the remaining payable amount |
A partial non-card payment (direct debit, bank transfer, cash, check, or POS) is applied | Processing fee removed entirely |
A credit note or an overpayment is applied after a non-card payment | Processing fee remains removed |
A credit card payment follows any of the other use cases above | A new processing fee is added, calculated based on the remaining balance of the invoice |
Mixed and sequential payments
Once a card payment does land on the invoice, different rules take over:
Scenario | Effect on the processing fee |
First payment is by credit card | The processing fee is generated based on the entire remaining balance (paid + unpaid). A later non-card payment, overpayment, or credit note allocation recalculates the fee based on the total paid by card plus the remaining amount due. |
First payment is by a non-card method | No processing fee is added if none existed before, and any existing fee is removed. A later card payment calculates a new fee based on the current amount due. |
The invoice is paid in full across 2 or more credit card transactions | The processing fee remains unchanged, and is based on the full invoice amount and the card type of the first payment. |
A non-card payment, credit note, or overpayment is applied after 1 or more credit card transactions | The processing fee is recalculated based on the total paid by card plus the remaining amount due. |
All credit card payments fail, in a mix of card and non-card payments | The processing fee is removed, and the amount due is adjusted to the total without the fee. |
Only 1 of multiple credit card payments fails | The originally calculated processing fee amount remains unchanged and is calculated based on the total amount paid by card plus the remaining amount due. |
Processing fees for automatically generated invoices
Depending on the payment method, processing fees may be different. For automatically generated invoices, processing fees are not applied to members and companies without a card added as a payment method.
Processing fees are applied to them only if:
A card is added as a payment method, and the company's or member's preferred payment method is set to Auto.
The company's or member's preferred payment method is set to Card (regardless of whether a card has been added).
Processing fees for manually generated invoices
For manually generated invoices, processing fees are excluded when card details are missing, or payment methods are not specified during invoice creation.
How location-specific processing fees override the default
All calculations described so far use your default processing fee settings, unless the invoice's location has its own configured processing fees.
Each invoice has a location, and so do its line items. However, processing fees are determined by the invoice's location, not the line items' location. This is the order in which the system determines which processing fees to apply:
The system checks the invoice location.
It then looks for a location-specific processing fee configuration.
If it finds one, it applies that configuration.
If not, it uses the default processing fee settings.
Specific scenarios
Here are some specific scenarios and how processing fees will be applied.
Adding payment details later
If payment details are added after an invoice is generated but remains unpaid, the system will adjust processing fees based on the new payment method.
Turning off processing fees
If you turn off the processing fees feature but have used it for a while, previously added fees will be handled as follows:
Paid invoices: Fees paid using non-card methods are removed.
Unpaid invoices: No fees will be added when paying with a card.
Billing lock date impact
If a billing lock date is activated, fees cannot be added to locked invoices. You will see a warning message in the Admin Portal, and an email notification will be sent to the financial email address configured in your organization.
Alternative payment methods
Fees do not apply to alternative payment methods, such as PayPal or Hosted Payment Gateways. Any existing fees are automatically removed.
FAQs
Why did the processing fee disappear from an invoice?
A processing fee is removed as soon as any part of the invoice is paid by a non-card method, such as direct debit, bank transfer, cash, check, or POS. The fee stays removed even after a credit note or overpayment is applied, and a new fee is only added if a card payment follows.
Why is the processing fee based on a card the member no longer uses?
The processing fee is fixed to the first card that made a payment against the invoice, even after the member switches to a different card. Only a full non-card payment removes it, and paying the remaining balance with a second card doesn't change the percentage that's already applied.
Read next