How much you really receive from a card machine sale

In a nutshell

If you sell with a card machine, you do not receive the full sale amount. The card machine company takes a fee from each sale and, depending on the payment method, the money only arrives days or months later. Knowing how much is left from each sale, and when, is what separates revenue from money you can actually use. This guide uses Brazilian practice and amounts in reais (R$).

Gross, fee and net

• Gross amount: what the customer paid.
• Fee: the part the card machine company keeps. It is a percentage of the sale and, in some contracts, a fixed charge per sale as well.
• Net amount: what reaches your account. Net = gross − fee.

The fee changes with the payment method: debit, one-off credit, credit in installments and, on some machines, Pix (Brazil's instant payment). There is no official table: each contract has its own fees, and they can change. The ones that apply to you are in your contract and in the card machine app.

When the money arrives

The timing also depends on the contract. Usually a debit sale arrives within a few days and a one-off credit sale takes about 30 days. For installment sales where the shop receives each installment (common in Brazil as "interest-free for the customer"), each installment usually arrives one month after the previous one. Until then, that money is receivable, not a balance you can spend.

Early payment means asking to receive sooner, paying an extra discount. The further away the original date, the bigger the discount.

Example

Joana sells cakes and uses a card machine. Her contract fees, just as an example, are: debit 1.37%, one-off credit 3.49% and credit in 3 installments 5.99%.

On a R$ 1,000 sale:

• Debit: fee of R$ 1,000 × 1.37% = R$ 13.70. Joana receives R$ 1,000 − R$ 13.70 = R$ 986.30.
• One-off credit: fee of R$ 1,000 × 3.49% = R$ 34.90. She receives R$ 965.10, about 30 days later.
• Credit in 3 installments, interest-free for the customer: fee of R$ 1,000 × 5.99% = R$ 59.90. The net is R$ 940.10, arriving in three parts: R$ 313.37 in 30 days, R$ 313.37 in 60 days and R$ 313.36 in 90 days.

Now suppose Joana needs the installment money today and her contract charges 2% per month brought forward, calculated simply:

• the 30-day installment loses 2%: R$ 313.37 × 2% = R$ 6.27;
• the 60-day one loses 4%: R$ 313.37 × 4% = R$ 12.53;
• the 90-day one loses 6%: R$ 313.36 × 6% = R$ 18.80.

The total discount is R$ 6.27 + R$ 12.53 + R$ 18.80 = R$ 37.60. Paid early, she receives R$ 940.10 − R$ 37.60 = R$ 902.50 from a R$ 1,000 sale. Each company calculates early payment its own way: check your contract.

What to charge. If Joana wants to receive R$ 1,000 net on a one-off credit sale with a 3.49% fee, the price must be R$ 1,000 ÷ (1 − 0.0349) = R$ 1,000 ÷ 0.9651 ≈ R$ 1,036.16. Checking: R$ 1,036.16 × 3.49% ≈ R$ 36.16 in fees, and R$ 1,036.16 − R$ 36.16 = R$ 1,000. Adding 3.49% on top of the price is not enough, because the fee applies to the higher price. Under Brazilian law, a shop may charge different prices depending on the payment method, as long as it tells the customer.

Step by step

1. Take your contract or the card machine app and write down the fee for each payment method, any fixed charge and the payout timing.
2. For each sale, record the gross, the fee and the net, and the expected date of each payout.
3. Plan the week's bills with what has already reached your account, not with total sales.
4. Once a month, compare the card machine statement with the contract fees. If the fee charged is different, complain to the company.
5. Before asking for early payment, work out how much you will lose, as in the example, and compare with other options, such as negotiating a bill's due date.
6. Review your prices with the "What to charge" calculation, for each payment method.
7. In Meu Gasto, register your card machine with your contract fees and record sales in Card sales: the app shows the net of each sale, what will arrive on each date and helps you check the statement.

Common mistakes

• Counting the gross amount as available money. What you can spend is the net that has already arrived. The rest is receivable.
• Forgetting the credit timing. Selling well on credit can leave your cash empty for 30 days. Plan supply purchases with that in mind.
• Taking early payment every month without doing the maths. Frequent early payment can eat a large part of your profit.
• Passing on the fee by adding the percentage to the price. That way the fee is not covered. Divide by (1 − fee) instead.
• Mixing sales money with household money. Keep separate accounts so you know what the business really earns.