Fees on Payment Methods

Software improvement
1

Users in the UK would like to add additional fees to specific payment methods.

Problem:
-> Paypal charges 4% for small enterprises to use their service Similarly other payment gateways do the same.
-> Credit card charges can be higher than debit card charges.
-> Some payment methods have higher administration costs. This might be a factor for some hubs.
-> Hubs would like to pass this charge on to customers such that no all customers are forced to share the costs of specific payment methods.

Proposal
-> Enterprises wish to be able to apply a fee to a payment method. This makes sense in the Edit Payment Method screen.
-> It would be great to use the Fee Calculator, such that fees will have the same flexibility as applying fees to shipping methods ie Flat rate, percentage etc.
-> Fees are applied to the order on selecting the payment method, similar to the way shipping method fees currently work.

@NickWeir @Sara @MyriamBoure @oeoeaio Any other thoughts on this?

2

Thanks Lynne this looks good.
Stroudco is getting round this problem by invoicing through Quickbooks which I think then gives shoppers the option to pay the invoice through Paypal. But in the long term it would be good to integrate our accounting more closely with OFN. I will check whether @Oliver has anything to add - assume not if he doesn’t come back.

3

Quickbooks online doesn’t use Paypal but Intuit Pay, which charges 2.5%. But of course you only get that if you are already paying for Quickbooks. Xero has a similar solution.
For everyone else it makes sense though to have the option of charging a payment processing fee.

4

@CynthiaReynolds and @Olivier this wishlist item may also be of interest for Norway :slight_smile:

5

Sounds good to me! Could be useful for us as well, though not a high priority at this stage.

6

Looks pretty comprehensive to me and perhaps of some use to Farmer’s Markets as well?

7

@lin_d_hop that definitely sounds good.
In France, it’s very unusual not to include the transaction fees in the price of the product in the shop, that would sound very rare, and people would be chocked to see the price increase after they have chosen the payment method. The price in the shop is always the final price (apart from shipping which is usually added at checkout) BUT introducing this feature it’s also a way to raise awareness in people mind of the costs behind the products, in a transparent way, so maybe that will be used in France as well :wink:
We discussed with a farmer who wanted to offer an online payment method for that to be convenient but he wanted to do what you descibe, add the % if they choose that option, so it seems this feature is also a wishlist for France even if it’s not usual.

I think it’s clear and simple to put a transaction fee as an entreprise fee applied on all products in the order cycle, based on the average payment option rate (but we need to improve the way the entreprise fees are displayed, I’ll open a discussion on that now) but I understand the need to also be able to do that at checkout.

8

The implementation would include at least these steps:

  • Extend Spree::PaymentMethod with calculated_adjustments. (3h)
  • Add new inputs to the payment method edit form in the admin interface. (4h)
  • Add the fee to the order during checkout. (4h)
  • Display that fee to the customer during checkout. (5h)
  • Display that fee to in confirmation emails. (3h)

A rough early estimate is 19 hours.

9

I think this one can be moved to “done” right?
Stumbled across this searching for “payment fees”…

10

This is what the user guide says on it Payment Methods - OFN User Guide - Master

There are some warnings on the implementation in that it’s not possible to add tax to the fee, and the way calculators work. So I guess this wishlist could represent improvements on the way this works today.