Every month, card-processing costs leave your account. We analyze statement data, break down fees, and report how figures reconcile to printed totals where the statement and supported workflow allow. Network costs, processor-side pricing, and charges the statement does not attribute stay distinct.Load a prospect’s statement in the authorized workspace and process it locally in the browser. The hosted application supplies sign-in and the authorized rate pack; comparisons depend on the statement period, detail, and supported scope.
Authorized access is available now. Accounts are currently provisioned manually during launch. Request access below for an account or a fifteen-minute walkthrough.
Every statement leaves a print. The audit reads it – and one line is usually worth the whole exam.
Request a done-for-you audit by sending one to three recent statements to audit@statementforensics.com. Beech Edwards reviews the documents and returns the reports under the service’s existing document-handling process.Use the hosted Statement Forensics application with your authorized account. Statement and Schedule A files are processed in the browser while sign-in and the authorized rate pack come from the hosted service.
PDF is fine. One month is enough to start; three lets the audit catch price changes as they happen.The file is selected inside the authorized workspace and read locally in your browser. One month opens the door; consecutive months unlock price-change and trend forensics.
The report shows how figures reconcile against your statement’s printed totals and keeps mismatches visible. Supported Visa and Mastercard categories are compared with dated schedules only when the statement period, detail, and mapping support the check; other comparisons remain qualified by their evidence.Authentication, entitlement, and your account identity come from Statement Forensics. Statement and Schedule A contents stay in the browser while the audit applies the authorized pack and reports evidence limits.
A plain-English summary for the owner and a full working report for your agent or bookkeeper. Same numbers, two vocabularies. Statements are deleted on delivery – never shared, never sold.A plain-English summary for the owner and a full working report for your prep – same numbers, two vocabularies. Phase 1 has no statement-upload endpoint; the hosted service receives the account and rate-vintage requests, not the merchant statement.
Findings anchor to your statement’s own printed lines – in dollars, never vague percentages.
The released application breaks down statement fees and reports reconciliation results. Rate comparisons depend on the authorized pack, statement period, transaction detail, and supported mapping. Unsupported items remain named, unpriced, or unresolved.
Where the statement prints a reason against each dispute, they are grouped and the fix is named. Fraud is an authentication problem. “Not as described” is a fulfillment problem no gateway setting touches. A chargeback on a declined authorization is your own process and is close to indefensible. Most merchants have been sold fraud tools for what turns out to be a shipping problem.
Card-network cost, processor-side pricing, and charges the statement does not attribute are kept distinct. Supported discrepancies are named with the evidence behind them; negotiable contractual charges, screening flags, and comparisons withheld for lack of support stay distinct. A finding is a question to review, not a promise of recovery.
Interchange is the card networks’ cost and no processor’s to mark up. Where a line presented as pass-through is billed above the published rate, that difference is named with the dollars behind it. Markup is a different thing and is never added to it — what a processor charges for its service is legitimate, negotiable, and reported so it can be negotiated rather than presented as a finding. Keeping the two apart is what lets the document survive a conversation with the processor.
Processors pre-announce repricing in the statement message text — the paragraph nobody reads. The audit reads it on any statement, whatever the processor’s wording, quotes it exactly, and flags the window to object, which opens whether or not anyone read it. Then, given the following month, it measures what actually changed and links it back: “this increase was pre-announced in the statement messages of the prior statement — flagged before it landed.” On a three-statement set it caught the notice, then proved the increase landed to the basis point — and priced it per month and per year.
Card-testing attacks billed per attempt, network “integrity” fines for faulty authorizations, and dispute levels that lead to monitoring programs – flagged with a one-page brief your agent can act on.
The May 2026 sample statement includes a $9.95 monthly PCI compliance fee. A compliance fee is different from a non-compliance penalty; the report distinguishes the charge and identifies questions to raise with the processor. This sample amount is not a typical-result claim.
Compare documented pricing terms with a reconciled statement where the required fields, counts, and rate evidence are available. Incomplete terms or unsupported cost estimates do not produce a promise-kept verdict or an exact overcharge claim.
When the bank behind your account changes, or your terms are quietly updated, the audit calls it out and tells you what to verify – before “continued use constitutes acceptance” works against you.
Some statements never name their interchange programs. They bill your card volume under the processor’s own tier labels — and one of those labels can contain dozens of published programs at rates hundreds of basis points apart. This is where most audits quietly guess.
Refusing is honest, but on its own it answers nothing. So the audit bounds what it cannot measure, and tells you which part is which.
Chargeback, compliance, statement, regulatory, address-verification and per-item charges. These are read straight off your page — not estimated, not a range. Every dollar of them is processor-side or brand pass-through, and you can point at the lines.
It carries interchange and margin with no line separating them. It is split by card brand and product, and each bucket is priced between the lowest and the most expensive published program it could have carried — each bound named, and cited to the schedule and effective date it came from.
The two parts add up to the fee total your statement prints on its own face, so nothing falls between them and nothing is counted twice. What comes out is a sentence like “total processor-side cost is between X and Y a month” — quoted as a range because that is what the document supports.
Not three reports stapled together, and not one report quietly describing whichever month happened to be on screen. Load up to three and every finding in the document is the period’s number — the spread above the network floor, the padded-line count, volume by card brand, the cost stack, the returns and disputes screen, and the sentence on the cover.
A figure printed under a period heading is the period’s figure. The headline totals are the sum of each statement’s own printed totals — never a merged dataset, because a statement’s total is a fact and a merge of them is not.
Per-statement detail lives in an appendix at the back, each section badged with the statement it belongs to. Nothing there is a share of anything, and nothing is lost to the summing.
Returns and dispute rates are computed on the summed sales, credits and chargebacks. A merchant can sit under threshold on a quiet month and over it across the quarter — and the quarter is what an acquirer measures.
If the processor raised the price across the months you sent, it is on the cover with what it costs — and whether it was pre-announced in the statement messages or simply appeared in the pricing. It is never buried on an inside page.
Mastercard’s Global Merchant Audit Program takes effect in 2027 and tightens its chargeback threshold again in 2029, 2030 and 2031. It is scored per location rather than across a whole account, and it counts fraud reported without a chargeback — activity a statement never shows.
Where a merchant is comfortably compliant today but would sit inside a later stage, the report says so and names the year. That is time to act, which is the only thing a threshold notice never gives anyone.
The program measures acquirers too, with their own tiers and assessments. Portfolio pressure reaches merchants long before a merchant-level threshold does — so it is carried, clearly marked as not a merchant finding.
This schedule came from an industry summary rather than Mastercard’s own published document, and the report prints that beside the finding. One figure in it falls where every other ladder rises; it is carried exactly as supplied and flagged, because quietly correcting a source is how a tool starts inventing.
Anyone can quote a rate. The first statement on the new pricing is the only place a promise is either kept or it isn’t — and by the time a merchant works that out themselves, it is not a service conversation any more.
A rate you were quoted and a rate you were boarded at are two different things. The first statement after a switch is where the difference shows up, and almost nobody checks it.
That statement’s own card mix can be compared with the promised terms where the statement period, category support, and available rate evidence permit. Expected against actually charged — with unsupported comparisons withheld.
Promise kept within tolerance; charged above the quote, in dollars a month and a year; or below, which usually means something was mis-boarded and will be corrected later. Where the cause is visible — the wrong disclosed markup, or bundled pricing where interchange-plus was sold — it is named.
It runs inside a complete audit, so it also reports what else was found: downgrades, chargeback fees, negotiable third-party lines, monitoring exposure. A kept promise and a clean statement are two different findings.
It exports on its own, headed with the merchant’s name, the statement period and your details. Your cost basis, margin and split are never on it — by the same rule that governs the full report.
Statement layouts vary. Each processor prints its own categories, subtotals and fee labels, which is why a generic parser can produce a confident report full of quiet holes. The report shows reconciliation results and identifies missing detail or unsupported comparisons. If a statement cannot be read reliably, request a format review before relying on its results.
Supported interchange categories named on the page can be compared line by line with the applicable published schedule for that statement period. Categories or periods without sufficient evidence are identified rather than priced.
Qualified, mid-qualified and non-qualified buckets. The interchange detail is not printed, so no padding is claimed — the cost is bounded instead.
One rate per brand, surcharge collected separately, and a discount base that quietly includes refunded volume.
Where a bundled discount and an itemized interchange section are both charged — quoting the fee total alone understates the merchant badly.
Rates derived rather than printed, with the processor’s margin built into the interchange line itself. Reported as markup, never as an overcharge.
No interchange detail exists to check, so the effective rate and the fee lines are verified instead of pretending detail is there.
Statements that print only a total per card brand. Pass-through is taken as billed and every total reconciles to the statement’s own summary block.
Read twice at full resolution, and the recovered text must reconcile to the statement’s own printed total — or the report says the detail is incomplete rather than showing you a short number.
If a statement cannot be read reliably, pause. Request a format review rather than relying on a report with missing detail. A supported comparison is shown with its evidence; an unsupported comparison is withheld.
Statement Forensics is released. The hosted application reports engine build 2026.10jz-hosted.1, based on upstream 2026.10jz, with authorized pack 2026-10jz. The pack ID is a release artifact label, not an October network schedule.
Comparisons use dated April 2026 Visa and Mastercard schedules within the supported comparison window and only where statement period, transaction detail, and mapping support the check. A pack ID is not evidence of an October rate change.
Discover is confirm-only against a state-republished Appendix G reference; unmatched lines remain named and unpriced. American Express amounts are reported as billed. OptBlue pricing comparisons are shown only when the required source evidence has been accepted.
Statement and Schedule A files are processed in your browser and are not uploaded to the Statement Forensics backend. The hosted application supplies sign-in, account entitlement, identity, and the authorized rate pack. Email audits are a separate service in which statements are sent to the operator.
Unknown or out-of-window dates do not authorize above-published findings. Processor markup is negotiable price, not automatically an overcharge or a promised saving. Assessment and access-fee differences remain questions where the underlying source is not established.
This illustration shows the report structure, not a typical result or a promised saving. Network-cost and actionable totals are omitted because the sample output has not been reconciled to a confirmed fixture and engine result. Merchant-specific amounts and conclusions depend on the statement being audited.
The audit is the door-opener; the findings are the close; the risk brief is the retention.
Interchange billed above the published rate sits inside a line presented as pass-through — so it never appears as disclosed margin, and it is generally outside the residual you are paid on. That makes it the one check protecting your own economics as directly as your merchant’s. You cannot ask for a share of margin nobody has told you exists.
The full cost stack, reconciled to the penny, with the negotiable price isolated – the conversation starts from evidence, not a rate quote.
Fraud patterns, network fines, and monitoring exposure – surfaced on a client-ready page. Findings the incumbent never mentioned are how accounts move.
Fallback-bucket transactions can be named with cause and suggested next questions where the statement supports them. The report distinguishes an operational screening flag from a contractual charge or a supported discrepancy; it does not promise savings or recovery.
Attrition rarely announces itself. Your merchants get repriced and nobody tells you – the notice lands in the fine print of their statement, not in your inbox. A gateway update or a new hire at the counter starts downgrading transactions. Dispute ratios drift toward a monitoring program. The merchant notices eventually – usually when a competitor shows them. A periodic statement review across your book means you find it first.
Processors reprice portfolios quietly – pre-announced in statement messages or landing with no notice at all. A periodic pass catches each change, prices it, and traces it to its announcement (or the absence of one).
A configuration change, a processing habit, a program the networks rewrote – suddenly transactions fall into pricier buckets. Each recurring downgrade is named with its cause and the fix you get to deliver. The savings arrive with your name on them.
Integrity fines accumulate per faulty authorization; dispute ratios rise toward monitoring thresholds. The risk brief flags both while they’re still fixable – before the program letter arrives and the relationship sours.
A quarterly pass across your merchants turns every finding into a touchpoint: you bring the problem and the fix, before a competitor brings just the problem. Send a current merchant’s recent statement exactly as you would a prospect’s.
Independent. Beech Edwards has no stake in any processor or platform – nobody upstream profits from the findings. Held in confidence. Statements sent for the audit service are used to produce the reports and deleted when the reports are delivered.Private by architecture for authorized access. The statement and Schedule A are read in your browser and are not uploaded to the Statement Forensics backend; the hosted service supplies authentication, entitlement, account identity, and the authorized rate pack. Reconciliation is visible. Printed totals are checked where the document and workflow support it; differences and unsupported comparisons are not hidden. Evidence, not promises. The report distinguishes supported amounts, negotiable pricing, and unresolved questions; it does not promise a recovery or saving.
A credit card processing audit reviews a merchant statement, separates card-network cost from processor and third-party pricing, reconciles the totals, and identifies supported findings, negotiable terms, and evidence limits.
It is an independent review of a merchant’s processing statements that explains what the merchant paid, what changed, what may be negotiable or avoidable, and what questions to take back to the processor.
An agent credit card processing audit gives an ISO or payments agent a client-ready review of a merchant statement, including published-rate checks, processor markup, repricing, downgrades, and risk signals.
The audit starts with one to three processing statements, reconciles the statement’s printed totals, compares supported network-cost lines with the applicable published schedule, and separates processor pricing from findings that require more evidence.
For the audit service, the statement is used only to perform the audit and produce the reports, then deleted on delivery under the service process.For authorized access, the statement and Schedule A are selected and processed locally in your browser. They are not uploaded to the Statement Forensics backend. The hosted service receives authentication and rate-vintage requests, not the statement contents.
The report shows whether the statement's printed totals reconcile with the parsed detail. When counts, totals, source dates, or other required inputs do not support a comparison, the difference or uncertainty is shown instead of being turned into a confirmed finding.
Fixed is the network cost determined by the cards accepted, transaction characteristics, merchant program, and schedule vintage. Negotiable is processor or third-party pricing set by agreement. Lease charges remain separate because they are usually their own contract, not network cost and not ordinary processor pricing. Unclassified items are disclosed as evidence limits when a source charge cannot yet be assigned defensibly.
A transaction billed in a pricier rate bucket than it could have earned – usually a setup issue, not a pricing issue. The report names each recurring downgrade, its likely cause, and the fix. It’s money a negotiation can’t reach, because the remedy is operational.
It tells you what is negotiable, what is avoidable, and what each is worth per month and per year – in dollars, anchored to your own statement. No inflated savings promises; the decision, and the negotiation, stay yours.
One is enough to start. Two or three unlock the month-over-month work: price increases caught as they land, pre-announced changes matched to their notices, and trends.One is enough to start. Load two or three consecutive months to unlock month-over-month work: price increases caught as they land, pre-announced changes matched to their notices, and trends.
Those statements carry reported rates rather than interchange detail, and the audit adapts: it reviews the effective rate and fee lines rather than pretending transaction-level detail exists.
Gary Rutledge brings 35 years in banking risk, processing, acquiring, and payment facilitator operations to Beech Edwards LLC. There is no processor, ISO, or platform affiliation and no residuals.
Send one recent statement – or up to three – or ask to see a complete sample report first, worked from a sample merchant, so you know exactly what you’ll get back.Request authorized access or a fifteen-minute walkthrough below. Accounts are currently provisioned manually during launch, so Gary will follow up personally.
Gary Rutledge · Managing Partner, Beech Edwards LLC · Gary@statementforensics.com · 402.670.3445 · www.statementforensics.com