With surcharging set up on the Lightspeed Payment terminals, you can pass on merchant fees to your customers.
The payment terminal shows the purchase amount and prompts the customer to present their card. Based on the card that the shopper presents, the terminal calculates the surcharge. You will see the surcharge on the POS or the terminal (unless you have Consent Enabled surcharging switched off). You can confirm the surcharge has been processed at settlement and on the POS and terminal receipts.
Most areas require that merchants disclose their surcharging terms. We’ve provided branding signage for your convenience, but please check with your local government to ensure your signage is sufficient.
What’s in this guide
Enabling surcharging for payments on terminal | 3 mins
Config Update terminals | 3 mins
Update IP address | 3 mins
Before you begin
You’ll need:
- A sign in your venue to let customers know that transactions attract a surcharge (see Do I need to tell my customers that there is a surcharge?)
Enabling surcharging in Back Office
Before you can start passing on your merchant fees to your customers, you must first enable surcharging from Lightspeed Back Office.
Please note that if your user does not have 'Admin' permissions, an Admin will need to grant you the Manage Lightspeed Payments permission to adjust this.
- Go to Lightspeed Payments on the Integrations page in Back Office
-
Switch On Payments Surcharge.
- Select I understand and enable to proceed
Enter the surcharging rates
Once you have enabled the Payments Surcharge from the Lightspeed Payments page, you must enter the rate you wish to pass on to your customers.
-
Use the Surcharge rate column to enter the rate for
- Mastercard / Visa
- American Express
- Select Save to confirm
Note - Only charge what it costs you, refer to ACCC Payment Surcharges if you are an Australian company.
Also be aware that to cover as much of the cost of your fees as possible, you will want to account for GST on your surcharge rates.
Update the configuration of your terminals
To apply the latest surcharge rates, you must update the configuration on your terminals each time you change your rates.*
- Press the Settings button
- Press Configuration
- Enter your Admin Pin (5773 by default)
- If a Configuration Update is available, you will see a blue Update button.
- Select 1 and then the Confirm key to go to your terminal menu (For the E280 model, to get to the terminal menu, select the small square, bottom right Select Admin).
- Choose Config and then Update
This will restart your terminal. Once it has restarted, surcharging will be enabled.
*Your terminals will automatically update each night. However, to start surcharging immediately, follow the steps above.
Update IP address
After the software update, you may experience an IP address change which will prevent your terminals from working. If you do, follow the steps below to re-pair the terminal to your network.
Check IP addresses
- On the terminal, hit 5, and confirm to check the IP address
- From POS, hit the three-bar menu. Select Lightspeed Payments, and you will be taken to the Lightspeed Payments Pairing screen
If the IP addresses do not match up, resync your terminal and Lightspeed app.
- From POS, go to the three-bar menu and select Lightspeed Payments
- Hit Refresh terminal info on the pairing screen.
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Go back to POS, go to the three-bar menu, hit Sync
Consent Enabled Surcharging
On the Lightspeed Payments terminal, the customer is shown a screen with the sales total and the surcharge value. Consent Enabled surcharging is when the customer must either consent by selecting confirm or reject by selecting the red cancel button on the terminal.
- Go to Lightspeed Payments
- Toggle Surcharge confirmation On / Off
On = Customers must accept surcharges on the terminal before making payment.
| Note: With consent surcharging disabled, there is no indication at all on the terminal that a surcharge is being applied. It will only be visible on the POS screen and on the Customer Receipt if they elect to have one printed or emailed. |
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to tell my customers that there is a surcharge?
Yes. It is a legal requirement to tell customers there will be a surcharge on top of their payment. This can be displayed somewhere visible in-store but does not have to be displayed on your Lightspeed Payments terminal. Read more about the ACL’s legislation here: Exemption for restaurants and cafés
Where can I find Lightspeed-branded templates for surcharging signage?
The following links contain digital files for a Lightspeed branded sign that you can download, print and display at your venue.
Can I view my surcharge totals in Insights?
You can see the surcharges in your Transactions Summary report.
Does the surcharge show on the customer's receipt?
The transaction receipt that prints from the V400m EFTPOS terminal will show the sales total, including the surcharge. It does not show the surcharge as a separate line item.
The receipt printed from POS shows the surcharge amount and the total amount, including the surcharge. (POS receipt with surcharge line below.)
Can my terminals be set up differently?
Surcharging is controlled at the site level, meaning terminals will either all have surcharging turned off or all on.
Can I only surcharge the AMEX transactions and not other card types? Or vice versa.
Absolutely! If you don't wish to surcharge on Mastercard or Visa transactions, you can set the surcharge rate to 0% for those card types while configuring a unique rate for AMEX transactions.