A card-present transaction — the physical card or a tap/chip read at a point-of-sale terminal — is treated differently by payment processors than a card-not-present transaction like an online order. The distinction isn't just technical; it directly affects your fees, your fraud exposure, and how your finance team should reconcile deposits.
Why card-present usually costs less
Card-present transactions, especially EMV chip and tap payments, carry lower fraud risk from the processor's perspective, which typically means lower interchange fees than card-not-present transactions. A retailer running both a physical and online channel should expect — and be able to explain — a real difference in effective processing cost between the two.
What reconciliation requires in a card-present environment
- Matching POS batch settlements to bank deposits, accounting for the delay between the sale and the funds landing
- Understanding your processor's specific fee structure — interchange-plus versus flat-rate pricing changes what 'normal' looks like
- Reconciling terminal-level activity across multiple locations, not just a single company-wide deposit total
For a multi-location retailer, this adds up to real reconciliation complexity — multiple terminals, multiple batch timings, multiple fee schedules. Getting it wrong doesn't usually show up as fraud. It shows up as a fee line that's quietly larger than it should be, for reasons nobody's checked.