Payment & Financing Fees
Map your payment methods to their actual fee rates so Nabu can count processing fees as a cost of each sale, beside product cost and commission, and show real net receipts.
Why payment fees matter
When a client pays you $500 by credit card, your payment processor takes a cut before the money reaches your account. If your processor charges 2.9%, you actually received $485.50 — not $500.
The $500 is still your revenue; the $14.50 is a cost of collecting it. If Nabu doesn't know your processing rates, that cost is missing, and your margins look better than they really are. Across thousands of transactions per year, those small differences add up fast.
Payment & Financing Fees is where you tell Nabu exactly what each payment method costs you, so it can count that cost against your margins.
This section is manual by design. Booking systems may show payment labels like Visa, CareCredit, Cherry, ACH, or cash, but they do not know the processor contract, financing merchant fee, effective date, or fallback rule your clinic should use. Nabu uses the rules you enter here when Sales & Visit History imports payments.
Payment methods to configure
| Payment type | Typical fee range |
|---|---|
| Visa / Mastercard | 1.5–2.9% |
| American Express | 2.5–3.5% |
| Discover | 1.5–2.75% |
| Debit card | 0.5–1.5% |
| Cash | $0 |
| ACH / bank transfer | $0.25–$1.50 flat, or 0.5–1% |
| Cherry | 4–15% depending on plan |
| CareCredit | 3.9–14.9% depending on term |
| Alphaeon | varies by plan |
| PatientFi | varies by plan |
| Greensky | varies by plan |
These are ranges — your actual rates may differ. Enter the exact rates from your processor, not the numbers in this table.
Financing is different from card processing
Financing companies like Cherry, CareCredit, and similar patient financing programs work differently from card processors. They pay your clinic upfront and collect from the client over time. In exchange, they charge your clinic a merchant fee — typically 4–15% of the transaction amount — depending on the repayment terms the client chose.
For example: a client finances a $1,000 treatment through Cherry on a 6-month 0% plan. Cherry might charge your clinic 8%, so you net $920. Nabu counts this fee the same way it counts a card processing fee: as a cost of the sale, shown separately as a financing fee.
Fields
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Payment method name | The name as it appears in your records (e.g., "Visa/MC", "CareCredit 18-month") |
| Fee type | Percentage, flat fee, or percentage + flat fee |
| Rate / amount | The actual rate (e.g., 2.9% or $0.30 or 2.9% + $0.30) |
How fees flow into reports
For every payment in your transaction history, Nabu matches the payment method to one of your rules and calculates the fee. The same calculation feeds Financials, Cost Center, Profitability and the figures at the top of this page:
- Only money that moved carries a fee. A card, financing or cash payment is matched to its rule. Redeeming a gift card, package or membership credit carries no fee: the fee was paid when the credit was bought.
- A ticket's fee is shared across everything on it. When one card payment covers a facial and a skincare product, each carries its share of the fee by value, so a service is never charged the fee on the product sold beside it.
- "Applies to pre-tax amount" means exactly that. The fee is calculated on the part of the payment that was not sales tax. Tips are never part of the fee basis.
- The fee is a cost, not a deduction from revenue. It sits in variable cost and contribution, beside product cost and commission, including in each service's own margin.
The Estimated payment fees and Financing fees figures at the top of this page are this calendar month's payments, by the day the money moved, calculated with the rules in force this month.
This means you get accurate answers to questions like: "Is a service profitable after my CareCredit fee?" or "How does my effective margin differ between cash payers and financed clients?"
Common questions
Where do I find my exact processing rates? Check your payment processor's monthly statement. Look for your "effective rate" or per-card-type rates. If you can't find it, call or email your processor's support line — they're required to give you this information. Some processors (like Square or Stripe) publish flat rates publicly.
What if I use multiple card processors? Add each as a separate line with its own rate. If you take cards through both Square and a separate POS for memberships, for example, you can distinguish them here.
Do I have to add every payment method? Only the ones you actually accept. If you don't offer Cherry financing, don't add it. If you only take Visa, Mastercard, and cash, those three are enough.
Will Zenoti fill these rules in automatically? No. Zenoti payment evidence can help identify labels used in transactions, but active fee rules are manual assumptions in Nabu. Review your processor statements and financing agreements, then enter the rules here.
What if my processor charges a flat fee plus a percentage? Select "percentage + flat fee" as the fee type and enter both values. For example, Stripe charges 2.7% + $0.05 for in-person card transactions.
Allocation Rules
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Marketing Costs
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