Skip to main content

PASO Features

Updated

Overview

This article provides examples of commonly used PASO template features in Merchant Central. PASO templates help partners customize how residual income and expenses are adjusted for agents, including marking up fees, passing through income, replacing net income by volume, displaying gross sales volume, and zeroing out income or expenses not included on a template.

These features can help ISOs and their teams create more flexible agent schedules, support different compensation models, and better manage residual calculations.

Mark up costs for agents

Use a PASO template to mark up a specific cost for agents on selected income or expense items.

  1. Go to Residuals → Manage → Templates → Add a New PASO Template. 
    01.png
  2. After selecting Add a New PASO Template, create the schedule template by completing the following fields:
    • Enter the template name.
    • Select the PASO-enabled processor.
    • Select the desired fee from the Income/Expense field dropdown.
    • Enter the desired New Rate for the selected income or expense item. 
      02.png
  3. Assign the template to an agent as you would with any other template. For more information, see the Assigning a Template To a User section in the Residuals Templates article.
  4. After the user is assigned, review the results. For more information, see the Viewing The Pricing Adjustments section in the Residuals Templates article.
  5. Review the agent’s adjusted residuals. In the example below, an expense of $0.03 per transaction was applied to the agent using the PASO Template system. 
    03.png

Generic fee mark up/down

PASO templates can be used to increase or decrease common fees. In the example below, the cost for the Merchant account on file was marked up from $2 to $5.

04.png

In the next example, the PCI Revenue Income was reduced to $0. These types of simple adjustments are commonly used when configuring agent residuals.

05.png

Income: You can replace, apply a percentage, increase, or decrease the amount of the selected fee.

Expense: You can apply the desired New Rate or provide a percentage of the amount.

Enable pass-through

The pass-through setting determines when an agent receives 100% of net income, regardless of the agent’s configured splits.

06.png

Pass-through options

All: Allows the agent to receive 100% of all net income, regardless of the agent’s splits.

Negative: Passes through 100% of the net income if the net income is less than $0.00. This is commonly used to prevent the ISO from sharing in accounts that go under.

Positive: Passes through 100% of the net income if the net income is greater than $0.00.

Replace net by volume

Use Replace Net By Volume to replace net income with sales volume in the residual calculation.

07.png

When this option is selected, the system replaces net income with sales volume.

08.png

This is a useful way to allow an agent to receive a specified basis point amount of the volume.

You can also apply income or expense adjustments on top of this feature.

Display gross sales volume instead of net sales volume

PASO mapping can also be configured to display gross sales volume instead of net sales volume during residual imports. This option is useful for partners who want the volume shown on residual reports to include sales only, without deducting returns.

By default, PASO mapping calculates net sales volume by subtracting RETURN Amount entries from SALES Amount entries. When the Ignore Return Amount During Import option is enabled, the system ignores return amounts and displays gross sales volume based only on the sum of SALES Amount rows.

Gross vs. net sales volume

Net sales volume: The sum of SALES Amount rows minus the sum of RETURN Amount rows.

Gross sales volume: The sum of SALES Amount rows only. RETURN Amount rows are not deducted.

For example, if a merchant has $3,420,000 in sales and $15,000 in returns:

  • With Ignore Return Amount During Import enabled, the report volume displays as $3,420,000.
  • With Ignore Return Amount During Import disabled, the report volume displays as $3,405,000.

Availability

The Ignore Return Amount During Import option is available only for the following processor types:

  • First Data - Omaha
  • First Data - North

This option is configured at the processor level and is available in the Add Processor and Edit Processor windows.

Enable Ignore Return Amount During Import

  1. Go to Manage → Processors.
  2. Add a new processor or edit an existing First Data - Omaha or First Data - North processor.
  3. Select Ignore Return Amount During Import.
  4. Save the processor.

Import and review volume results

  1. Go to the Residual Import page.
  2. Select the Add a New Report tab.
  3. Upload the residual file.
  4. Select the PASO processor where Ignore Return Amount During Import is enabled.
  5. Complete the import and select View Report.
  6. Filter the report details by MID to review the displayed volume.

To validate the result, open the import file and filter the rows by Indicator and MID. Then review the Amount column:

  • If Ignore Return Amount During Import is enabled, the report volume should equal the sum of all SALES Amount rows.
  • If Ignore Return Amount During Import is disabled, the report volume should equal the sum of all SALES Amount rows minus the sum of all RETURN Amount rows.

Zero out other income/expenses

Use this feature to zero out all income and/or expenses that are not included on the template.

09.png

This allows you to pay an agent only based on the fees shown on the template.

In the example below, the agent is paid based on the $19.99 PCI Income and the $5.00 Merchant on File fee marked-up expense.

10.png

You can use this setup to create specific Schedule A configurations for agents.