Capture Levels II and III data when accepting commercial cards
Business, corporate, purchasing, and fleet cards are used just like personal credit and debit cards. However, these cards carry higher interchange rates because they offer employers high-value features such as enhanced reporting and statements. Many merchants can qualify for lower interchange rates (especially in card-not-present environments) by collecting the more in-depth Level II and Level III data with each commercial card transaction.
Level II data includes a Tax Indicator, an itemized sales tax amount, and a customer code (for transaction tracing), if provided by the cardholder.
For Level III data, only Mastercard® and Visa® corporate, purchasing, and fleet cards can qualify.
Payment processing must strike a balance between saving money, creating efficiency and ensuring security. Level III processing reduces processing fees and increases the amount of data obtained per transaction. Your Epicor ERP system can pass both Level II and Level III data.
The table below describes Level III data fields and how the data must be entered. Please work with your point-of-sale (POS) equipment supplier to verify that your equipment can pass Level III data.
| Data field name | Description | How data must be entered | Data field requirements |
| Discount amount | The total discount amount applied to a transaction (i.e., total transaction percentage discounts, fixed transaction amount reductions, or summarization of line item discounts). | Must not be all zeros if a discount amount exists and last two digits are implied decimal places. Must be all zeros if discount amount does not exist. | Optional for Mastercard and Visa. |
| Freight/shipping amount | The total freight/shipping amount applied to a transaction. Merchants can choose to deliver the contents of a single transaction in multiple shipments, and this field reflects the total cost of those deliveries. |
Must not be all zeros if a freight/shipping amount exists and last two digits are implied decimal places. Must be all zeros if freight/shipping amount does not exist. |
Optional for Mastercard and Visa. |
| Duty amount | The total duty amount applied to a transaction. Duty can also be known as Import Tax, Excise, Customs Tax, Impost, or Levy. | Must not be all zeros if a duty amount exists and last two digits are implied decimal places. Must be all zeros if duty amount does not exist. | Optional for Mastercard and Visa. |
| Item commodity code | Commodity codes are used by corporate purchasing organizations to segment and manage their total spend across diverse product lines. There is no universally accepted commodity code standard, but the United Nations Standard Products and Services Code (UNSPSC) is widely deployed. | Must not be all spaces or all zeros. | Optional for Mastercard and required by Visa. |
| Item descriptor | A specific description of the item purchased. | Must not be all spaces or all zeros. | Required by Mastercard and Visa. |
| Product code | Product code is typically the supplier's unique product identifier. This is usually identified with an inventory number or UPC code. If the merchant doesn't have an inventory numbering system, the merchant needs to enter something other than spaces or zeros. | Must not be all spaces or all zeros. | Required by Mastercard and Visa. |
| Quantity | The number of products for this line item included in the transaction. | Must not be all spaces or all zeros. The last four digits are implied decimal places. | Required by Mastercard and Visa. |
| Unit of measure | The metric used for understanding quantity (i.e., a box of 12 pencils may be called DOZEN or BOX). | Must not be all spaces or all zeros. | Required by Mastercard and Visa. |
| Unit cost | Used to determine the cost of the measurable unit. In the example used above, the unit cost would be the cost per box of pencils. This field is not intended to derive the cost of the lowest measurable unit (i.e., cost per pencil). | Must not be all spaces or all zeros. The last four digits are implied decimal places. | Optional for Mastercard and required by Visa |
| Discount per line item | Used to capture discounts applied at a line item level. Examples include line item (or product level) percentage discounts and fixed amount reductions. | Must not be all zeros if a Discount exists, and the last two digits are implied decimal places. Otherwise must be all zeros. | Optional for Mastercard and Visa. |
| Line item total | This field is a calculation of the unit cost multiplied by the quantity and less the discount per line item. The calculation is reflected as: [Unit Cost * Quantity] — Discount per Line Item = Line Item Total. | Must not be all spaces or all zeros, and last two digits are implied decimal places. | Optional for. Mastercard and required by Visa. |
| Extended item amount | This is the total purchase amount spent on an item. It's normally calculated as the unit price multiplied by the quantity sold. | Must contain the "extended item amount" and be a number greater than zero, unless the "zero cost to customer indicator" is marked with a "Y" for yes. This field is usually automatically filled in by the point-of-sale device. | Required by Mastercard and optional for Visa. |
| Debit or credit indicator | Indicates whether the extended item amount is a debit or credit. | Must contain one of the following values: D - Extended item amount is a debit. C - Extended amount is a credit. This field is usually automatically filled in by the point of-sale device. | Required by Mastercard and optional for Visa. |