Payments Diagnostic

See What Your Payments Program
Is Really Earning.

Send four files. In one week, the Diagnostic grades your program, finds the money on the table, and shows the work. No integration required.

The off-the-shelf AI for your payments data, pointed at your four files. Graded in one week, no integration.

Ask About The Payments Diagnostic → See How It Works →

The Problem

Processor Reports Do Not Prove You’re Being Paid Correctly.

The evidence is split across your contract, residual reports, transaction exports, and merchant statements. Until those four sources are reconciled, underpayments, fee leakage, and optimization opportunities stay hidden.

A higher payout is not proof of a correct payout. Effective rates can still hide downgrade exposure, pass-through leakage, and fees that changed after the agreement was signed.

  1. 01

    No line of sight

    You cannot see whether the residuals paid match the schedule you signed.

    Unproven
  2. 02

    Fees drift upward

    Fee lines creep year over year while nobody on your side reconciles the change.

    Unseen
  3. 03

    Set once, leaking since

    The processing setup was configured years ago and never benchmarked or re-tuned.

    Unmeasured
  4. 04

    The rail grades itself

    The counterparty to the economics is often the only source reporting those economics.

    Conflicted

What You Get

A Payments Report Card That Shows What You’re Owed, What Can Improve, And What To Do Next.

Straata reconciles your four files and returns program grades, line-level findings, dollar sizing, and a clear recommended next step. The full, sequenced Revenue Roadmap unlocks when you engage.

  1. 01

    Verify every fee and residual line

    Each line is checked against the agreement and the underlying transactions.

  2. 02

    Quantify money already owed

    A documented number at the bottom of the analysis, not a suspicion or blended estimate.

  3. 03

    Size future margin separately

    Forward savings and revenue upside are modeled by lever, apart from any contractual back-claim.

  4. 04

    Leave with a clear action plan

    A clear artifact for the board, a PE owner, a buyer, or the internal team that will act on it.

Diagnostic Report Card Built From Your Files

The Program Grade

  • ClarityA–F
  • Cost OptimizationA–F
  • Revenue GrowthA–F
  • ProtectionA–F

The Fee-Line Diagnostic

  • Residuals, computed vs paidTested
  • Network pass-through feesTested
  • Downgrade exposureTested
  • Revenue-share applicationTested
The LeakNamed
Money On The TableBy Category
Time To UnlockDay 1 / 90 / 365

The hero uses illustrative sample values. Your grades, line items, and dollars come from your own files and a named comparable cohort.

What We Need From You

Send These Four Files To Start The Payments Diagnostic.

Export them as-is. No integration, system access, custom formatting, or engineering work is required. Your initial Report Card is ready in about a week.

  1. File 01

    Residual reports

    What the processor paid you, by merchant, month, and fee line.

  2. File 02

    Schedule A

    What the contract says the processor should pay you.

  3. File 03

    Transaction export

    The activity used to recompute fees and residuals.

  4. File 04

    Merchant statements

    What merchants were actually billed.

What Happens After You Send Them

01 / Send

Upload the four exports as-is

A few representative months are enough for the initial read. No cleanup is required.

02 / Analyze

Straata reconciles them in about a week

We connect the contract, residuals, transactions, and merchant billing into one evidence trail.

03 / Review

Review your Report Card with Straata

See what may be owed, what can improve, and which next step—if any—is worth taking.

What Happens After The Payments Diagnostic

Your Report Card Sizes The Prize. Engage To Unlock The Roadmap.

The Report Card shows where you stand and how much is on the table. Your Revenue Roadmap, the step-by-step execution detail behind every number, unlocks when you engage Straata. From there, one choice remains: who runs it.

Partner Model 01 / You Own ItSelf-Directed

Take It And Run

You execute. We hand you the map and stay on call.

  • 01
    Your full Revenue Roadmap

    Every lever, sized, benchmarked, and sequenced by value.

  • 02
    All the workings

    Every number traced to the source file that proves it.

  • 03
    Insight and support

    Advisory access to interpret the findings and pressure-test your plan.

  • 04
    Yours to keep

    No lock-in. Your team executes at its own pace.

Partner Model 02 / Straata Owns ItDone With You

Have Straata Execute

Recommended

A Fractional GM of Payments owns the outcome, end to end.

  • 01
    Recover

    Claw back what your processor owes, with the evidence packaged.

  • 02
    Negotiate

    Reset commercial terms, buy rate, and revenue share.

  • 03
    Optimize

    Capture pricing, interchange, and product upside, lever by lever.

  • 04
    Operate

    We run and monitor it so captured value does not drift back out.

Inside The Diagnostic 01 / Money Already Owed

Residual Audit

Rebuild what you should have been paid, and document what to recover.

What It Answers

Did the processor pay every residual exactly as your contract required?

When the Report Card shows payout variance, the evidence window expands for the full Residual Audit: normally at least 12 months, and 24 or more months where the contract supports a larger back-claim. Bank deposits can be added as an optional fifth proof of what was actually paid.

01Merchant billedStatements
02Processor payoutTransaction and fee detail
03Program residualResidual reports and deposits
04Contractual entitlementAgreement and Schedule A

How The Residual Audit Works

  1. 01

    Score the data room. Establish coverage, effective dates, missing fields, and the claim window.

  2. 02

    Recompute every residual line. Apply Schedule A to the underlying transaction and merchant activity.

  3. 03

    Detect formula and tier leakage. Test fee bases, revenue-share logic, pricing tiers, and merchant assignments.

  4. 04

    Cross-check merchant billing. Confirm which costs were charged, passed through, or silently absorbed.

  5. 05

    Size confirmed and pending exposure. Separate the in-window refund from ongoing annual underpayment.

  6. 06

    Select the recovery path. Package the evidence for correction, notice, or processor negotiation.

What You ReceiveResidual Audit
  • 01
    Reconciliation summary

    Expected, reported, and paid, with the variance by period.

  • 02
    Line-item recomputation

    The exact fee or residual formula rebuilt from source data.

  • 03
    Anomaly log

    Every exception tied to a merchant, MID, month, and evidence source.

  • 04
    Exposure summary

    Confirmed dollars kept separate from pending or assumption-dependent dollars.

  • 05
    Recovery posture

    The correction window, supporting schedule, and recommended next move.

What The Residual Audit TestsEvery Exception Carries Evidence
TestWhat Is RebuiltWhat The Finding Becomes
Residuals computed vs paidExpected residual by merchant and period against the processor report.One-time recovery and ongoing run-rate gap.
Revenue-share applicationWhich revenue and cost lines participate in the contractual split.Formula correction and historical claim.
Pass-through and ancillary feesFees charged to the program, rebilled to merchants, or absorbed silently.Rebill gap, improper charge, or pricing exception.
MID and payment continuityMerchant, MID, and deposit continuity across the reporting chain.Missing residual, dual-MID leakage, or payment gap.
Recovered~$1.3M

Recovered in one ISV residual audit in a single quarter.

Sized As Owed~$2.5M–$3.5M

In another diagnostic, including about ~$300K per year of ongoing active-merchant underpayment.

These are separate, anonymized engagements. They are evidence of the method, not a promise about the size of any new diagnostic.

Inside The Diagnostic 02 / Future Margin

Optimization Analysis

Find and prioritize the changes that improve what your program earns going forward.

What It Answers

Which pricing, cost, configuration, and contract changes can create the most forward margin?

  1. 01

    Repricing within the current structure

    Find merchant cohorts priced below cost, below market, or outside the intended pricing logic.

  2. 02

    Cost and interchange optimization

    Measure qualification, downgrade exposure, debit routing, data quality, and configuration-fixable cost.

  3. 03

    Revenue-share and contract economics

    Normalize buy rate, processor markup, minimums, concessions, and unused negotiation leverage.

  4. 04

    Pricing-structure optimization

    Model alternative merchant pricing, surcharge, convenience-fee, or product scenarios where applicable.

What You ReceiveForward Margin
Normalize

Build the current effective cost basis and one clean program P&L.

Benchmark

Compare the program with a named cohort and current commercial alternatives.

Model

Size each opportunity independently, with assumptions and scenario gates visible.

Sequence

Rank by dollars, effort, dependency, and time to first realized value.

Monitor

Name what must be watched so captured savings do not drift back out.

When The Payments Diagnostic Is Clean

Correct payouts can still leave future margin on the table.

In one documented program, ~$190M of fees reconciled with ~99% line-math identity and all sampled merchant statements tied to the feed. The same normalized evidence exposed a ~$6M annual consumer-credit downgrade lane, with 54% classified as configuration-fixable.

Fees Reconciled~$190M
Line-Math Identity~99%
Statements TiedAll sampled
Config-Fixable Lane54%

Optimization figures are modeled opportunities, not recovered money. Scenario ceilings can overlap and are never added together without their gates.