The 2026 cars on your lot and the ones coming in your service lane have evolved a lot since 2010.
Same goes with your customers’ interactions and expectations.
But has your payment system followed, and are you still absorbing every cent of your processing fees?
If you’re still using the same payment terminals from a decade ago-the ones with paper receipts, batch uploads, security flaws, and hidden fees, your dealership is paying the price every day. And one of your biggest line items, credit card processing, may not have to sit on your books the way it does today.
Every credit card transaction costs you a fee. On a service department doing millions in card volume a year, that adds up fast, and most dealers just absorb it.
A credit card surcharge lets you pass some or all of that cost to the customer who chooses to pay by credit card, where it is legally allowed. Done right, it is transparent, compliant, and it turns a fixed cost into a choice.
Here is how surcharging works with Kimoby Pay:
You control it at the transaction level: set a default of on or off, and auto-add a surcharge above an amount you choose. You set the rate and who on your team can apply it, with per-user permissions.
Only credit gets surcharged: Kimoby auto-detects debit cards, so a customer paying by debit is never surcharged.
AMEX is covered: surcharging works across the card brands you accept, not just Visa and Mastercard.
The disclosure is handled: the surcharge is shown transparently before the customer pays, so there are no surprises at the counter.
Two things to keep in mind. Surcharging is not available on Quebec accounts, and surcharge rules vary by state, province, and card brand, so you stay responsible for local compliance. Kimoby gives you the controls and the transparent disclosure. The policy decision is yours.
I know what you’re thinking.
“Everybody gets paid.”
It might be true. Yes, you still get paid, but it comes with risk and friction.
It’s not if you get paid, but how you get paid. And most importantly, what it costs you in the end.
Paper and double entry: Your advisors have to retype RO amounts manually into fixed terminals each time.
Batch settlements: Transactions are reconciled at the end of the day in batch and can fail. Your team has to process everything manually and find the errors.
Contracts that punish loyalty: multi-year terms with early-exit penalties are common.
Refund fraud exposure: on many terminals, anyone with access can issue a refund to any card.
Support queues: long hold times when a multimillion-dollar account needs help.
If your devices still print paper and batch overnight, you’re officially running 2013 tech in a 2026 world.
Switching to an independent sales organization (ISO) or a DMS-bundled payment tool can feel like an upgrade. Under the hood, many still run on the same legacy processing.
For the ISO solutions, think of:
The trade-offs usually come with them:
Require you to have two separate merchant accounts (online + in-person). You need to do double reconciliation.
They use older terminals, PDF-only receipts, and require you to do manual reports.
They aren’t as reliable, since if the web app goes down, your terminals stop working.
Most of the time, you can’t offer financing options on the payment terminal directly. (Policaro Acura grew average repair order size up to 246% on Affirm-financed repairs.)
They still have the same hidden “network access” and “maintenance” fees from the old providers.
There’s a big difference between getting paid and doing payments right. Kimoby Pay terminal has been built for a modern experience. It’s secure, integrated, and paperless.
Kimoby Pay brings that to life with a faster and better payment process:
It syncs in real-time with your Reynolds and CDK invoices and writes back on CDK. Your customer info appears automatically.
Refunds are locked down to avoid terminal-level fraud. Refunds happen only in Kimoby and are tied to the original transaction.
You can easily offer buy now, pay later options with Affirm. It’s built into the terminal flow and the online payment solution.
Receipts are sent via SMS or email by default, using the customer data you already have.
Optional credit card surcharge, controlled at the transaction level, with the transparent disclosures handled (see above).
Transparent pricing with no long contract. One interchange++ rate across channels, for both mobile and in-person.
Our terminals feel like a smartphone, with Wi‑Fi and a battery. Process payments anywhere.
You have a digital audit trail for every transaction. If an error occurs, you can easily find where it happened.
More than $500M processed across the Kimoby dealer network.
Up to 246% larger repair orders on Affirm-financed repairs (Policaro Acura).
Refunds tied to the original transaction, so terminal-level refund fraud is designed out.
Digital receipts by default, so most dealers go paperless.
“With Kimoby Pay, we don’t have to second-guess payments anymore. It gives us one less thing to worry about.”
Luis Lopes, Service Manager at Mercedes-Benz Langley
If your dealership still has to print, batch, or manually reconcile, your payment flow is outdated.
Customers are now used to the smooth experience they get from Apple Pay, Amazon, or Uber. And your staff should get tools that help them, not slow them down.
With Kimoby Pay you can replace five old processes with one connected system, and you decide whether the processing fee is a cost you absorb or a choice you offer at the counter.
Challenge us: share your merchant statement. We bet we can show you a faster, safer flow, and where surcharging could change your numbers.
Book your 15-minute demo today.