A billing descriptor is the way your business name appears on your customer’s monthly credit card statement. This may seem simple, but there’s a lot to know about choosing your billing descriptor, and what you don’t know could cost you.
The job of a descriptor is to describe the product or service purchased by the customer to explain a charge or refund. These descriptors are fixed in length; standard credit card transaction descriptor length is 22 characters max. It will generally include the DBA name of the merchant and the name of the product or service, separated by an asterisk. Some processors allow for the merchant’s telephone number or website as well.
The billing descriptor is important because it reminds a customer what the transaction was, and helps avoid groundless chargebacks. Therefore it is critical that these descriptors be as specific and informative as possible. For this reason, merchants have several options on how they may choose to appear on customer statements.
The basic information about your company can be presented in two ways: