PayTrace for every industry, not just the ones it already serves

PayTrace, a gateway built for B2B interchange

Founded in Spokane, WA in 2004, PayTrace was one of the first U.S. gateways to treat B2B commercial-card processing as a first-class problem rather than a consumer-payment afterthought. Twenty years in, that focus still defines the platform.

In March 2022, PayTrace was acquired by North American Bancard: now rebranded as North: and today operates as a wholly-owned subsidiary. The acquisition brought North's processing scale and merchant-services breadth to the platform while preserving the B2B DNA that made PayTrace distinctive. PayTrace currently processes $30B+ in annual transaction volume.

PayTrace's signature capability is interchange optimization. The gateway auto-detects card type on every transaction and, when the card is commercial-eligible, automatically submits the Level 2 and Level 3 enhanced data required by Visa and Mastercard to qualify the transaction for the lowest B2B interchange tiers. For merchants processing meaningful commercial-card volume, this is the difference between standard rates and B2B-qualified rates, often 0.5–1.0% per transaction in margin preserved.

How Payment Hub connects PayTrace to your ERP

Clarity Connect, the integration engine under Payment Hub with 15+ years of active development, reads from and writes to your ERP in real time using each platform's supported API layer. PayTrace stays in control of the transaction. Clarity stays in control of the customer experience and the ERP-side posting.

For cloud ERPs (NetSuite, Acumatica, Dynamics 365 BC, SAP S/4HANA Cloud) Clarity Connect talks directly to the ERP's cloud APIs. For on-premise systems (Dynamics GP/NAV, Sage 100/300, SAP ECC, Oracle EBS, SYSPRO, Epicor P21/Eclipse/Eagle) we use a lightweight outbound-only secure agent that calls from inside your network, no inbound firewall ports to open.

Industries PayTrace + Payment Hub serves

PayTrace is the most B2B-focused gateway on the market, but on its own it's gateway-shaped, not industry-shaped. Paired with Clarity Payment Hub, PayTrace becomes an industry-aware payments platform across the eight verticals Clarity has supported for 20+ years.

Every payment method your B2B customers need

PayTrace supports the full payment stack a B2B merchant actually uses, cards, ACH, tokenized recurring, with no consumer-payment bloat. Payment Hub surfaces each method in a branded, self-service portal.

For large B2B accounts, we commonly configure ACH as the default method above a dollar threshold, protecting your card-processing economics on seven-figure invoices while still giving customers a one-click experience.

Level 2/3 automation and CEDP readiness

Interchange optimization is PayTrace's headline capability, and it's the single biggest unit-economics lever most B2B merchants are leaving on the table. Here's how it works, how much it's worth, and why CEDP matters now.

How PayTrace's Level 2/3 automation works

Level 2 and Level 3 are enhanced data fields the card networks require to qualify large B2B card transactions for the lowest interchange tiers. Level 2 adds sales tax and customer code. Level 3 adds invoice line items, purchase order number, freight, duty, product codes, unit of measure, and more.

Most gateways ignore L2/L3 entirely or require the merchant to key the data in manually. PayTrace does the opposite: every transaction is scored automatically. The gateway identifies whether the card is a consumer or commercial card at authorization time, and on eligible commercial cards, submits the full Level 2/3 payload. Clarity Payment Hub feeds the line-item, tax, and customer-code data from your ERP into PayTrace on every eligible transaction, nothing for your AR team to key, nothing for the customer to fill out.

CEDP, Visa's Commercial Enhanced Data Program

Visa is tightening the rules. The Commercial Enhanced Data Program (CEDP) requires higher-quality B2B transaction data to qualify for the lowest interchange tiers. The original April 2025 deadline was extended to October 2025, but the direction is clear: merchants who aren't passing clean enhanced data will lose B2B-qualified rates.

PayTrace is already built for CEDP. The PayTrace Product List feature lets merchants pre-load their full SKU catalog, which is then included as verified enhanced data on every submission. Clarity Payment Hub makes this painless: Payment Hub pulls the actual line-item, SKU, and tax data directly from your ERP on every transaction, no separate catalog to maintain, no manual mapping, no drift between ERP and gateway.

Surcharging, cash-discount, and tokenized recurring

PayTrace supports the full set of B2B processing-cost strategies merchants actually use. Payment Hub enforces state-by-state compliance, network caps, and clean ERP-side tracking on all of them.

Compliant credit card surcharging

Surcharging shifts the cost of card processing onto the customer when they choose to pay by credit card. PayTrace supports compliant credit card surcharging capped at the 3% network maximum, with debit cards, prepaid cards, and ACH automatically excluded per card network rules. Clarity Payment Hub enforces the state-by-state rule table (some states prohibit surcharging entirely or require specific disclosures), displays the legally required pre-authorization disclosure, and tracks the surcharge as a separate line in your ERP.

Cash-discount programs

The alternative model: the invoice price already includes processing cost, and non-card payment methods (ACH, check) get a discount. PayTrace supports this flow cleanly, and Payment Hub surfaces the discount in the portal checkout. Your choice between surcharging and cash-discount depends on your state, your customers' expectations, and your pricing strategy.

Tokenized recurring billing

PayTrace supports tokenized recurring, installment, and auto-pay schedules for both cards and ACH. Saved payment methods are tokenized at PayTrace, never stored by Clarity, never stored on your servers. Retry logic for declined cards and expired-account handling is built in. Payment Hub exposes the recurring controls to both your AR team and, optionally, to customers who want to manage their own auto-pay from the portal.

Security, PCI scope, and enterprise compliance

PayTrace is a PCI DSS compliant gateway. Clarity Payment Hub is built to push your deployment to the lightest possible compliance scope.

• Tokenization at PayTrace. Every card and ACH account is tokenized directly in PayTrace's PCI-certified vault. Raw credentials never touch Payment Hub's infrastructure and never touch your servers.
• SAQ A scope for most merchants. Because cardholder data is captured and stored entirely inside PayTrace's environment, your PCI self-assessment drops to SAQ A, the lightest tier, with no cardholder-data environment to audit.
• SOC 2 Type II. Clarity Ventures operates to SOC 2 Type II standards. Security, availability, confidentiality, and data-handling controls are independently audited on an ongoing basis.
• Fraud controls. PayTrace-level AVS, CVV, and velocity checks combine with portal-level controls: invoice-bound authentication, customer-matched billing addresses, single-use signed Quick Pay links. Defense profile tuned to B2B invoice fraud rather than consumer card fraud.
• Outbound-only agent for on-premise ERPs. No inbound firewall ports. No VPN tunnel. No public ERP exposure.
• North's backing. PayTrace's 2022 acquisition by North American Bancard brought enterprise security, compliance, and operational resilience to the platform, including the same rigor applied to North's broader processing footprint.

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