The AIME Blog
Vendor fees, audited in the open.
Practical, number-first guides to what your vendors actually charge: how to read the statements, benchmark every line, and recover the margin that drifted away. Written by the team behind AIME.
How to Audit Your Merchant Services Statement, Line by Line
A practical, line-by-line guide to auditing your merchant services statement: effective rate, interchange, markup, and the junk fees to challenge.
Card processingThe Junk Fees Hiding on Your Processing Statement
PCI non-compliance, batch fees, statement fees, regulatory surcharges: the complete field guide to processing junk fees, what they should cost, and how to remove them.
BenchmarksWhat Is a Good Effective Rate for Card Processing?
Effective rate benchmarks by business type: what card processing should cost in-store, online and B2B, how to calculate yours, and when the number means you are overpaying.
BankingThe Bank Fee Audit: What Your Treasury Statement Isn't Telling You
How to audit bank depository and treasury fees: reading the account analysis statement, earnings credit rates, per-item charges, and the fees banks waive when asked.
Vendor managementVendor Fee Creep: Why Your Contracted Rates Quietly Rise Every Year
Fee creep is the slow drift between the price you negotiated and the price you pay. How it works across processing, banking, freight and software, and how to stop it.
FreightFreight and Parcel Invoice Audits: Where the Refunds Hide
Late deliveries, wrong accessorials, dimensional-weight errors and lapsed discounts: where the money hides on carrier invoices, and how a parcel audit recovers it.