FTD and Teleflora Orders: How Florists Actually Get Paid, What the Fees Cost, and How to Reconcile the Statement

For a flower shop that regularly fills wire orders, FTD Teleflora florist fees cannot be understood by looking at the customer-facing price of the bouquet or at the amount that eventually reaches the bank. 

A wire-service transaction passes through several economic layers: the customer order originates on the sending side, another florist may perform the fulfillment, the network clears credits and debits between participants, membership or order-related charges may be applied, adjustments can be posted, and only then does the shop arrive at its net clearing position.

That distinction matters because a $100 customer order is not necessarily $100 of revenue available to the florist that physically designs and delivers the arrangement. Nor does a $6,000 monthly wire settlement necessarily mean the shop earned $6,000 from the orders behind it.

The right approach is to reconcile each order to the wire service clearing statement, separate sending activity from filling activity, identify every fee and credit, tie the net settlement to the bank, and then calculate contribution margin after flowers, labor, delivery, and attributable network costs.

FTD and Teleflora should also be treated separately. Their current public materials confirm florist networks, fulfillment infrastructure, statements, and clearing functions, but the companies do not publicly publish every current member-plan charge, rebate, allocation, or contractual rule. 

Teleflora, for example, directs florist members with monthly-statement and wire-order questions to its member support operation and maintains a specific clearinghouse-payment channel.

That means the definitive source for a particular shop is its current member agreement, plan documentation, order-detail reports, and actual statement—not a historical percentage found in an old industry document.

FTD Teleflora Florist Fees: How Wire-Service Payments Flow

The central accounting concept behind FTD Teleflora florist fees is clearing.

A florist may simultaneously send orders to other shops, fill orders sent by other shops or generated through a network channel, incur membership or service charges, receive credits, and have corrections applied. 

Rather than treating every one of those transactions as an independent bank payment, the network can aggregate positions through the florist’s account and ultimately produce a net amount.

At a high level, the workflow looks like this:

Customer places order → sending side originates order → network routes order → filling florist accepts and fulfills it → order creates clearing activity → fees, credits, rebates, or adjustments are applied → monthly statement summarizes the account → net settlement is paid or collected.

FTD’s currently accessible member-services information explicitly describes an FTD Clearinghouse Statement and explains that a member can end a month either owing FTD or being owed money. Its public FAQ also describes statement availability shortly after the beginning of the month and settlement/payment options for debit and credit balances.

Teleflora’s public florist-member support information similarly refers to the member’s monthly statement, wire-order information, credit matters, and clearinghouse payments, although its public-facing pages do not disclose all of the economic formulas necessary to calculate an individual member’s current order split.

That distinction is important. A shop should not apply an old FTD percentage to a current Teleflora order, apply one membership package’s charges to another shop, or assume that every line on either network’s statement represents an order fee.

The accounting flow is not the same as the fulfillment flow

Physically, the process can be easy to understand: an order arrives, the designer creates it, and a driver delivers it.

Financially, however, that order may be only one component of the florist’s clearing account.

The month’s settlement could also contain outgoing-order activity, subscription or membership charges, technology charges, order-related adjustments, quality-related debits, refunds, incentives, purchases billed through the account, or other contractually authorized entries.

That is why the bank deposit is the end of the reconciliation—not the starting definition of sales.

Sending Florist vs Filling Florist Economics

The traditional wire-service model exists because the customer and recipient are often in different markets.

A shop associated with the customer can originate the order, while a florist near the recipient performs the physical work. Modern networks can also originate consumer orders through their own online channels, so the precise source of an order should be identified from the transaction record rather than assumed.

Sending florist

The sending florist or sending side originates the order.

Depending on the order channel and current contractual structure, its economics can include customer receipts and whatever sending-side credit, compensation, rebate, or network charge is provided under the applicable terms.

The sending florist generally does not incur the filling florist’s local flower, design-labor, and last-mile delivery cost for that particular delivery, although it may incur its own selling, customer-service, payment, and network costs.

Filling florist

The filling florist actually fulfills the transmitted order.

It obtains the flowers and supplies, designs the arrangement, handles substitution issues, communicates as required, and delivers the order. Its relevant economic starting point therefore is not necessarily what the original customer paid. It is the value credited or otherwise assigned to the filling shop under the particular order and current member terms.

That amount then has to cover real local fulfillment costs.

Florist wire order commission split

The phrase florist wire order commission split is widely used when florists discuss wire economics, but it can be imprecise.

A network’s contract may describe the components as credits, rebates, service charges, clearing charges, transmission charges, fulfillment value, or other terms. Use the terminology appearing in the current agreement and statement rather than relabeling every economic component a “commission.”

Historically published documents may show particular allocation percentages, but those old figures should not automatically be presented as today’s economics. Current plan terms, ecommerce-originated orders, promotions, international orders, or other programs may differ.

For accounting purposes, ask four questions for each order:

1. What amount did the customer actually pay?
2. What amount was transmitted or credited for fulfillment?
3. What sending-side or network economics applied?
4. What additional credits or debits reached the clearing account?

That produces a much more useful view of the florist wire order commission split than applying a generic percentage to every transaction.

Sending vs filling florist fees

The practical difference in sending vs filling florist fees is that the two roles have different revenue opportunities and different cost burdens.

Role	Revenue/Credit	Common Fee Categories	Main Margin Risk
Sending side	Customer receipt and/or sending-side credit according to current terms	Network, transmission, service, payment, or program charges where applicable	Assuming customer price equals retained revenue
Filling florist	Fulfillment credit/value recorded through clearing	Order-related charges or adjustments applicable to that transaction/program	Fulfillment value fails to cover product, labor, and delivery
Network/member account	Rebates, incentives, corrections, or other credits where earned	Membership, technology, transaction, quality, or other contracted charges	Mixing fixed account costs with individual-order economics
Direct shop order	Full customer sale recorded by the shop	Card processing, gateway, fraud, ecommerce, marketing costs	Underestimating customer-acquisition and CNP risk

The categories are intentionally generic because the current sending vs filling florist fees for one member plan should not be represented as universal for another.

Membership Dues, Per-Order Fees, Rebates, and Adjustments

A useful review of FTD Teleflora florist fees separates charges into economic buckets before allocating anything to an individual order.

The first bucket is fixed or periodic account cost. The second is transactional cost. The third is credits or incentives. The fourth is adjustments.

Membership dues belong outside the initial order-margin calculation

A membership or periodic service charge may apply under the florist’s specific plan.

Accounting teams should initially record these expenses distinctly from per-order charges. Otherwise, an individual order may appear more or less profitable simply because all of the month’s fixed cost happened to be allocated to one day’s sales.

For management reporting, fixed membership cost can later be allocated across wire volume using a consistent method—for example, per filled order or by fulfillment dollars—if that helps the shop evaluate network-wide profitability.

The allocation should be labeled as an internal management assumption rather than a charge actually assessed to that specific order.

Per-order fees require order-level mapping

When a statement contains transaction-dependent charges, capture the order ID or other transaction reference whenever possible.

Do not create a generic “wire fee” expense and dump everything into it.

A fee generated by transmission activity is economically different from a quality-policy adjustment, software subscription, expedited account service, product purchase, or unrelated member service—even when all of them appear on the same clearing statement.

FTD’s public materials illustrate this point particularly well: some member products and operational-program charges can be billed directly to the Clearinghouse Statement, demonstrating that the statement can contain much more than the basic sending/filling economics of flower orders.

Rebates and credits should be recognized according to what was actually earned

A florist rebate or other incentive can improve net wire economics.

But a projected rebate is not the same as a posted credit.

The bookkeeper should identify:

• the program generating the credit;
• the period to which it relates;
• whether eligibility conditions were met;
• whether it applies to sending activity, other purchases, or a broader member program;
• and when it actually appeared in the account.

Do not automatically reduce every order’s fee by an assumed rebate.

Adjustments deserve their own account

A wire order adjustment can arise from cancellations, order corrections, service issues, disputes, refunds, pricing corrections, or other circumstances permitted by the network.

If the accounting system nets all adjustments into “wire revenue,” management loses the ability to identify recurring operational problems.

A separate adjustment account makes trend analysis much easier.

Fee/Credit Type	Typical Trigger	Margin Impact	What to Verify
Membership/periodic charge	Participation or service plan	Negative fixed cost	Current plan and billing period
Per-order/network charge	Qualifying order activity	Negative variable cost	Order ID and contractual description
Technology/service charge	Optional or required member service	Usually negative	Whether order-related or overhead
Rebate/incentive	Program qualification	Positive when earned	Eligibility and posted amount
Adjustment	Correction, dispute, cancellation, service issue	Positive or negative	Original transaction and reason
Fulfillment credit	Filling eligible order	Positive	Order ID, fulfillment value, delivery completion
Sending-side credit	Sending activity when applicable	Positive	Order ID and current terms

When auditing FTD Teleflora florist fees, this categorization is far more useful than asking only, “What percentage does the network take?”

How to Read a Wire Service Clearing Statement

The wire service clearing statement is the financial bridge between operational order activity and cash settlement.

It should answer a basic equation:

What did the network credit to the shop, what did it debit, and how did those transactions produce the balance that was eventually paid or collected?

A robust statement review should identify at least:

• beginning balance;
• filled-order credits;
• sending-order activity;
• periodic membership or service charges;
• transaction-related charges;
• rebates or other credits;
• adjustments;
• payments or settlements;
• and ending balance.

FTD provides members with an online FTD Clearinghouse Statement showing detailed monthly clearing activity, which makes the statement itself the appropriate starting point for tracing order credits, charges, and account adjustments.

Individual network labels can differ, which is why a shop using both FTD and Teleflora should not force both statements into one literal line-description template.

Read the clearing statement line by line

Statement Item	What It Usually Represents	Suggested GL Treatment	What to Verify
Filled order	Credit/value for an order fulfilled locally	Wire fulfillment revenue or clearing credit	Order ID, date, amount, status
Sent order	Economics of an outgoing order	Sending-order account/clearing	Customer order and recipient florist transaction
Membership charge	Periodic network/member cost	Wire-service dues expense	Plan, period, duplicate billing
Transaction fee	Activity-dependent network charge	Wire transaction expense	Trigger and related order
Credit/rebate	Earned credit or correction	Rebate/contra-expense or appropriate account	Program and qualification
Adjustment	Correction, cancellation, refund, dispute, or service item	Adjustment account	Original transaction and documentation
Settlement/payment	Cash movement between shop and network	Clear receivable/payable	Bank amount and date
Ending balance	Remaining account position	Clearing asset/liability	GL balance after all postings

This table is a framework, not a claim that FTD and Teleflora use identical labels.

Why the customer price is not the florist’s net revenue

Suppose a consumer sees an arrangement displayed at a particular retail value.

Several amounts may differ from that visible price:

• the amount paid by the consumer;
• delivery or service-related charges;
• the value transmitted for floral fulfillment;
• network-level allocations;
• applicable sales taxes;
• credits to sending or filling participants;
• account-level charges;
• and later adjustments.

A florist therefore should not book the customer-facing price of an incoming wire order as though it had charged that amount directly to its own customer unless the accounting facts actually support that treatment.

Likewise, the filling florist should not calculate gross margin as:

customer-facing price − flower cost.

The correct operating question is closer to:

fulfillment economics attributable to the shop − variable fulfillment costs − attributable wire costs.

Use a dedicated clearing account

For larger-volume shops, create a separate wire-service clearing account.

A practical GL structure might include:

Revenue / credits

• Wire-service fulfillment revenue
• Sending-order credit or revenue, where applicable
• Earned wire rebates or incentives

Expenses

• Wire-service membership dues
• Per-order wire fees
• Network/service expenses
• Technology charges where separately identifiable

Assets / liabilities

• FTD clearing receivable/payable
• Teleflora clearing receivable/payable

Adjustments

• Wire-order adjustments
• Refunds and credits
• Dispute/cancellation adjustments

This is management-accounting structure, not tax-classification advice. Your accountant should determine the appropriate financial-statement and tax treatment for your entity.

Monthly reconciliation formula

A simplified clearing roll-forward can be expressed as:

Beginning clearing balance

+ filled-order credits
+ sending-order credits or verified rebates
− membership dues
− per-order/network charges
± adjustments
− cash received from the network / + cash paid to the network
= ending clearing balance

The exact signs reverse if your accounting system defines the clearing account from the opposite perspective.

What matters is consistency.

How to reconcile a Teleflora statement

To reconcile Teleflora statement activity efficiently, start from the detail rather than the final settlement.

1. Export the month’s order-level Teleflora activity.
2. Obtain the corresponding monthly statement.
3. Separate orders your shop filled from orders your shop sent.
4. Match filling activity by order ID and amount.
5. Match sending activity separately.
6. Identify membership and service charges.
7. Identify transaction-dependent fees.
8. Match posted credits and rebates.
9. Trace every adjustment to an order or support document.
10. Post the activity to the Teleflora clearing account.
11. Tie the resulting settlement to the bank.
12. Investigate differences rather than forcing the clearing account to zero.

Teleflora’s current public florist-support page specifically identifies monthly-statement questions, wire-order information, credit support, and clearinghouse payments as member-support functions. That reinforces why the member statement—not a generic internet fee chart—should drive the reconciliation.

If you regularly reconcile Teleflora statement activity, build a recurring template with stable GL mappings but leave the statement-description field visible. That makes new or unusual charge types easier to notice.

Reconcile FTD separately

FTD currently states that its Clearinghouse Statement is available online shortly after the start of each month, with different payment or deposit procedures depending on whether the member has a debit or credit balance.

The same core method works for an FTD florist statement, but the labels and program details should be mapped independently.

FTD’s public member documentation confirms that the clearinghouse can contain a debit balance payable by the florist or a credit balance payable to the florist. It also publishes procedures for correcting clearinghouse statement errors, which is another reason to review statement differences promptly rather than carrying them indefinitely.

A shop analyzing FTD Teleflora florist fees should therefore maintain two mapping tabs if it belongs to both networks:

• FTD statement label → FTD GL treatment;
• Teleflora statement label → Teleflora GL treatment.

Do not assume identical wording means identical contractual economics.

Wire Service vs Direct Orders: Which Is More Profitable?

The wire service vs direct orders profit question cannot be answered from gross sales alone.

A direct order lets the florist collect from the customer itself, but the shop also assumes costs and risks that may have been handled elsewhere in the wire transaction: customer acquisition, website operation, payment processing, fraud management, customer service, and dispute exposure.

A wire order may give the florist incremental local demand without having acquired the originating customer itself. But its usable fulfillment economics can be lower than the retail amount the customer sees.

That is why the comparison should focus on contribution margin.

Contribution margin, not gross sales

For an individual floral order:

Contribution margin = order-specific revenue or fulfillment credit − order-specific variable costs.

Useful variable costs include:

• flowers and greens;
• vase/container;
• ribbon, foam, cards, and supplies;
• direct design labor;
• driver labor or delivery vendor cost;
• vehicle mileage or other attributable delivery expense;
• order-related wire charges;
• direct card-processing cost on a direct order;
• and other costs that change because that order exists.

Fixed rent and salaried management may matter to overall profitability, but they normally do not determine whether one incremental order produces positive contribution.

Worked margin example

The following numbers are entirely hypothetical. They are designed to demonstrate the method and are not current FTD or Teleflora pricing.

Assume a customer-facing floral order value of $120.

For the wire example, assume the filling shop’s order-level clearing economics provide it with $86 before local fulfillment costs, after the hypothetical network allocation applied to this example.

For the direct order, assume the shop collects the full $120, but incurs $4 of hypothetical card/gateway expense and $10 of order-specific digital advertising/customer-acquisition cost.

Assume identical product and labor costs, but the wire delivery is farther away.

Cost/Revenue Item	Wire Order	Direct Order
Customer/order value	$120	$120
Amount retained/credited before local costs	$86	$120
Network or payment cost already/then deducted	Included in hypothetical $86	$4
Order-specific marketing cost	$0	$10
Product and supplies	$37	$37
Direct design labor	$16	$16
Delivery cost	$15	$10
Contribution margin	$18	$43

In this example, the direct transaction has the higher contribution margin: $43 versus $18.

But change the assumptions and the answer changes.

Suppose acquiring that direct customer costs $30 instead of $10, or the florist must offer discounted delivery to generate the direct order. The gap narrows quickly.

Conversely, if a wire fulfillment requires a 25-mile round trip during a peak flower-cost period, its contribution could fall substantially.

This is the right way to analyze wire service vs direct orders profit: compare the economics attributable to each order, not the headline selling price.

Allocating membership cost

The worked example deliberately excludes monthly membership dues from the single-order math.

For a second-layer profitability analysis, management can allocate those fixed costs across monthly volume.

For example:

monthly network membership/service expense ÷ qualifying monthly orders = internal allocated cost per order.

That figure is useful for management decisions, but it should not be confused with an actual per-order wire fee unless the network itself charges it per transaction.

Why direct orders are not automatically better

Direct floral orders often retain more gross customer revenue.

They may also require the florist to fund:

• website hosting;
• shopping-cart software;
• paid search;
• local SEO;
• email marketing;
• fraud tools;
• payment gateway services;
• chargeback administration;
• customer-service labor;
• and direct refund risk.

As more sales move outside the wire-service channel, online and in-store payment workflows should be included in the direct-order margin model because checkout technology, payment acceptance, refunds, and transaction reporting create costs that do not appear in wire-service clearing.

Direct and wire channels solve different commercial problems. The goal is not to declare one inherently superior. It is to know what each order actually contributes.

When a Wire Order Is Not Worth Filling

A wire order becomes commercially unattractive when its expected fulfillment economics cannot adequately cover the incremental resources required to perform it.

The most useful decision is therefore made before production begins whenever network rules and order timing permit.

A florist reviewing FTD Teleflora florist fees should evaluate the entire order—not just whether enough flowers appear to be available in the cooler.

Warning sign 1: the recipe is expensive relative to the fulfillment value

Premium roses, orchids, unusual tropical stems, branded containers, or seasonal specialty products can consume an unusually large portion of the available fulfillment economics.

A designer might technically be able to build the order while the finance result remains poor.

Track actual recipe cost rather than relying indefinitely on a standard cost established months earlier.

Warning sign 2: delivery absorbs the margin

A delivery seven minutes from the shop is economically different from one 35 minutes away.

Include:

• driver time;
• mileage;
• parking or tolls where applicable;
• routing inefficiency;
• redelivery probability;
• and the opportunity cost of tying up the vehicle during peak periods.

A seemingly reasonable floral margin can disappear in the last mile.

Warning sign 3: holiday flower costs changed

Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, funeral peaks, weather disruptions, and supplier shortages can materially change wholesale flower costs.

A margin model based on last month’s rose or carnation cost may be meaningless during a high-demand week.

During Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and other peak periods, floral payment operations during busy holidays and events require additional planning because order volume, payment activity, fulfillment pressure, and delivery workloads can all increase at once.

Warning sign 4: the design is labor intensive

Product cost is only part of fulfillment.

A highly customized sympathy piece, intricate premium arrangement, multiple-item delivery, or difficult substitution may require considerably more designer time than a standard recipe.

Record labor estimates consistently enough that managers can compare orders.

Warning sign 5: same-day urgency creates extra cost

Rush orders may require:

• route disruption;
• overtime;
• special product purchasing;
• dedicated delivery;
• or additional customer-service time.

Economics should reflect that reality.

Use a margin floor

Every florist should establish an internal contribution-margin rule appropriate to its own operation.

There is no universal percentage that makes sense for every store.

A useful formula is:

Expected fulfillment credit
− flowers and supplies
− direct labor
− delivery
− attributable network charges
+ only verified order-related credits
= expected contribution margin

Management can then compare that figure with its minimum acceptable economics.

Factor	Normal/Low Risk	Margin Warning	Practical Action
Product requirement	Stocked everyday recipe	Premium/short-supply stems	Reprice cost estimate; review approved substitution options
Delivery	Normal local route	Long or isolated destination	Estimate actual delivery cost
Labor	Standard design	Complex/custom production	Add realistic labor allocation
Timing	Normal lead time	Late same-day/rush	Account for route and overtime effects
Network cost	Known statement treatment	Unknown fee/adjustment	Verify terms before using assumed margin
Rebate	Posted/earned	Merely expected	Exclude until qualification is understood
Holiday cost	Current purchase cost	Old standard cost	Update recipe costing

Decline, downsize, or substitute only within approved rules

An unprofitable order does not give the filling florist permission to ignore member requirements.

Do not unilaterally reduce the value promised to the customer simply to repair margin.

When an order cannot be filled economically or as transmitted, use the network’s approved process for rejection, communication, substitution, price changes, or other resolution. Current rules and the specific order instructions control.

This is especially important because wire networks may impose service standards and adjustments around order handling.

The decision framework is:

1. Identify the fulfillment value.
2. Estimate current product cost.
3. Estimate labor.
4. Estimate delivery.
5. Allocate known transaction-specific network cost.
6. Include expected credits only when earned or reasonably verifiable.
7. Calculate contribution margin.
8. Check service obligations and available approved alternatives.
9. Accept, substitute, modify, or decline only through permitted procedures.

How to Build Direct Repeat Business Without Violating Wire-Service Rules

A florist can reasonably want more customers to return directly.

That does not mean customer data received through a wire network is automatically available for unrelated marketing.

Wire-service agreements may contain customer-relationship, data-use, confidentiality, branding, or solicitation restrictions. Privacy obligations may also apply independently.

A safe operational rule is:

Use customer information supplied for fulfillment only for permitted purposes unless the current agreement and applicable privacy requirements allow something more.

Do not scrape wire-order names, phone numbers, emails, or addresses into a shop marketing database simply because the information passed through the POS.

Build discoverability rather than appropriating data

There are legitimate ways to increase direct repeat business.

Where member rules permit, these can include:

• excellent fulfillment that makes the recipient remember the local shop;
• appropriate shop branding on packaging;
• accurate public business information;
• a well-developed local website;
• strong local search visibility;
• organic social presence;
• public loyalty programs;
• and marketing to customers who independently opt in or directly transact with the florist.

A recipient who later searches for the florist, visits its public website, and voluntarily joins a mailing list creates a very different customer relationship from a shop importing contact information supplied only to complete someone else’s wire order.

Recipient-initiated relationships are valuable

A beautifully executed delivery can lead a recipient to ask:

“Which local florist made this?”

That is brand discovery.

Where permitted, clear packaging and professional delivery can help the recipient identify the business without the shop misusing fulfillment data.

Once the person directly engages, normal consent, marketing, privacy, and payment rules govern that new relationship.

Use opt-in marketing

If a recipient or direct customer signs up voluntarily, store evidence of the opt-in and honor unsubscribe preferences.

Likewise, customers who call the shop directly after discovering it through search, a delivery, or a local referral can be treated according to the shop’s normal direct-customer policies.

The safest objective is not “convert the wire database.” It is:

deliver so well that people independently choose to become direct customers.

That strategy improves wire service vs direct orders profit over time without relying on questionable data use.

Why Direct Orders Need Strong Card-Not-Present Processing

Reducing dependence on wire volume shifts another responsibility to the florist: payment acceptance.

With a wire fulfillment, the filling florist is generally working within the network’s financial flow.

With a direct website or phone order, the florist itself faces the card-not-present transaction.

That changes the risk profile.

As direct phone and ecommerce volume grows, chargeback risk on phone and online floral orders becomes part of the channel economics because the florist is now responsible for payment verification, fulfillment evidence, refunds, and dispute documentation.

Florist card-not-present processing controls

Useful controls can include:

• a secure hosted or properly integrated ecommerce checkout;
• AVS where supported by the processor and card ecosystem;
• CVV/CVC/CID collection for an initial transaction where appropriate;
• risk scoring or fraud screening;
• velocity controls;
• recognizable billing descriptors;
• immediate customer confirmation;
• tokenization for appropriate stored-payment use cases;
• and documented refund and fulfillment workflows.

PCI SSC confirms that card-verification values are commonly requested in CNP transactions but are sensitive authentication data and must not be stored after authorization, even in encrypted form.

For stored credentials, tokenization can reduce the need for the florist’s systems to retain raw card data. The exact PCI responsibilities still depend on the payment architecture and service providers being used.

Floral ecommerce has distinctive fraud signals

Flowers combine several characteristics that can make remote orders challenging:

• buyer and recipient are intentionally different people;
• delivery addresses frequently differ from billing addresses;
• buyers may be located far from the recipient;
• same-day orders are normal;
• emotionally important occasions create urgency;
• and premium orders can have relatively high values.

None of those traits proves fraud.

Instead, the payment system should assess multiple signals together and route unusual cases for review without automatically treating legitimate gifting behavior as suspicious.

For urgent deliveries, fast and reliable payment handling for last-minute floral orders matters because speed at checkout should not come at the expense of payment verification, accurate order capture, or reliable transaction records.

Keep evidence for chargebacks

For direct orders, preserve useful transaction and fulfillment evidence such as:

• order confirmation;
• exact product description;
• substitution approval where relevant;
• delivery address;
• buyer communication;
• delivery timestamp;
• delivery photo or recipient confirmation where appropriate;
• refund records;
• and customer-service history.

A consistent chargeback documentation process for floral transactions should connect the payment record with the order confirmation, customer communications, substitution approvals, delivery evidence, and any refund activity.

Direct processing costs still belong in the margin model

Card-processing cost is not the only cost of a direct order, but it should not be ignored.

Include the actual processing expense applicable to the transaction along with:

• ecommerce fees;
• fraud tools;
• marketing cost;
• promotions;
• labor;
• product;
• and delivery.

Direct card-processing expense should be measured alongside ecommerce fees, fraud controls, marketing cost, refunds, labor, product cost, and delivery so the comparison with wire-order contribution margin uses equivalent assumptions.

Clearing Statement vs Merchant Processing Statement

This separation is fundamental.

Wire-service clearing statement

The wire service clearing statement answers:

• What wire orders were sent?
• What wire orders were filled?
• What did the network credit?
• What did it charge?
• What adjustments were made?
• What was the resulting settlement position?

Merchant processing statement

A merchant statement for direct cards answers different questions:

• How much direct card volume was processed?
• What interchange/network/acquirer or processor charges applied?
• What refunds occurred?
• What chargebacks or other payment adjustments occurred?
• What card settlements reached the bank?

Do not post both statements into one “processing fees” account without detail.

Otherwise, management loses the ability to determine whether an unfavorable month resulted from florist wire service fees, direct credit-card expenses, chargebacks, delivery problems, or product-cost inflation.

Common Wire-Service Accounting and Margin Mistakes

The most damaging accounting error is recording a net wire settlement as sales.

Suppose a florist receives a $7,000 settlement.

That cash transfer could represent $9,500 of credits less $2,500 of dues, outgoing-order positions, fees, adjustments, purchases, or other debits.

Recording only:

Dr. Cash $7,000
Cr. Sales $7,000

destroys the underlying economics.

Instead, the shop should post the gross statement activity through the clearing account and then clear the settlement against it.

Other common errors

Mistake	Financial Distortion	Better Approach
Booking net settlement as sales	Hides gross activity and expenses	Post statement lines through clearing
Comparing retail face value to bank deposit	Overstates unexplained “loss”	Start with transmitted/credited economics
Combining sent and filled orders	Obscures role profitability	Track sending and filling separately
Ignoring membership dues	Overstates network contribution	Record periodic costs distinctly
Treating all statement debits as order fees	Distorts order margin	Classify by actual statement description
Assuming every rebate	Inflates expected margin	Count verified earned credits
Ignoring labor	Makes complex designs appear profitable	Use realistic direct labor estimates
Ignoring delivery	Hides last-mile losses	Allocate route/driver cost
Using old flower cost	Overstates holiday margin	Update recipe costing
Mixing wire and card fees	Prevents channel comparison	Separate wire clearing from merchant processing
Leaving unexplained balances	Hides missing credits/debits	Reconcile every month
Ignoring order IDs	Makes disputes difficult	Preserve order-level audit trail

Statement audit red flags

Investigate rather than immediately assuming the network made an error.

Useful red flags include:

• duplicate-looking charges;
• unmatched order IDs;
• unexpected debits;
• an apparently missing filling credit;
• stale balances;
• a rebate different from the expected program result;
• unexplained reversals;
• or a bank settlement that does not match the cleared statement balance.

The correct question is:

“What transaction created this difference?”

not:

“How do I journal-entry the difference away?”

Ask the wire service in writing

When FTD Teleflora florist fees are unclear, request plan-specific answers and retain them with the reconciliation file.

Ask:

1. What recurring member dues or service charges apply to this plan?
2. Which transaction-dependent fees apply?
3. How are sending-side and filling-side credits calculated for each relevant order type?
4. What rebates or other credits can appear?
5. When is the monthly statement finalized?
6. How are corrections and adjustments disputed?
7. How is the net debit or credit balance settled?
8. Which statement description corresponds to each major fee?
9. How long are statements and order-detail records available?
10. What current rules govern use of sender or recipient information for marketing?

That information is much more reliable than an old online discussion describing another florist’s account.

Florist Wire-Service Reconciliation Checklist

A disciplined month-end process makes FTD Teleflora florist fees auditable instead of mysterious.

Use the following workflow each month:

1. Export all FTD order activity.
2. Export all Teleflora order activity.
3. Download each network’s clearing statement.
4. Separate sending activity from filling activity.
5. Match every available order ID.
6. Verify each filling-order credit.
7. Verify sending-order credits where applicable.
8. Match membership or periodic dues.
9. Match transaction-dependent fees.
10. Verify earned rebates and other credits.
11. Trace adjustments to orders or supporting correspondence.
12. Post FTD activity through the FTD clearing GL.
13. Post Teleflora activity through the Teleflora clearing GL.
14. Match each net settlement or payment to the bank.
15. Investigate unmatched debits and credits.
16. Reconcile each ending clearing balance.
17. Save statements, exports, correspondence, and reconciliation workpapers.
18. Calculate contribution margin on representative wire orders.
19. Review delivery costs by distance or route.
20. Refresh flower/product costs for seasonal periods.
21. Keep direct card-processing costs outside wire-service expense accounts.
22. Compare wire and direct contribution margins using equivalent cost assumptions.

A practical monthly reconciliation table

Step	Source	GL Impact	Evidence to Save
Import filling orders	Network order export	Revenue/clearing	Order IDs
Import sent orders	Network order export	Sending activity/clearing	Outgoing order detail
Post dues	Clearing statement	Expense/clearing	Statement line
Post transaction charges	Statement/order detail	Expense/clearing	Fee description
Post rebates/credits	Clearing statement	Credit/clearing	Program reference
Post adjustments	Statement/support case	Adjustment/clearing	Case/order documentation
Record settlement	Bank + statement	Cash/clearing	Bank deposit/payment
Reconcile ending balance	GL + statement	No plug entry	Reconciliation workpaper
Review margin	POS/costing/delivery data	Management reporting	Order profitability report

Order-level profitability fields worth tracking

A useful reporting file can contain:

• network;
• order ID;
• delivery date;
• sending/filling role;
• fulfillment value or attributable order credit;
• actual flower and container cost;
• direct labor estimate;
• delivery mileage or cost;
• transaction-specific network charges;
• verified credits;
• adjustment amount;
• contribution margin;
• and reason code for exceptionally low-margin orders.

Over several months, the data can reveal whether profitability problems come from FTD Teleflora florist fees, flower recipes, driver routes, holiday purchasing, particular ZIP codes, or internal labor assumptions.

That is far more actionable than concluding that “wire orders don’t make money.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

A florist cannot determine wire-order profitability from the arrangement’s advertised price or from the amount of the monthly bank deposit. Sending and filling are different economic roles, and the account can contain order credits, membership or service charges, transaction fees, rebates, corrections, and other adjustments before the final settlement is produced.

The discipline is therefore straightforward: reconcile the order detail to the clearing statement, post the gross components into appropriately separated GL accounts, tie the resulting clearing balance to cash, and calculate contribution margin using actual flowers, labor, delivery, and attributable network costs.

A wire order with a positive contribution can be valuable business. A similar-looking order may become unattractive when holiday flower costs, a long delivery route, unusual labor, or other order-specific expenses rise.

Direct orders may retain more customer revenue, but they introduce customer-acquisition costs, ecommerce expenses, card-not-present fraud exposure, processing expenses, and chargeback administration. They are not automatically more profitable.

The strongest florist finance operation measures both channels consistently, keeps clearing economics separate from merchant-processing economics, and respects current network rules governing fulfillment, customer information, and solicitation while building a direct brand that customers voluntarily choose to return to.