Payment Processing

This option takes all subscriber payments that have been entered into the system (on or before the specified date) and applies them to subscriber accounts. This usually results in an extended expiration date for the subscriber. Payments in suspended batches are not processed. Payment processing should be run daily, before transaction processing is run.

Note:

You must update Unearned Revenue at the end of each fiscal period, before processing subscription payments belonging in the next fiscal period. See Unearned Revenue for more information. Also note that fiscal periods should be defined before payments are be processed—we recommend defining fiscal periods for at least one year in the future.

To process subscriber payments:

1. Select Payment Processing from the Subscriber Payments menu to display the Subscriber Payment Processing window.

   
2. Click Add.

3. Enter the product and date for processing the payments.

   Field	Type	What to enter
   PRODUCT	setup	Enter the product for which to process payments.
   SELECTION DATE	date	Enter the selection date for which to process payments. All unsuspended payments entered on or before this date will be processed (including lockbox and auto renew payments). When subscriber payments are processed, they are posted to general ledger accounts. Make sure that all payments entered for a month are processed with a process date within the same month so the GL Interface Journal matches the Payment Journal.

4. Click OK and then Continue to begin payment processing. All unsuspended payments and/or canceled payments entered on or before the transaction date are processed, and the new expiration date is assigned to the subscription. If a subscriber is changing from carrier collect to office pay, a billing change transaction is created. The new expiration date is created and, if applicable, appropriate back credits are given to the carrier/dealer when the billing change transaction is processed.

   • During Payment Processing, Circulation attempts to process payments for the date entered, along with any payments from earlier dates. Therefore, Circulation tries to process any problem payments every time Payment Processing is selected, until the payment processes successfully or is deleted.

5. After the processing is completed, a report is displayed listing general information about the processing and any errors that occurred. Any payments with errors should be corrected, and then this option should be run again to process them.