Payment

Subscriber payments are often entered in batches, in Accounting | Subscriber Payments | Batch Payments. You may, however, enter an individual payment using this option. See Batch Payments for more information about payments in general.

Payments entered here will be added to a suspended payment batch. The batch will be named “CSYYMMDDxx”, where “YYMMDD” are the year, month and day respectively, and “xx” is a sequence containing numbers and/or letters. For example, the sequence number for the first batch on a given date will be 01, followed by 02, 03 etc. up through 99, then A0, A1, etc. through ZZ.

If there is already a suspended batch for this date and bank, the payment will be appended to it; if not, a new suspended batch will be created. In order to process the batch, you can go to Batch Payments, enter the batch name, and accept the batch. You can also have Customer Service payment batches automatically accepted by running the Auto Accept Batches utility.

Circulation matches the payment amount entered to the longest subscription term and length that the payment can buy with the subscriber’s rate. Any leftover money is used to purchase the longest term it can buy, and so on, until the entire payment has been spent (this is known as “best buy” rating). The summarized term and length are displayed in the Payment Term and Payment Length fields. These values may be overridden, but the fields may not be blank. If a subscription term contains bonus days with premiums (see Paying for Premium Days), the total premium amount is included in the term cost and will be placed in the subscriber’s premium day wallet.

Business Rules determine whether a check number, source code, and reason code are required for subscriber payments. Business Rules also determine the default source and reason codes, the number of days a payment can be backdated, the default bank for a payment, and whether payments auto-start former subscribers.

Credit card payments can be authorized in “real-time” (see Circulation FAQ #75) or using the Hosted Order Page (see Tech FAQ #16). Again. Business Rules determine the authorization vendor used, and many other settings for credit card payment authorization.

Payments can also generate rewards (see Rewards).

To enter an individual payment:

1. Find the subscriber for whom you are entering the payment.

2. Click the Payment button ().

   
3. Enter information in the fields described in below and click OK.

   Field	Type	What to enter
   Payment Information
   PAYMENT TYPE	predefined	Indicate whether the payment is a check, cash, credit card or bank draft payment. If you enter “credit card”, the Credit Card window will open for entry of the credit card number, CVV2 value, expiration date, authorization number (optional), account holder’s name, and the transaction number of the payment in the authorization system, if applicable. If you use a Hosted Payment Page solution, the window will be called from the credit card authorization provider’s system, so that no credit card information is stored in Circulation. The Hosted Payment Page also contains name and address information to be used for credit card authorization. The subscriber’s occupant and address information default in these fields, but can be changed if needed for authorization purposes. See About Payment Authorization for more information. If you enter “bank draft”, the Bank Draft window will appear. Enter the client type (business or personal), the account type (checking or savings), bank number, subscriber’s bank account number, authorization number (optional) and authorization transaction number, if applicable. Business Rules determine whether Client Type is active, and the valid account types. If you enter “check”, you can click the Pay Type Info button and enter the account holder’s name.
   CHECK NUMBER	open (8)	Enter the check number for the payment, if the payment is by check.
   PAYMENT AMOUNT	decimal (7)	Enter the payment amount. Circulation determines the rate for which this subscriber qualifies; this and the amount determine the length of the subscription. The expiration date of the subscription will be extended automatically during payment processing.
   COUPON AMOUNT	decimal (7)	Some newspapers issue coupons that can be sent in with payments. Enter the coupon amount, if applicable, for this payment.
   TIP AMOUNT	decimal (7)	Subscribers may declare a certain part of their payment as a tip. Enter the tip amount, if applicable, for this payment.
   ADJUSTMENT	yes/no	Part of the payment may be for a non-subscription item, and you would enter that amount in Adjustment rather than Payment Amount. For example, if a payment of 21.00 included 1.00 for a coffee mug, you would enter 20.00 in Payment Amount and 1.00 in Adjustment. Check this field to make a payment adjustment; the Adjustment window will open. Enter the adjustment code (such as “mug”) and the amount.
   PAYMENT DATE	date	Enter the transaction date for this payment.
   EFFECTIVE	date	The effective date for the payment is displayed. The effective date is the date office pay status goes into effect for the customer, and for office pay subscribers it will be the subscriber’s expire date. The effective date may be overridden only on complimentary or carrier collect payments that automatically convert the subscription to office pay. If the effective date is prior to the last publishing date for a carrier collect subscriber, back credit will be issued to the appropriate carrier.
   More Information
   TERM	predefined	Circulation displays the period type (day, month, etc.) after matching the payment amount with the subscription rates currently in effect. This can be overridden.
   LENGTH	open (4)	Circulation displays the number of subscription terms purchased with this payment. This can be overridden. If the subscription term or length are changed by the operator, a message is printed on the Subscriber Payment Journal indicating that the subscription term was overridden.
   SOURCE	setup	Enter the source code for this transaction.
   REASON	setup	Enter the reason code for this transaction.
   BANK	setup	Enter the Bank ID for this payment, if any. This determines the Cash in Bank GL account to which the payment will be applied. This field is required for check, cash, and bank draft payments.
   BATCH	display	The batch in which this payment is included will be displayed in this field once the payment is accepted.
   RATE,
   DISCOUNT	display	The new rate and discount amount are displayed.
   PAID TO	display	The date the subscription is paid up to displays here.
   SEND EMAIL CONFIRMATION	yes/no	An e-mail confirmation message for the payment can be sent to the subscriber, if you have e-mail confirmations implemented for payments and the subscriber qualifies (see About E-mail Confirmations). If there is an amount in the Payment Amount field, the standard Payment confirmation is sent. If Payment Amount is zero and only a tip or donation are specified, the Tip or Donation template will be used instead.
   Remarks
   REMARKS	unlimited	Enter any remarks for this transaction. The remarks will appear on the Payment Journal and will remain with the payment transaction for future reference.
   TOTAL CHARGE	display	The total charge for this payment is displayed.

4. By selecting the "Payment Type" as "Bank Draft" or "Credit Card," an iframe titled "Hosted Order Page" will be opened to fill out the payment information.

   

   • Enter the Account Number and Routing Number and select the Account Type. The remaining fields, including First Name, Last Name, Email, Address, Address 2, City, State, and Zip Code, will be auto-filled.

     

     • Click ‘Save Payment Info’.

5. To view the Payment Information, click the Pay Type Info button next to the Payment Type field.

   

   

6. To view the Payment Amount Details, click the Details button next to the Payment Amount field. This will provide a breakdown of the payment made, including the Premium, Tax, Activation, and Printed Bill Fees, as well as the total amount paid.

   

   

7. Check the "Adjustment?" field to make a payment adjustment; the Subscription Payment Adjustment window will open.

   

   • Click on Add.

     
   • Enter the adjustment code (such as “Taxable”) and the amount and click OK.

     
8. If the payment is a credit card payment and a surcharge will be applied, a warning message displays when accepting the payment, listing the surcharge amount. Click Yes to continue, or No to cancel the payment. If you accept the surcharge, the surcharge amount will be added to the total payment amount. See About Credit Card Surcharges for more information.

   

   Note: If the user has credit card override permissions in Transaction Security, the message will be similar but say “Press Yes to continue or No to remove the surcharge.” If the user presses No, the payment will still be entered, but without the surcharge.

9. To process the payment, see Batch Payments and Payment processing.

10. For Bank Draft payments, following the payment processing, the payment status (Authorization field) in the Payment information window will be displayed as ‘Settlement Pending’.

    
11. To update the status, run the ACH Payment Status Update.