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Business Rules determine whether a check number, source code, and reason code are required for a subscriber payment. Business Rules also determine the default source code, reason code, and bank, the number of days a payment can be backdated, whether a payment should auto-start a former subscriber, the draw adjust code to be used when a payment converts a subscriber from carrier collect to office pay, and (when this takes place) the number of days after expiration that the expire date should default as the effective date. Finally, Business Rules determine the processing vendor for credit card payments.
Circulation calculates the subscription term based on the rate code and payment amount. Suppose the following rate table was set up for a specific subscriber rate code:
1 Year
120.00
9 months
100.00
6 months
70.00
3 months
45.00
1 month
15.00
1 day
1.00
Based on a subscriber’s payment amount and the rate code, Circulation calculates the subscription term and length. For example, suppose two subscribers with this rate code make payments of 45.00 and 116.00:
Subscriber #1 pays 45.00. Circulation displays the length and term as 3 months.
Subscriber #2 pays 116.00, Circulation figures the number of days based on 9 months (100.00) + 1 month (15.00) + 1 day (1.00). Whenever a rate term is not matched exactly, Circulation displays the term as “days”.
If the subscriber has a pending grace owed transaction, a message displays that grace is being paid off. This creates an odd amount payment, and the term’s length will be returned as days.
If a payment (or payment adjustment) is made for a subscriber on a promotional rate, the subscription will “step up” to the rate defined as the next rate after the promotional. This will happen regardless of the payment amount. This means that subscribers who make larger payments will stay on promotional rates longer.
If the discounted rate should be offered for a set time period (such as one year), marketing terms should be used. With a marketing term, the subscriber remains on the rate until the full term has completed. Small payments will not “step up” the rate until the marketing term has ended, while a large payment will only buy up to the marketing term length on the discounted rate (the remainder of the payment will be applied to the “step up” rate).
See Subscription Rates in the Setup Manual for more information on promotional rates and marketing terms.
Rewards programs are promotional offers, such as Air Miles, that give consumers credits for purchasing a product. Rewards will be generated for subscribers when a payment is entered for them if they:
Are signed up for a rewards program, and
Their rate term is set up to give a reward amount for that program.
If payments are imported via Subscriber Lockbox or the Subscriber Activity Import, those processes will also generate rewards. Likewise, Auto Payments will generate rewards as part of the auto renew process. If a payment is subsequently modified, the reward amount will change accordingly, and if a payment is deleted the rewards will be removed. If a payment is canceled a negative reward will be created to cancel out the original reward. Unlike manually entered rewards, generated rewards do not create Reward transactions.
This section guides the user through the menu options that are available under the Subscriber Payments menu.
Use this option to enter subscriber payments that are received by the newspaper. These payments can only be from office pay subscribers; if a carrier collect subscriber makes a payment over the counter, the payment must be entered as an account payment (see Payment Entry). If a payment is entered for a carrier collect subscriber using this option, Circulation will automatically change the subscriber to office pay.
Subscriber payments can be entered at any time. The steps involved in entering and processing subscriber payments are given below:
Select Batch Payments and enter a batch of subscriber payments (or enter payments individually in Customer Service). A batch is a group of payments entered a session; batches have IDs and control numbers for greater accuracy and organization. Payments entered in Customer Services (or iServices) are automatically added to their own batch.
You may Accept the batch of payments, or Suspend it. Suspended batches can be restarted at a later time (for instance, after the Payment Journal has been reviewed).
Print the Payment Journal to verify the accuracy of the payments entered.
When you have verified that the batch and payments are correct, select Payment Processing to process the subscriber payments. Expire dates will be extended, and general ledger entries made.
Note:
A Customer Service or iServices payment batch can only be selected in Batch Payments if there are no users currently accessing the batch in those modules. Once the batch is opened in Batch Payments, users in Customer Services or iServices will not be able to access it until it is accepted or suspended.
Premium days are bonus days such as holidays where the subscriber receives the paper on a day that is not normally a delivery day, or receives a special edition of the paper (see Premium Day). Premium days have special charges special charges associated with them, which are deducted from a premium day wallet rather than the subscriber’s balance.
When entering a payment for a subscriber, any premium day amounts included in a term will be part of the term amount purchased. The premium amount, however, is placed in the subscriber’s wallet rather than being used to buy days. For example, say a 4-week term is $20 and contains a $1 premium day, while a 13-week term is $50 and contains two $1 premium days. A $21 payment would be required for the 4-week term, with $1 being placed in the wallet. A $52 payment would be required to purchase a 13-week term, with $2 being placed in the wallet.
Note: For combo subscriptions, a separate wallet amount is tracked for each component publication with premium days.
Once the bonus day is published and delivered, the premium amount is deducted by the subscriber’s wallet by running Bonus Day Adjustment (see Running the Bonus Day Adjustment Utility) and importing the bonus day adjustment file in Lockbox Processing.
If no payment is made by the subscriber, premium day costs will still be subtracted from the wallet, and the wallet balance will be included in grace owed and grace paid amounts. A typical subscriber going into grace will have a zero wallet balance, and any premium days delivered while they were in grace will therefore create a negative wallet balance.
A subscriber’s premium day wallet cannot be adjusted manually by entering payment adjustments—it can only be adjusted by the bonus day adjustments, which use a payment adjustment code that has Update Wallet set to “y”, and certain subscriber transactions.
If a subscriber who paid for a premium day temp stops and does not receive the premium day paper, the money for the premium day will be removed from the wallet and be used to extend the expire date when the subscriber restarts. Likewise premium days missed between a move out and move in transaction will be deducted from the wallet and used to buy days. In the case where the restart or move in extends the new expire date out past another premium day, the wallet will be updated. Likewise when transactions such as delivery schedule changes, billing changes, transfers and complaints extend the expire date to cover a premium date, the premium amount will be included in the expire change. Wallet amounts can also be included in transfer out transactions.
In some cases a subscriber does not receive a purchased bonus day paper for reasons other than the transactions described above. For example, a bonus day could be defined and purchased, and then removed (or the premium amount could be changed after the payment is made). In this case the wallet amount not used for the premium day is considered an uncommitted amount. Uncommitted amounts from the subscriber’s wallet are added to payment amounts when the subscriber makes a payment, just as unallocated amounts in the subscriber’s balance are added.
Finds the subscriber’s current wallet total.
Calculates the number of premium days still scheduled before the subscription expire date.
Subtracts the scheduled premium days from the wallet total to determine the uncommitted amount.
For example, say a subscriber pays $1 for a premium day, and the premium day amount is changed later to .75 in Bonus Day Setup. When the bonus day occurs, .75 will be deducted from the wallet, leaving .25 uncommitted. That uncommitted amount will be added to the payment amount when buying the next subscription period.
Note:
Uncommitted wallet amounts will not be included in the payment amount when Auto Payments generates auto renew payments.
In some cases, subscribers deposit payments directly to a bank, and the bank sends payment information to the newspaper. Use this option to read these subscriber payments, known as lockbox payments, into Circulation. In order to be read, the file sent from the bank must be put in /dti/exchange/cm. The file can be in the standard lockbox format (see Subscriber Lockbox File Format (Standard)) or a user-defined format. If user-defined, the format must be set up in advance in File Map setup (see in the Setup Manual).
In addition to standard lockbox payments, charges for bonus days created by Bonus Day Adjustment are also imported via Lockbox Processing.
Note:
Contact the Naviga Global Support Center in the early planning stages of lockbox processing as custom programs may need to be written to accommodate the format of the file coming from your bank.
Business Rules determine whether the lockbox scanline is verified against the scanline check digit, and whether the bank number should be verified (using the standard US banking system formula for bank numbers).
Select Lockbox Processing from the Subscriber Payments menu to display the Subscriber Lockbox Processing window.
Click Add and complete the following fields.
READ OPTION
predefined
Indicate whether to edit or commit this information to the database. Enter “commit” to create payment records. If you enter “edit” the file will be read but only an error report will be created. We recommend that you run Lockbox Processing in “edit” mode at least once to verify that there are no potential errors. The 7 fields below will be active only if you are committing information.
BANK
setup
Enter the ID of the bank where the payments were deposited.
SOURCE
setup
Enter the source code for the payments, such as “bank”.
REASON
setup
Enter the reason code for the payments, such as “renew”.
DEFAULT DATE
date
You may enter a default payment date for the lockbox payments. When interfacing payments, Lockbox Processing will use the following hierarchy when assigning the payment date:
1) Use the payment date interfaced, if provided (the standard subscriber lockbox does not contain the payment date).
2) Use the default date entered here.
3) Use the batch date interfaced, if provided (the standard subscriber lockbox does have a batch date).
4) Use the file date interfaced, if provided.
5) Use the current date.
CREATE AUTORENEW
yes/no
Indicate whether a payment should switch a subscriber to auto renew, if bank draft or credit card information is interfaced. If this checkbox is selected and a bank number and account number are interfaced, a billing change will be created to switch the subscriber to bank draft auto renew.
Similarly, if a credit card number and expiration date are interfaced, a billing change will switch the subscriber to credit card auto renew. The auto renew term will be picked based on the payment amount (if the amount does not match an auto renew term, no auto renew will be created). The subscriber’s rate will be changed to an auto renew rate, and any tip or payment adjustment interfaced with the payment will be included in subsequent auto renews.
Note that the standard subscriber lockbox format does not contain credit card or bank draft info. Also note that billing changes will be created when the payment processes (in Payment Processing). The billing changes will then be processed in Transaction Processing.
AUTO ACCEPT BATCH
yes/no
Indicate if you want all open batches to be accepted automatically.
BATCH
open (10)
Enter a batch ID for these payments.
DESCRIPTION
open (30)
Enter a description of this batch.
BPAY FILE
yes/no
Indicate if this file is from the BPay form of online banking.
INPUT FILE FORMAT
setup
Enter the format of the lockbox file being interfaced. Enter “Sublockbox” if you are using the standard lockbox format. Or, enter a user-defined format that has been set up in FILE MAP.
BPAY FILE
yes/no
Indicate if this file is from the BPay form of online banking.
INPUT FILE NAME
open (16)
Enter the file name of the lockbox file in the /dti/exchange/cm directory. The default file name for the standard lockbox format is “sublockbox.d”; default file names for other formats can be defined in File Map. The default can be changed.
Click OK and then Continue to process the lockbox payments. The Subscriber Lockbox Processing report will be produced, listing the number of records that were processed and any errors that occurred.
If Read Option is set to “commit”, a suspended batch of subscriber payments will also be created. You must restart this batch of payments by selecting Batch Payments (see Batch Payments) and entering the batch ID and header information (the payment records will then be processed when Payment Processing is run). During the commit process, the sublockbox.d file will be renamed to sublockbox.[date].[batch].d, where [date] is the lockbox payment date and [batch] is the batch ID. A processing report will also display, listing any errors that occurred during the process. If a subscriber ID in the lockbox file does not exist in the system, it must be resolved in Resolve Payments (see Resolve Payments).
Transaction Security is added to the "Auto Accept Batch" field so that it may be regulated at the user level to enable or disable access to the field.
If any Security is applied to the Security item, users who are part of the Security ID will have access to the “Auto Accept Batch” field, while users who are not part of the Security ID would not, and the field will be greyed out.
An occupant may pay for an entire group of subscriptions with one payment. For example, let’s say Benton College buys free subscriptions for all of its instructors. A single check for 1500.00 from the Dean’s Office might pay for 75 subscriptions. Circulation has the ability to enter and distribute group payments. So, the 1500.00 payment mentioned above can be tracked as a group payment that is split 75 ways. Of course, the payment could also be broken up and entered as 75 individual payments; but the Group Payment feature allows for better tracking and more efficient entry. The procedure for entering group payments is given below.
Note:
Business Rules determine whether all subscribers that have subscriptions billed to the occupant should be listed, or only office pay subscribers who have not made a payment for their last renewal. It also determines whether the payment is initially split evenly among all subscribers (“automatic”), or whether each subscriber begins with a zero amount (“manual”).
Group payments are entered along with regular payments in Batch Payments. Currently, group payments can only be entered in character Circulation (not in the Batch Payments option in Graphical Accounting). Rather than adding the payment by selecting Add, the Group option must be selected from the strip menu. The Group Subscriber Payments screen will display.
Select Add and enter the name, phone number, or subscription ID of the occupant making the group payment (in order to qualify for group payments, this occupant must be the bill-to occupant for at least two subscribers). Then enter the payment amount and other payment information.
The subscriptions billed to this occupant will be listed in the Group Subscriber Payment Distribution screen. Select Modify to enter or change the payment amount for an individual subscriber.
When the entire payment is accounted for, select Accept to accept the group payment and return to the Group Subscriber Payments screen. You can then enter more group payments, or select Accept again to return to the Batch Subscriber Payments screen. Each individual group subscriber will be listed, but marked with a “*GP” to indicate that the payment is part of a group.
Each individual payment will be treated by Circulation as a regular payment, except that users will not be able to cancel individual payments that are part of a group (the whole group payment must be canceled—see Cancel Payment). Group payments entered for a bill-to occupant can be viewed in the Show | Group Payments option in Customer Service.
With Auto Payments, we move from the account to the subscriber side of accounting. See introduction.
Auto renew subscribers have their subscription renewed automatically—from a bank account, a credit card, or a PayPal account—at the end of their renewal period. The subscription continues to be renewed until they inform the paper otherwise. Hence, a normal renewal notice is not sent to auto renew subscribers (though an auto renew notification can be sent—see Auto Notice Export). Auto renew subscribers have special auto renew terms which are set up by the newspaper. They are also assigned to auto renew billing groups. See Publication in the Setup Manual for more information.
During a new start, subscribers can be flagged as auto renew subscribers. They can also be transferred to auto renew status with a billing change. Bank account, credit card, or PayPal account information is entered for the customer at this time.
When you select this option, Auto Payments, Circulation automatically creates a suspended batch of credit card, bank draft, or PayPal payments for auto renew subscribers whose subscriptions will expire within a certain number of days (based on the auto renew terms). Auto renew information may also be exported to an ASCII file to produce statements.
You may print the Payment Journal to verify the payment entries included in this batch (see Payment Journal).
To restart the batch created in Auto Payments, select Batch Payment and enter the batch name (see Batch Payments). You can modify the auto renew payment entries before you Accept the batch. Once accepted, Circulation creates an ASCII file containing the auto renew information in your /dti/exchange/cm directory. Credit card auto renews can be in various formats, as governed by Business Rules. Bank draft auto renews can also be in various formats, as determined by bank setup.
Bank draft files are usually sent to the newspaper’s bank. The newspaper has to further prepare the credit card file for the various credit card companies (outside of Circulation).
When Payment Processing is run, the batch is processed and the auto renew subscriptions in the batch are renewed (i.e., the subscribers’ expire dates are extended). The auto renew transactions are looked upon as subscriber payments.
We recommend that you print the Payment Journal again to verify the auto renew transactions.
Select Auto Payments from the Subscriber Payments menu to display the Automatic Subscription Payments window.
Click Add and complete the following fields.
PRODUCT
setup
Enter the product for which to create automatic renewals. Enter “*” to multi-select products.
RUN DATE
date
Enter the date for which to create this batch. Circulation will include credit card (or bank draft) auto renew subscribers whose expire date minus this date is less than or equal to the number specified in Auto Renew Terms setup.
RENEWAL TYPE
predefined
Specify what kind of automatic renewals should be included in this batch: credit card, bank draft, prenotification, or PayPal.
If you select prenotification, Circulation will pull all bank draft auto renew subscriptions that have started within the date range specified. A file named “notifyMMDDYY-nnn” (where “MMDDYY” represents the month, date and year of the export, respectively, and “nnn” represents an incrementing sequence number that distinguishes files exported on the same day) is created in /dti/exchange/cm listing the new auto renew subscriber information but with a zero amount.
The Pre-Notification feature will do the verification in real-time through NavigaPay instead of transmitting the data to the bank. See Note below.
BILLING GROUP
setup
If this batch is for bank draft or prenotification, enter the auto renew billing group to include, or enter “*” to multi-select groups. Only subscribers assigned to the billing groups selected can be auto renewed. See Publication in the Setup Manual for more information about auto renew billing groups.
BANK
setup
If this batch is for bank drafts or prenotifications, enter the bank where auto renew money will be deposited into the newspaper’s account.
SHORT DESCRIPTION
open (10)
If this is a bank draft or prenotification batch, enter some descriptive information (such as “Tribune”) for the subscriber’s bank statement.
START DATE, END DATE
date
If this batch is for processing prenotifications, specify the date range during which new bank draft auto renew subscribers should be selected.
INCLUDE PENDING RATE CHANGES
yes/no
If subscription-length pricing is being used, select this checkbox if you want pending rate changes to be considered when valuing subscription terms.
AUTO ACCEPT BATCH
yes/no
Indicate if you want all open batches to be accepted automatically. Transaction Security controls whether the default answer can be changed.
BATCH
open (10)
Assign a name to this batch of auto renews (this name will be used when the batch is restarted in payment entry).
DESCRIPTION
open (30)
Enter a description of this batch.
Click OK and then Continue to process the auto renews. An Automatic Subscription Renewals report will be created, listing the number of subscriptions that were auto renewed and any errors that occurred in the process. Auto renew statements may also be exported (see below).
NavigaPay is a payment gateway wrapper that has been added for one-time and recurring payments. NavigaPay is an integrated payment hub for many vendors, such as Edgil Payway, Stripe, Braintree, etc. This feature has been added to the system to allow general request parameters to be sent to the selected payment vendor through the use of Naviga Pay.
Auto renew subscribers can be sent statements, similar to renewal notices, when their subscription automatically renews. To create the statement, auto renew information is automatically exported to an ASCII file when Auto Payments is run. The ASCII file can then be imported into word processing software to produce the actual statements.
The statement contains more detailed information than an auto renew notice (see Auto Notice Export), and is in a format similar to the Detailed Export 2 renewal notice format. A Business Rule in the Subscriber Payments section determines whether the export should contain credit card, bank draft, or all auto renew subscribers. Only subscribers who meet the following criteria will be exported:
The subscription is being renewed by Auto Payments.
The subscriber’s auto renew type (bank draft or credit card) is being exported, as governed by Business Rules.
The Send Statement flag was set to “y” in the subscriber’s start or billing change.
The file will be exported to /dti/exchange/cm and be named autorenewsmmdd, where mm is the number of the month and dd is the day.
The Batch Audit Journal shows subscriber payment batches entered within a date range that are currently unprocessed. This includes batches that have been suspended (payment processing skips over suspended batches) and unsuspended batches that are still unprocessed. Suspended auto renew and lockbox batches will also appear on this report.
You typically run this report before creating the Unearned Revenue Report at the end of the fiscal period, to ensure that all subscriber batches have been processed.
Select Batch Audit Journal from the Subscriber Payments menu to display the Subscriber Batch Audit Journal window.
Click Add and enter the dates for which to run the journal. All suspended batches entered on or between these dates will be included.
Click OK and then Continue to create the journal.
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.
Select Payment Processing from the Subscriber Payments menu to display the Subscriber Payment Processing window.
Click Add.
Enter the product and date for processing the payments.
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.
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.
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.
The Resolve Payments option, above, is used to resolve payments that were imported from a lockbox with an invalid subscriber ID. The Resolve Journal can be used to balance to the GL in cases where these payments were imported from lockbox in one fiscal period, and resolved in another. For example, a payment of 20.00 might be interfaced in September but not resolved until October. It would appear in the totals of the Payment Journal in September, but the GL entry would not appear until October.
Select Subscriber Payments | Resolve Journal to display the Resolved Fiscal Overlap Payment Journal window.
Click Add and complete the following fields.
PRODUCT
setup
Enter the product for which to list resolved payments, or enter “*” to multi-select products.
BANK
setup
Enter the bank for which to list resolved payments, or enter “*” to multi-select banks.
CREDIT CARD PAYMENTS
-
This field is not active.
PRIOR PERIOD CUTOFF DATE
date
Enter a cutoff date for listing resolved payments. Only resolved payments interfaced in a period ending on or before this date will be listed.
RESOLUTION START DATE, RESOLUTION END DATE
date
Enter the resolution date range. Only payments resolved with in this date range will be listed in the report.
SORT OPTION
predefined
Indicate whether the report should sort by subscriber name, payment sequence, date, or operator.
Click OK and then Continue to produce the report.
All subscriber payments entered within a date range appear on the Payment Journal, whether entered in Customer Services or Batch Payments, or created with the auto renew or lockbox features. Payment cancels and NSFs will also be included. Payments that have not yet been processed also appear on the Payment Journal.
Note:
For credit card payments, the credit card number will only appear on the report when being run by a user that has security to view credit card information (see in the Setup manual).
Likewise, bank numbers for bank draft auto renew subscribers will only appear if the report is run by a user that has security to view bank account information. If a batch of payments contains group payments, the individual payments in the group will be listed as normal, with a payment type of “G-PMT”.
The group payments themselves will be listed at the end of the report. The VaultID and Email Address of PayPal auto renew subscribers will only appear if the report is run by a user that has security to view PayPal private data.
The Subscriber Payment Journal should be printed before Payment Processing, to verify that the payments that have been entered are correct. It is also a good idea to print the journal after payment processing, to confirm that there were no processing errors.
The tax on the Activation and Printed Bill Fees for each subscriber will be shown in the Subscriber Payment Journal. An overview of fee tax collected by each tax authority and fee type is displayed at the end of the report.
Select Payment Journal from the Subscriber Payments menu to display the Subscriber Payment Journal window.
Click Add and complete the following fields.
BATCH
setup
If you are running the journal for a particular payment batch, enter the batch name here. If you are running the journal for a date range, enter “*”.
PRODUCT
setup
Enter the product for which to print subscriber payments.
CASH PAYMENTS
yes/no
Indicate whether cash payments should be included in the Payment Journal.
BANK DRAFT PAYMENTS
yes/no
Indicate whether bank draft payments should be included in the Payment Journal.
BPAY PAYMENTS
yes/no
Indicate whether BPay payments should be included in the Payment Journal.
CREDIT CARD PAYMENTS
yes/no
Indicate whether credit card payments should be included in the Payment Journal.
PAYPAL PAYMENTS
yes/no
Indicate whether PayPal Express Checkout payments should be included in the Payment Journal.
BANK
setup
Enter the bank for which subscriber payments should be listed, or enter a “*” to multi-select banks. The bank displays on the Payment Journal for any auto renew bank draft payments.
PRINT PRIVATE DATA
yes/no
Indicate whether private banking and credit card information (such as account numbers and credit card numbers) should be displayed on the journal.
DISPLAY OPTION
predefined
If you answered “yes” in Print Private Data, indicate here whether private credit card and banking information should be masked (only the last four digits shown) or displayed in full. Note that users without the proper security will not be able to see private data even if “full” is selected.
START DATE, END DATE
date
If you are running the journal for a date range, enter the dates here. All payments entered (or created) on or between these dates will be included in the journal. If the payments you enter during a month are also processed in the same month, you may want to print the Payment Journal for the month and balance it with the GL Interface Journal.
SORT OPTION
predefined
Indicate if this report should sort by subscriber name, payment sequence, date, or operator.
PROCESS STATUS
predefined
Indicate if this report should include only processed payments, only unprocessed payments, or both.
EXPORT
yes/no
Select this checkbox if you want to create an export file.
FILE FORMAT
setup
Select the file map to use for this export. A file map must be set up previously.
FILE NAME
open
You can accept the default file name or modify it.
Click OK and then Continue to create the report.
When subscriber payments are imported into Circulation from a lockbox file, some subscribers in the file might not have valid subscription IDs. When this happens, the batch can still be accepted and the payments processed. The invalid subscriptions will be assigned a subscription ID of zero, and those payments will not be processed.
Note:
Subscriber lockbox payments with an invalid subscriber ID will appear on the Subscriber Payment Journal with a subscriber ID of zero and a name of “Unassigned Payment”. The bank totals will also contain a separate total for unresolved payments.
Select Resolve Payments to resolve payments by assigning them to a valid subscriber. There is also a Resolve Payments report to aid in balancing the GL in cases where payments were made in a prior fiscal period but resolved in the current period (see Resolve Journal). In order to view or edit payments in Resolve Payments, the lockbox payment batch must first be accepted.
Select Subscriber Payments | Resolve Payments to display the Resolve Payments screen.
Complete the following fields.
ALL RESOLVED
yes/no
Indicate whether to list all unresolved payments, or only payments made in a specific lockbox batch.
BATCH
setup
If resolving payments for a specific lockbox batch, enter the batch name here.
BANK
setup
Enter the bank for which to resolve lockbox payments, or enter “*” to multi-select banks.
CUTOFF DATE
date
If All Resolved is set to “y”, enter a cutoff date for resolving payments. Only unresolved payments interfaced on or before this publishing date will be listed.
The unresolved payments that meet the criteria entered are displayed. Select Modify and enter the subscription ID on one or more payments. You can also modify the term and length for these payments.
When finished, press F4 and select Exit to exit to the main menu.
Note:
This option should be used only by sites that use batch files to authorize payments. If your site uses real-time payment authorization or stores credit-card information off-site, you should not use this option.
Credit card payments are typically sent to a credit card company via specialized credit card processing software. The credit card company then sends back an authorization number, or else declines the payment. A similar process is used with bank drafts. Pymt Authorization allows declines and authorization numbers for credit card and bank draft payments to be interfaced from another system via an ASCII file. If payments are interfaced with an authorization number, the number will be updated in the payment record. If there is no authorization number (i.e., the payment is declined), a Payment Decline transaction will be created.
A standard file format currently exists for credit card cancels (see Appendix B). If you wish to authorize credit card payments with this option, or authorize/cancel bank draft payments, you will need to set up a user-defined file format via File Map using the Payment Authorization usage (see Appendix B) or use a third-party, licensed interface. This same format can then be used for both credit card cancels and payment authorizations.
Select Pymt Authorization from the Subscriber Payments menu to display the Cancel Subscriber Payment Authorization window.
Click Add and complete the following fields.
INPUT FILE FORMAT
setup
Enter the file format that you will be importing payment authorizations with. User-defined formats must be set up in advance in File Map. The standard credit card cancel format is “SubCancelCC”.
INPUT FILE
open (30)
Enter the file name in the /dti/exchange/cm directory. This will default from File Map.
READ OPTION
predefined
Indicate whether to commit or edit the credit card payments in the ASCII file. If you choose “Commit”, cancel payment transactions will be created (for declines) and payment authorization numbers will be populated (for authorizations). If you choose “Edit”, only the processing report will be created (you can then look the report over for errors before committing).
BATCH DESCRIPTION
open (10) open (30)
If the field above is set to “commit”, enter an ID and description for the batch of subscriber payment cancellations that will be created by this process.
CANCEL DATE
date
Type the date on which you are entering this batch. The current date defaults.
EXPORT, EXPORT FILE
yes/no open (30)
Indicate whether payment declines should be exported to an ASCII file, and if so, the file name. Only declines (not authorizations) will be exported. See Appendix B for the export file format.
Click OK and then Continue to begin processing. After processing is complete, a report lists the payments processed and any errors that occurred. This report is similar in format to the Cancel Credit Card Payment report.
When a transaction is processed in the application, NavigaPay Bank Draft payments will have the status “Settlement Pending”. The ACH Status Update Utility process is designed to fetch the details of the Bank Draft payments made and update them in the application accordingly. refer to Customer Services | Transactions | Payment.
In Graphical Accounting, select Subscriber Payments | ACH Status Update.
Click Add and enter the Product and the Date Range.
Click OK and then Continue to update the status of the payment.
Once the payment has been processed by the vendors, the status will be updated accordingly. If a payment fails, a “Payment Decline” record is created.
Use this option to enter subscriber payments in batches.
You also enter adjustments here. An adjustment is typically an amount paid for other than subscription purposes. A check for a promotional coffee mug, for instance, would be an adjustment. Adjustments can also be non-cash. An example of a non cash adjustment might be a subscriber who missed a week’s worth of papers, and so has the expire date adjusted an additional week.
Select Batch Payments from the Subscriber Payments menu in Graphical Accounting to display the Subscriber Payment Batch screen.
Before payments can be entered, defaults and batch information must be set for this batch of payments, in the Batch Entry panel. These fields are described below.
BATCH
open (10)
Create an ID for the batch of subscriber payments you are entering. If you are restarting a suspended batch (such as an auto renew batch), enter the batch ID here and the remaining batch information will default.
DESCRIPTION
open (30)
Enter a description of this batch.
BATCH DATE
date
Enter the date of this batch. This date is used as the default payment date, which may be overridden.
CASH CONTROL
decimal (11)
Enter the control total for this batch of payments. “Cash” includes the subscription payments, any tips, and cash adjustments, but does not include coupons or non-cash adjustments.
COUPON CONTROL
decimal (11)
Enter the total of coupon amount for this batch of payments.
ADJUSTMENT CONTROL
decimal (11)
Enter the net total of non cash adjustment amounts included in these payments. If this is a negative number, enter a minus sign with the amount.
BANK
setup
Select the bank into which this batch of payments will be deposited, or accept the default.
SHORT DESCRIPTION
open (10)
SOURCE, REASON
setup setup
Select a source and reason code for these payments, or accept the defaults.
Click the OK button below the Batch Entry panel to accept the batch information.
You can now enter the payments, one at a time. Click the Add button in the Subscriber Batch Payments panel to enter a payment.
Enter payment information in the Subscriber Batch Payments fields, described in the table below.
TYPE
display
SUBSCRIBER
setup
Enter the subscriber’s last name (or part of their last name), telephone number or subscription ID. Circulation will search for an exact match. If multiple matches are found, they are displayed in a scrollable window so you can select the correct subscriber. If the subscriber has more than one subscription, the subscription information is displayed in the same way.
PAY DATE
date
EFFECTIVE
date
Enter the date on which the payment should go into effect. This field is not active for office pay subscribers. For subscribers changing from carrier collect to office pay, enter the start date for the office pay status. If this date is before the last publishing date, back credit is issued to the carrier/dealer(s) using the draw adjustment code established in Business Rules. Business Rules determine how far back to search for this customer’s previous expiration date. If found, that date is displayed. If not, the next publishing date is displayed (and can be changed).
PAY TYPE
predefined
Indicate whether the payment is a check, cash, credit card or bank draft payment. If “Bank Draft,” “Check,” or “Credit Card” are selected, a window will open for additional information, as described in the steps below.
AMOUNT
decimal (6)
Enter the amount of the payment (without tip, coupon or adjustment). The amount may default from the previous payment (as determined by Business Rules); the default can be overridden.
COUPON
decimal (6)
Enter the coupon amount, if any, with this payment. The amount entered is added to the payment amount to determine the length of the subscription.
TIP
decimal (6)
Enter the amount of the tip, if any, included with this payment. If the subscription is delivered by multiple carriers, the tip will be distributed evenly between them or based on the number of days delivered, as governed by Business Rules. For example, a 5.00 tip for a subscription delivered by a Sunday carrier and a Mon-Sat carrier could be divided evenly at 2.50 per carrier, or by days at 0.71 (Sunday) and 4.29 (Mon-Sat). Press F5 to override these amounts and enter your own tip distribution. A Charge Code (see Publication in the Setup Manual) and a Charge GL Account (see CR GL Account in the Setup Manual) must exist for tips before processing.
ADJUSTMENT
yes/no
Check this field if the subscriber payment includes an adjustment. If so, the Adjustment window (shown below) will open for entry of the adjustment code and amount.
TERM, LENGTH
display or integer
REMARKS
open
Enter any remarks that pertain to this payment. Remarks appear in the Payment Journal and are retained in history.
If the payment is a check (based on the Pay Type field), the Check Info window opens. Enter the check number in the Check Number field. The bill-to subscriber name displays in the Holder Name field.
If this is a credit card payment, a window opens for the credit card number and other information—the fields in this window vary based on Business Rules, your selected credit card authorization vendor, and whether you are using the Hosted Order Page. See About Payment Authorization for more information. Note:
If you are using the character version of Batch Payments and the Hosted Order Page, use the Vaulting Service to obtain a vault ID for the credit card payment, and enter it in the Vault ID field. See Vaulting Service for details.
If this is a bank draft payment, the Bank Draft Info window displays. Enter the bank routing number and account number here. Additional fields may also be required, based on your bank draft interface format.
If the payment includes an adjustment, the Adjustment window opens. One or more adjustments may be entered here (press F2 in the Code field to display a list of valid codes). You can set up some adjustment codes to credit the Cash Total (for cash adjustments) and others to credit the Adjustment Total (non cash adjustments). Be sure to select an appropriate code for your adjustment. Enter a minus sign with negative amounts. See in the Setup Manual for more information about adjustment codes.
Click the OK button to add the payment to the batch, or the Add Another button to add the payment and begin entering the next payment. (If you click OK and then decide to enter another payment, you can just click the Add button.) You can also modify or delete payments added to the batch (authorized credit card payments, however, cannot be deleted). The payment is listed in the Subscriber Batch Payments grid on the right side of the screen.
As you enter subscriber payments, the amount displayed in the Total field (above the Subscriber Batch Payments grid) changes. If you enter coupon and/or non cash adjustment amounts, those totals change also. When you finish entering payments for a batch, Total Cash and Control Cash should be equal. Otherwise, the batch is out of balance. The same is true of the coupon and adjustment totals.
After all payments have been entered, click the Accept button below the Batch Entry panel to enter the batch of payments into the database (the payments will be applied to subscriber accounts during Payment Processing). If the totals for the payments do not match the control totals entered with the batch, you will be prompted to update the control totals. You may also suspend the batch by clicking the Suspend button. To reject the batch, click the Reject button (all of the payments will be lost).
If a payment batch is suspended, you can print the Payment Journal to verify payments, and restart it at a later time. To restart a suspended batch, go into Batch Payments and select the suspended batch in the Batch field (rather than entering a new batch ID). The batch will then display with its payments, and can be accepted.
If you accept a batch and later find that a payment was entered incorrectly, you must cancel the payment in Customer Service (see Cancel Payment) and then reenter it.
The Vindicia Report includes all of the records that have been sent to Vindicia, as well as the current status and refund details as of the run-date.
The 'Totals By Status' section of the report is summarized based on the five statuses described below.
Failure. These are the records for which Vindicia has not been able to capture the payment. If the Vindicia process was not successfully completed, the default state is set to Failure.
Cancelled. If a Circ Customer Service activity occurs, such as the Subscriber making a payment, a billing change, or being Perm Stopped while Vindicia is trying to capture the payment, Vindicia will cancel any pending attempts, and the records will have the Cancelled status.
Refunded. If a Circ Customer Service activity occurs, such as the Subscriber making a payment, a billing change, or being Perm Stopped after Vindicia has been able to capture the payment, the records will have the Refunded status.
Captured. If Vindicia has been able to capture the payment successfully, the records will have the Captured Status.
Pending. The records for which Vindicia is attempting to capture the payment will have a Pending Status. This status will be shown in the report until the value set in the Business Rule— What is the maximum number of days Vindicia Retain will try transaction processing? ( section) has been reached.
Select the Vindicia Report from the Subscriber Payments menu to display the Vindicia Report window.
Select Add and complete the following fields.
START DATE, END DATE
date
Enter the date range for fetching the status of the records sent to Vindicia.
EXPORT DETAIL
yes/no
Indicate if you want to export the Vindicia Report.
FILE NAME
open (25)
Enter the name of the file to be exported.
Click OK and then Continue to produce the report.
The default value can be set in the Business Rule— Should batches that are imported or created by the system be accepted automatically? (). This determines if system-generated or imported batches should be accepted automatically.
Transaction Security controls whether the default answer can be changed. See .
(see Setup Manual) can be configured under:
Character Setup > System > Security > Transaction Security > AutoAccptBatch
If you are restarting an auto renew bank draft batch, the short description that will print on the bank statement defaults (see ). You may keep this default, or enter another short description.
This field displays the type of payment being entered (single or group). Currently, only single payments can be entered via the graphical interface. Group payments can be entered in character Circulation—see .
The date entered on the Batch Payments screen displays. You may change this date. Note that payments cannot be entered for a fiscal period that has been closed (see for more information).
The subscription term and length (based on the rate code and the amount of the payment) are displayed. If an exact match is found, the exact term and length display. If not, Circulation calculates the number of days that the amount of payment can buy. You may override these terms and lengths. Note: If a subscription term contains bonus days with premiums (), the total premium amount is included in the term cost and will be placed in the subscriber’s premium day wallet.
