Reconcile Credit Card Transactions to Merchant Disbursements

From Revenue and Financials, your organization can submit credit card transactions for authorization through a credit card payment processor such as Blackbaud Merchant Services. After your processor authorizes credit card transactions, it disburses the net proceeds from these transactions into your bank account. In addition, your processor provides a disbursement report that includes information about the disbursement amount and associated details.

To verify all transactions process successfully and are deposited into your bank accounts, on the Reconcile transactions and disbursements page, you can reconcile credit card transactions based on your disbursement report and transaction activity. To access this page from Treasury, select Reconcile transactions and disbursements under Credit card reconciliation.

Note: When your organization first accesses the Reconcile transactions and disbursements page, the credit card reconciliation screen appears. On this screen, you select whether to assign a reconciliation date to existing transactions, such as the date of your most recent reconciliation. For more information, refer to Set the Default Reconciliation Date for Existing Transactions.

From the Reconcile transactions and disbursements page, under Tasks, you can reconcile transactions using an automated process or a manual upload. Select Enable BBMS auto reconcile to enable the automated process only available with Blackbaud Merchant Services. For more information about how to automatically reconcile transactions, refer to Automatically Reconcile Transactions Through Blackbaud Merchant Services. Alternatively, you can select Upload disbursement report to manually upload a disbursement report. When you upload the report and select a report format, Altru searches for and compares the credit card transactions in the report with transactions in your database. For more information about how to upload a disbursement report, refer to Upload a Disbursement Report.

If a transaction is not shown as reconciled but you know it has been disbursed successfully, you can reconcile it manually. Select the transaction from the list to expand it, and then select Mark reconciled.

On the View by transaction tab, you can view all or specific credit card transactions entered into the database during a selected time period. Use the Show field to specify transactions such as Reconciled or Pending. In the Transactions for field, select the date range of the transactions to view, such as Today, This month, or Specific dates. Use the Gateway ID field to display transactions associated with a specific gateway ID or all gateway IDs. From this tab, you can manually mark transactions as Reconciled or Pending, and view transaction details. For transactions processed through Blackbaud Merchant Services, you can also approve or refund suspect transactions.

Note: The original amount of the payment is shown as a separate row with any refunds for that original charge shown in subsequent rows. This allows you to easily view the amount of the original charge in addition to any refunds.

On the View by disbursement tab, you can view all or specific credit card transactions entered into the database during a selected time period, grouped by merchant disbursement date. Use the Disbursements for and Gateway ID filters to further narrow your results. For transactions processed through Blackbaud Merchant Services, select BBMS Report next to a disbursement date header to access the Blackbaud Merchant Services Disbursement Detail Report. You can also view gateway details for automatically reconciled transactions processed through Blackbaud Merchant Services .

On the Unmatched disbursements tab, after you upload a disbursement report, you can view any transactions in the report that do not match corresponding transactions in your database, such as a transaction submitted to a payment processor from outside the program. In the Transactions for field, select the date range of the transactions to view, such as Today, This month, or Specific dates. With the Gateway ID field, display transactions associated with a specific gateway ID or all gateway IDs.

On the Suspect charges tab, review transactions processed through Blackbaud Merchant Services and flagged as suspect when they meet specific criteria. Transactions flagged as suspect help avoid costly fees associated with potentially unnecessary transactions. Examples of suspect criteria include a questionable IP address or multiple identical transactions from the same credit card within a short amount of time. From the Suspect charges tab, you filter transactions by gateway ID, view transaction details, and select to approve or refund transactions.

On the Card chargebacks tab, use the Status filter to review specific chargeback requests processed through Blackbaud Merchant Services. A chargeback transaction occurs when a card holder disputes the validity of a transaction with the credit card company. For example, if the credit card used is reported stolen or the card holder does not recognize the transaction, the credit card company issues a chargeback request to Blackbaud Merchant Services. From this tab, you can filter transactions by gateway ID, view transaction details, and select to accept or challenge transactions.