Recent payments

Recent payments is a filterable list of payments, defaulting to all payments made within the last 30 days.

From the Recent payments page, Billing clerks can add payments manually on a per-student basis or to an entire group of students based on matching criteria, export the list of payments, or further evaluate a payment by reviewing its summary record.

To get started, log into Billing management, hover over Billing in the navigation, and select Billing management. On the page, select the Recent payments tab.

  1. Select Add payment

  2. Choose either Add payment by student, or Add payment by payer, based on the information you have available. For example, if you do not have the payer name or payer ID on hand, you can add the payment by searching for the student. Add payment by payer additionally enables you to apply a payment based on the Minimum due or the Full amount.

    1. Enter a student name or a student ID.

    2. Enter the payment Amount and Payment date.

    3. Select the Payment method, among which notable options include:

      • Cash:
        In-office or otherwise physically submitted payment method.

      • Check:
        Enter the Check number and Check date.

      • Credit card:
        Select an available payment processor under Process with; select Enter card details and complete the prompts.

      • Direct debit:

        Select an available payment processor under Process with; select Enter Direct debit details and complete the prompts.

        Note: Canadian direct debit payments are withheld for two calendar days before being processed.


    4. Select who the payment was Paid by. Statement recipients automatically appear above the Paid by field.

    5. Choose whether the payment was submitted In-School or over the Phone.

    6. Select a Funding type. The different Funding types impact how fields on a Tax form (e.g., 1098-T) total.

    7. Optional: Enter a Deposit # reference to group the payment into a specific bank account.

    8. Optional: Enter internal Comments to communicate any relevant notes to other Billing clerks.

    9. Determine how the payment is applied by selecting one of the following options:

      goes toward the overall balance:
      The payment is applied to the oldest charge and then to each subsequent charge in chronological order based on charge date; if the oldest charge shares the same charge date as a tuition charge, then tuition is prioritized.

      pays off specific charges:
      Choose which charges the payment is applied to.

    10. Select Save & Close finalize the payment, or Save & add another to repeat the process.

    1. Select the date the payment was Paid on.

    2. Enter who the payment was Paid by.

    3. Determine the Amount paid:

      • The Minimum due equates to either:

        1. The next payment plan installment amount.

        2. An upcoming charge that is added outside of a payment plan.

        3. The sum of past due charges.

      • Full amount is the entire outstanding balance.

      • Other amount is a different amount greater than $1 that can either be more or less than the Minimum due.

        Other amount can be used to target specific account balances if you are responsible for repaying multiple student balances.

    4. Select the Payment method, among which notable options include:

      • Cash:
        In-office or otherwise physically submitted payment method.

      • Check:
        Enter the Check number and Check date.

      • Credit card:
        Select an available payment processor under Process with; select Enter card details and complete the prompts.

      • Direct debit:

        Select an available payment processor under Process with; select Enter Direct debit details and complete the prompts.

        Note: Canadian direct debit payments are withheld for two days before being processed.

    5. Choose whether the payment was submitted In-School or over the Phone.

    6. Select a Funding type. The different Funding types impact how fields on a Tax form (e.g., 1098-T) total.

    7. Choose whether the payment Source was In-School or over the Phone.

    8. Optional: Enter a Deposit # reference to group the payment into a specific bank account.

    9. Optional: Enter internal Comments to communicate any relevant notes to other Billing clerks.

    10. Determine how the payment is applied by selecting one of the following options:

      goes toward the overall balance:
      The payment is applied to the oldest charge and then to each subsequent charge in chronological order based on charge date; if the oldest charge shares the same charge date as a tuition charge, then tuition is prioritized.

      pays off specific charges:
      Choose which charges the payment is applied to.

    11. Select Save & Close finalize the payment, or Save & add another to repeat the process.

       

    Add payments for as many student as needed using Add payment to a group.

    To add a payment to a group of students:

    1. Under Defaults, enter the default payment information to apply to all payments. Note that these defaults can be overridden on an individual basis.

    2. Auto-Apply payment automatically applies payments to charges; you can manually select which payments are applied to charges with the Auto-Apply? option beside each listed payment.

      Payments are applied to charges in chronological order based on charge date; for charges with the same charge date, tuition charges are targeted before non-tuition charges.

    3. Under Payments to add:

      1. Select Add a group of people to upload a .csv file of students. Follow the prompts to download and reference a template to align the .csv with the necessary column and row structure.

      2. Select Find a student and enter a name to add students on an individual basis.

    4. Review any of the fields under Payments to add and make manual modifications, as needed. Hover over any error symbols to evaluate issues that require correction. Deselect Auto-Apply? to not automatically apply payments to charges on an individual basis.

    5. Optional: Toggle Send Payment received notification to send an email or SMS notification to each payer, based on the template configured for the Payment received notification.

      This option requires that a Payment received notification notification type is Active.

    6. Select Add.

Deposit references assist with grouping payments against specific bank accounts when reconciling. View and organize payments based on their deposit reference from the Recent payments list, the individual payment summary, or the general ledger.

  1. Mark each applicable payment listed under Recent payments using the adjacent checkbox; each marked payment will be updated with the same deposit reference number.

  2. Select Add to Deposit. The button appears at the bottom of the list.

  3. Enter the Deposit #.

  4. Enter the Post date to apply to all the payments. A standardized post date can be used to summarize payments for the same account represented as a consolidated journal entry when posting to the general ledger.

  5. Select Add to Deposit.

Once complete, payment records on the Recent payments list, Transaction list, and via Post to GL run (after Deposit is added under Posting rules) show the related deposit #.

Billing clerks can review a report of when payments are added using the Add payments to group; reports provide a complete list of all students and their related payment details that were part of the run, providing an additional audit trail for tracking payment processes. Each report is stored in and accessed from Process history.

Process history can be accessed from several locations:

• By selecting View previous run history on the Add payments to group window.

• From a notification that appears right after adding payments to a group.

Unlike credit card transactions, direct debit transactions are authorized through banks, and have a different set of statuses that can occur due to processing differences.

New payments appear with a Status of Pending in the Recent payments list until validated. Validated payments have a status of Approved.

Valid Payment attempts result in the following statuses:

  • Approved

  • Offline processing

  • Gateway processing

  • Gateway pending

  • Pending

The following statuses appear when transactions haven't processed through Blackbaud Merchant Services (BBMS).

  • Validation error:

    Blackbaud Payment Service monitors transactions for suspicious or potentially fraudulent behavior. If a transaction or multiple transactions are attempted with failures, it may result in blacklist. If the transaction is valid please contact Blackbaud Merchant Services support to request that the card is removed. Once the card is removed from blacklist the transaction can be attempted again.

  • Gateway declined:
    The Gateway declined status can occur for several reasons: The issuing bank has questions for the cardholder, there is suspected fraud/unusual activity on the account, a new card has been issued, or the bank doesn't recognize the sender. Ask the cardholder to contact their credit card company within 24 hours and discuss the intended transaction. After the transaction has been cleared, reprocess the transaction.

  • Processing error:

    General system failure. This may occur if there's a communication lapse when sending or receiving authorization from the issuing bank. Contact Blackbaud Merchant Services (BBMS) Support if this error occurs often.

  • Not processed:
    A processing connection failure didn't submit the transaction successfully. Resubmit the transaction. If the error persists, please contact Blackbaud Merchant Services (BBMS) Support.