| Table of Contents | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
About applying payment plans
If you’ve created payment plans, you can assign them to students, allowing students to spread out their payments over time.
...
Because each student may have a unique situation, balance and cost of attendance, payment plans must be applied individually to each student.
Effect on balance
Anticipated payment plans will reduce the student's Amount Due by the total amount of the payment plan. Payment plans will not affect the Cash Balance.
Balances may be searched through the Student Finder (example) or through reports.
Prerequisites
If payment plans will have automatic payments, set up payment processor Authorize.net or Stripe.
Required permissions
Module | Number | Description |
|---|---|---|
Student Financials | 48 | Apply payment plan to student |
Student | 984 | Apply payment plan to student |
Student | 478, 496 | Apply payment to student payment plan |
Apply plan to student without automatic payments
You can apply a payment plan to a student even if you don’t have automatic payments configured. You can simply display the payment schedule (installments) to students. Student can then pay you with cash or check. Or, if you’ve set up a payment processor in Campus Cafe, a student can initiate a one-time payment to cover the individual installment.
Go to the student’s profile.
Go Person Selected > F/A Transactions.
In Award Code select the Campus Cafe payment plan. You may have different plans corresponding with different terms such as the schedule of payments.
In Semester select the academic period for which the payment plan applies.
In Start/Scheduled Date Override enter the date of the first payment.
If you set up the payment plan as due the same day of each month, Campus Cafe will schedule the first payment for the day within the month of the Override Date. For example, if the installments are scheduled for the 1 day of each month and the override date is set to August 5, the first installment will be due August 1 (past due) and the next September 1.
If using interval in days as the disbursement pattern, the system will schedule the first payment for the day in the Override Date plus the number in the Interval in Days on the disbursement rule.
Click Add.
In Award Amount enter the total balance for the payment plan. Campus Cafe will then automatically divide this balance into individual installments based on the setup of the payment plan.
Click Save & Back.
Campus Cafe creates the installments. To view them, next to the payment plan in the Disbursements column click the money.
Remove plan without automatic payments
When no payments have been received/applied
If no payments have been applied to a payment plan, you can delete the entire plan.
Go to the student’s profile.
Go to Person Selected > F/A Transactions.
Next to the payment plan click X.
When some payments have been received/applied
If the student has already had payments applied toward some of the payment plan, you can’t delete those installments. But you can delete any installments not yet paid.
Go to the student’s profile.
Go to Person Selected > F/A Transactions.
Next to the payment plan click the money.
Next to the installment to delete click the X.
Apply plan with automatic payments using Authorize.net
| Panel | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||
Before setting up plans you must Generate Authorize.net Signature Key and Webhook. |
...
Go to the student’s profile.
Go to Person Selected > F/A Transactions.
In Award Code select the Campus Cafe payment plan. You may have different plans corresponding with different terms such as the schedule of payments.
In Semester select the academic period for which the payment plan applies.
In Start/Scheduled Date Override enter the date of the first payment. This must be tomorrow or later. You can’t enter today or a past date.
Click Add.
Select (check) Override default rules to create a pay plan with a fixed amount/length.
In Fixed payment amount enter the charge for each installment. In Number of payments enter the total number of payments. For example, if you entered a fixed payment of $100 and a number of payments of 5, you’d ultimately charge the student $1,000.
Select (check) Collect and Setup recurring payments in Authorize.net. You must select this box to have the auto-debit (scheduled) payments created and scheduled in Authorize.net.
Click Save.
Select a payment method, enter its details and click Submit Payment.
Review payment plans in Authorize.net
You can review payment plans in Campus Cafe through reporting. You can also see them in Authorize.net.
Log in to Authorize.net.
Click Recurring Billing.
The screen shows active recurring debit schedules for your students. To see additional details and the Campus Cafe student IDs, click on the Subscriber ID.
...
Troubleshoot Invalid OTS Token error
When submitting payment information on the payment screen for a payment plan, the process and connection to Authorize.net may process too quickly for both systems to save the payment data, resulting in the error "Invalid OTS Token." If this error occurs, the recurring auto-debit hasn't been applied, and will not be scheduled.
To avoid this error, Custom Control Program ID, WEBPAYMENT Sequence 3 Parameter 4, puts a pause in the process to allow Authorize.net and Campus Cafe to successfully complete the payment. The whole-number entered represents seconds Campus Cafe will pause to allow the process to complete. Campus Cafe recommends a value of 8, for an eight-second pause.
Troubleshoot rejected payment
If Authorize.net rejects a recurring payment as part of a payment plan, you can:
Let the student manually make payments, then manually associate the payments to the plan via the batch process.
In Campus Cafe, delete the payment plan and recreate it.
Log in to Authorize.net and create a new recurring payment. For this recurring payment to send information back to Campus Cafe, you will need to set the payment description to the student’s ID number. Nothing else can be in the payment description.
Apply plan with automatic payments using Stripe
If you’ve set up Stripe as your payment processor, in Campus Cafe an administrator can schedule a payment plan and enter a payment method in Campus Cafe. While Campus Cafe records the payment plan schedule, the payment method itself, such as the credit card number or bank account, is stored only in Stripe.
Add payment plan to student
Go to the student’s profile.
Go to Person Selected > F/A Transactions.
In Award Code select the Campus Cafe payment plan. You may have different plans corresponding with different terms such as the schedule of payments.
In Semester select the academic period for which the payment plan applies.
In Start/Scheduled Date Override enter the date of the first payment. This must be tomorrow or later. You can’t enter today or a past date.
Click Add.
Select (check) Override default rules to create a pay plan with a fixed amount/length.
In Fixed payment amount enter the charge for each installment. In Number of payments enter the total number of payments. For example, if you entered a fixed payment of $100 and a number of payments of 5, you’d ultimately charge the student $1,000.
Select (check) Collect and Setup recurring payments in Stripe. You must select this box to have the auto-debit (scheduled) payments created and scheduled in Stripe.
Click Save.
Select a payment method and enter its details.
Review payment plans in Stripe
You can review payment plans in Campus Cafe through reporting. You can also see them in Stripe.
Log in to Stripe.
From the main menu click Billing > Subscriptions.
You’ll see a list of recurring subscriptions.
...
Cancel payment plan
In Campus Cafe go to the student’s profile.
Go to Person Selected > F/A Transactions.
Next to the payment plan click the pencil.
Click Cancel Stripe Scheduled Payments. This cancels any future Stripe scheduled payments for that specific payment plan (subscription). If the student has additional payment plans, say for another semester, you’ll need to cancel those separately. Any unpaid installments will be zeroed out, and the scheduled, gross, and net disbursed amounts will automatically update to reflect the money received.
This process doesn’t refund previously submitted payments.
...
Apply payments to payment plans
Before appearing on a Campus Cafe student ledger or general ledger, all payments, including those from payment plans, must be posted through cash batch.
If a student pays within Campus Cafe or has a payment plan configured with automated payments, Campus Cafe applies the payment to the student’s earliest payment plan with an open balance.
Apply a cash or check payment
If the student pays you through another method, such as cash or check, you need to tell Campus Cafe which payment plan to associate the payment with.
Go to the student’s profile.
Go to Person Selected > Payments.
In Manual Cash Payments enter the payment Amount.
Select the Semester associated with the payment and the Bill Code.
In Open PayPlans select the payment plan to associate the payment with.
Click Process Payment. The payment appears on the student’s ledger once you post it using Cash Batch.
Apply a credit card payment or adjust a payment awaiting posting
Received payments go to Cash Batch before posting to student ledgers and your general ledger. Before posting a payment, you can associate it with a payment plan.
Go to Financials > Cash Batch.
Next to the transaction click the pencil.
In PayPlan Award Code select the payment plan.
Click Save. The payment appears on the student’s ledger once you post the cash batch.
Review student payment plan installments
To find all payment plan installments, whether paid or outstanding, use the F/A Disbursement Roster.
Go to Financials > F/A Disbursement Roster.
Next to Award Code click the three horizontal lines and select the desired payment plan(s) and click Apply.
Optionally set additional criteria. For example, to find all unpaid installments set Gross Disbursed Amount to 0. To see installments scheduled for within a certain period use the Scheduled Date From and/or Schedule Date To fields.
Click Submit.
Understanding the results
Click the column visibility button to display additional pieces of information such as:
...