About payment plans

Payment plans let students pay their bills over time in multiple installments.

You can record payment plans on a student’s Campus Cafe bill so students can see their payment due dates and you can report on expected revenue. If you’ve set up a payment processor, students can then pay the amount due through Campus Cafe on the due date. You, or students, can also schedule automatic payments.

Payment plans are recorded in the financial aid module. The student doesn’t have to have financial aid to have a payment plan.

Prerequisites

• Create transaction code(s) to associate with the payment plans. Even if you have multiple payment plan options, you can associate them all with the same transaction code so they all roll up to the same line on your general ledger. Alternatively, you may want different transaction codes tied to different payment plans. For example, perhaps one payment plan is for students at your North Campus and another for students at your South Campus. You want to keep the revenue separate so you create separate payment plans for each campus and tie them to separate transaction codes.

• To accept credit card or ACH payments, configure a third-party payment processor (Authorize.net, PayPal, or Stripe).

Create a payment plan

Payment plans consist of a financial aid code and a schedule of payments. For example, the payment plan PAY3 may consist of three installments, one due every 30 days. The amount of each installment is a third of the outstanding balance when the payment plan was applied to the student.

Create a financial aid code

If all the revenue generated through payments from your payments plans goes to the same Campus Cafe transaction code, you generally only need one financial aid code even if you offer multiple payment schedules.

If the revenue generated through payment plans must be associated with different Campus Cafe transaction codes, you’ll need to create a corresponding financial aid code for each one.

1. Go to Financials > F/A Code Maintenance.

2. Click New Code.

3. In Award Code enter a few characters to describe the code. For example PP for payment plan.
   
   

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4. In Description detail the code. For example Payment Plan.
   
   

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5. Select the Transaction Code. This tells Campus Cafe where to book the revenue collected through the payment plan. For example Tuition.
   
   

6. In Award Type select IsPayPlan.
   
   

7. If you want the payment plan to show on a financial aid award letter, select Print Award Letter.

8. In Default Status select how this shows on a student statement. The most common option is pending.
   
   

    

9. If the payment plan will cross multiple financial aid years, select (check) Disbursements Can Span Multi-Award Years. We recommend you select this to provide greatest flexibility.
   
   

10. In Reminder Days Out you’ll control how far into the future scheduled payments show to a student by entering a number of days. For example, entering 365 will show students all scheduled payments within a year of the first payment date. We recommend the number you enter represent at least the number of days of your longest installment plan. For example, if you let students spread out payments over six months, you’d want to enter at least 180.
    
    

Create installment pattern

Now that you have a financial aid code, you can create a cadence of installments, such as a payment due every 30 days. You can use the same financial aid code for multiple installment patterns.

1. Go to Financials > Payment Plan Rules.

2. Click Add.
   
   

3. In Award Code select the financial aid code corresponding with the payment plan.
   
   

4. In Award Year select the financial aid year that encapsulates the installments. If the installments cross multiple award years, select the earliest award year.
   
   

5. In Add Number of Disbursements Per Semester enter the total number of installments (scheduled payments).
   
   

6. Click Add > OK. The award code appears in a table with each row representing one installment.

7. Select (check) the box for the first disbursement. This may be at the bottom.
   
   

8. Click Edit.
   
   

9. You can either have a payment plan divide the total balance among multiple installments or charge a fixed amount for each installment. Dividing the total balance is ideal when your students all have different balances due to differing financial aid, tuition or housing costs. Using a fixed amount is ideal if your academic program charges a flat rate and all students pay the same amount out of pocket.

   • To divide the total balance in Percentage Disbursed enter the percentage of the balance due for this installment. Most typically a payment plan is divided into equal installments. For example, if you had a six-month payment plan with an equal payment due each month, you’d enter 16.6 because each payment would represent 16.6% of the total amount of the payment plan. Since all disbursements must sum to 100% in our example, five installments would be 16.6 and one would be 17.

   • To charge a fixed amount for each installment, in Amount Disbursed enter the amount. For example, if we had six installments and entered $100 for each, we would ultimately charge the student $600 by the end of the payment plan.

10. Click Update.

11. We now need to tell Campus Cafe how to treat the other installments. In our example, we have five more installments to configure. Select (check) the box for the second disbursement. This may be at the bottom.
    
    

12. Click Edit.

13. Enter either a Percentage Disbursed or Amount Disbursed. In our example, we have six payments equally divided amount the outstanding balance so we’ll enter 16.6.
    
    

14. You need to tell Campus Cafe how to calculate the due date for this installment. You can choose one of the following.

    • If you want Campus Cafe to bill the installment on the same day of each month enter that day in Day of Month. To indicate the last day of the month, regardless of how many days the month has, enter 31. Using this method helps ensure all your students have the same due date.

    • If you want Campus Cafe to bill the installment so many days after the prior installment, in Interval In Days enter the number of days from the last installment. For example, if payments are due every 30 days, enter 30. Using this method, your students might have different due dates if their first installments are not all due on the same date.

    • When you assign a payment plan to a student, you’ll select the first installment date. If you want Campus Cafe to add a number of days to this date, in Days Offset enter that number of days.

15. Repeat steps 11-14 for each remaining installment. If multiple installments have the same configuration you can select (check) them and click edit to apply the configuration to all of them at once.
    
    Remember that if using Percentage Disbursed that all your disbursement percentages must sum to 100.

Example: Six-installment plan

The below payment plan contains six installments as represented by disburse order 1-6.

The first installment (#1 at the bottom) will be due to the date we set when assigning it to a student because we have the Day of Month, Days Offset or Interval in Days all set to 0.

The remaining installments will be due on the first of the month because we have Day of Month set to 1.

The first five installments will have an amount due of 16.6% of the student’s overall balance. The last payment (#6) will be 17% of the balance. The last percentage is different because we need all the installment percentages to sum to 100%.

Show payment plans on student bills

You can decide whether to show payment plans on students' Campus Cafe bills. Typically, institutions want to show this so students know when they need to make payments.

1. Go to Admin > Custom Control.

2. In Search enter PAYPLANSHO.

3. Click the pencil.

4. In Parameter Value 1 enter Y.

The specific payment installments students will see depends on:

1. When creating the financial aid code for the payment plan, the Reminder Days Out you set. Campus Cafe shows only payments due within the future spanning the number of days you entered.

2. How you’ve configured Financial Aid Control including the Statement F/A View Semester and Payment Page F/A View Semester.

Plan reminder emails

Reminders for payments due may be sent by using the F/A Disbursement Roster to locate the installments of which to remind students. Reminders can be sent for both upcoming payments and overdue installments. A workflow/activity tracking template is utilized to email students.

Create the Activity Tracking Template

This allows the template to be selected when sending a reminder to a group of students. A activity can be re-used and does not need to be created each time a reminder email is sent. 

1. Navigate to All Users > Activity Tracking Templates

2. In the Member box select the desired member (e.g. Bursar)

3. In the Template Name box enter text to describe the activity

4. Click Add; a new screen appears

5. Click Save

6. At the bottom of the page under Work Flow Edit click the icon; a pop-up appears

7. Under Type choose Email

8. Under Category choose Email

9. Under Mode choose Email Sent on Add

10. Under Actions check Email Tracked Person

11. Under Email Tracked Person select which email address to use

12. In the Email Default Subject Text enter the subject line of the email

13. In the Email Default Body Text enter the content of the email
    The below data elements may be merged, to do so click the double arrows and select the merge tag.
    Payment Plan Description: COMMENT_3
    Installment Amount Due: AMOUNT_ORIGINAL
    Installment Due Date: DUE_DATE
    Last Four Digits of Student's SSN: COMMENT_4

14. Click Save

Select students to remind and send email

1. In Campus Cafe, navigate to Student Financials > F/A Disbursement Roster

2. Use the filters to set the criteria to return the outstanding payment plan installments you wish to remind students about. For example, you may choose the Award Code(s) that correspond to your payment plans, set the Disbursed Amount = 0 to eliminate paid installments and the Scheduled Date To <= to the due date to eliminate future installments.

3. From the results, check the individual payment plan installments you wish to remind students of
   Tip: Click Select All to choose all results

4. Click Add Tracking (Batch)

5. In the Member:Template Name choose the activity tracking template 

6. Click Submit

Automated Payment Plan Reminder Emails

Campus Cafe has the ability to send automated payment plan reminder emails, and overdue payment reminder emails if a payment is not received by a scheduled planned payment date. The time in advance of the due date can be configured, and payment plans can be excluded from reminder emails on a plan code bases utilizing the new Custom Controls below under the PAY_REMINDER setup:

1. Parameter #1 should be a comma separated list of pay plan codes that should be excluded from this functionality

2. Parameter #2 should be the number of days in advance of a payment to send a reminder (if blank, ahead-of-time reminders will not be sent). Whole numbers only.

3. Parameter #3 should be the MEMBER:TEMPLATE of the Activity Tracking Template to assign for ahead of time reminders. Leave all spaces in the names of the member and template.

4. Parameter #4 should be the number of days a payment can be late before sending a reminder (if blank, past due reminders will not be sent.) Whole numbers only

5. Parameter #5 should be the MEMBER:TEMPLATE of the Activity Tracking Template to assign for late reminders. Leave all spaces in the names of the member and template.