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).

Required permissions

Create a payment plan

Payment plans consist of a financial aid code and a schedule of payments. For example, the payment plan you call PAY3 may consist of three installments, one due every 30 days.

Create a financial aid code

If all the revenue generated through payments from payment plans goes to the same Campus Cafe transaction code, you generally need only 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.
   
   

   Open

   

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

   Open

   

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 due 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 created 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. Typically a payment plan is divided into equal installments and the sum of all installments must equal 100%.
     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. But since all disbursements must sum to 100%, 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 among 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 a certain number of 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 if using Percentage Disbursed 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 and 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

By using an activity tracking template and workflow, you can email students reminders of their upcoming payments or notify those who missed a payment.

Create the email (activity tracking template)

An activity tracking template and workflow let you decide the content of the email. You can create activities that remind students of upcoming payments or that notify them they missed a payment. Once you create the activity, you can re-use it for all your students in the future; you don’t need to create a new one for each reminder.

1. Go to All Users > Activity Tracking Templates.

2. In Member select the desired category (e.g. Bursar). The category controls which administrators can see the activity or assign it to students.
   
   

3. In Template Name enter text to describe the activity. Use something that administrators can find when searching for the activity to assign to students. For example Pay Plan Reminder.
   
   

4. Click Add; a new screen appears.

5. At the bottom of your screen, click Save.

6. At the bottom of your screen under Added Workflows, in the Work Flow Edit column click the pencil.
   
   

7. In Type and Category select Email.
   
   

8. In Mode select Email Sent on Add.
   
   

9. In the Actions area select (check) Email Tracked Person. Then select whether to email the student’s preferred email, non-preferred email or both (all).
   
   

10. In Email Default Subject Text enter the subject line of the email. For example You have an upcoming tuition payment due.
    
    

11. In Email Default Body Text enter the content of the email.
    You can use the double arrows to insert a merge field. You may want to merge:

    • First Name: FIRST_NAME

    • Payment Plan Description: COMMENT_3

    • Installment Amount Due: AMOUNT_ORIGINAL

    • Installment Due Date: DUE_DATE

    • Last Four Digits of Student's SSN: COMMENT_4
      
      

12. Click Save.

Send email automatically

You can tell Campus Cafe to automatically send emails to remind students of upcoming payments or to notify them if they missed a payment. You can decide which payment plans send emails and when they occur.

1. Go to Admin > Custom Control.

2. In Search enter PAY_REMINDER.
   
   

3. Next to any of the PAY_REMINDER rows click the pencil.
   
   

4. In Parameter Value 1 enter a comma separated list of pay plan codes that should be excluded from sending reminders. For example, if you had pay plans PP3, PP6 and PP8, PP10 and didn’t want PP6 or PP10 to trigger automated emails, you’d enter PP6,PP10
   
   

5. In Parameter Value 2 enter, as a whole number, the number of days in advance of a payment due to send a reminder. If you don’t enter anything, no reminders will send.
   
   

6. In Parameter Value 3 you’ll enter the name of the activity tracking template containing the email to send. You need to prefix the activity name with its member (category) and a colon so MEMBER:TEMPLATE NAME. Keep spaces in the activity tracking name. For example if you had an activity tracking template called Pay Plan Reminder in the Bursar member, you’d enter BURSAR:PAY PLAN REMINDER
   
   

7. In Parameter Value 4 enter, as a whole number, the number of days a payment is overdue before sending sending a late notification. If you don’t enter anything, no reminders will send.
   
   

8. In Parameter Value 5 you’ll enter the name of the activity tracking template containing the overdue (late) email to send. You need to prefix the activity name with its member (category) and a colon so MEMBER:TEMPLATE NAME. Keep spaces in the activity tracking name. For example if you had an activity tracking template called Pay Plan Overdue in the Bursar member, you’d enter BURSAR:PAY PLAN OVERDUE
   
   

9. Click Save.

10. Submit a Campus Cafe support ticket to activate the emails.

Send email manually (ad hoc)

You may not want to send automated emails and prefer to send them manually after reviewing a list of students with upcoming payments. Or you may want to send emails in addition to the ones you’ve scheduled.

1. Go to Financials > F/A Disbursement Roster.

2. Next to Award Code click the three horizontal lines, select the payment plan(s) and click Apply.
   
   

3. Set Net Disbursed Amount to Is One Of 0. This removes paid installments from your results.
   
   

4. In Schedule Date From enter the first payment plan due dates you want to show. In Schedule Date To enter the last payment plan due dates you want to show. Effectively these two dates set a range, with any payment plans due between them appearing.
   
   

5. You may need to increase your # of Results to match your expected number of payments.
   
   

6. Click Submit. Upcoming payments appear.

7. Select the students to email.

8. Click Add Tracking (Batch).
   
   

9. Next to Member:Template Name click the magnifying glass.
   
   

10. Select the activity containing the email. You can use the box to search for it if you know its name.
    
    

11. Select the Semester associated with this communication. This is typically the academic period associated with the payment.

12. In Add Only For These People select

    • all to send the email to all the selected students even if they’ve received it before.

    • People where tracking doesn’t exist to send only to students who never received the reminder. This isn’t recommended because typically students receive multiple reminders for payments.

    • People where tracking doesn’t exist in semester to send only to students who never received the reminder for the selected semester. You may want to do this if your intention is to send only one reminder to each student per semester.

13. Click Submit.

Next steps

• Apply payment plans to students.