Payment processing cases and types

This is the exception to voiding a payment beyond same-day.  

You would void the returned check payment which will affect your end of day balancing (requiring explanation likely) – then go to Add Fee on the record, select the B_POS fee schedule on the record and add the NSF bank fee, if you charge this, and invoice it.  Then it is suggested that you send the customer a letter/notice regarding the NSF and the policy on repayment terms, ie. no checks accepted, cash only.  You could also add a notice condition to the record and/or to the people/payer.

This is up to your jurisdiction, but our recommendation is that you do not process this type of change beyond the transaction date.  Note, this underscores the importance of balancing nightly, even just cursory.  You would not have balanced the day the payment type error occurred, you would have been off in cash or checks by total if you recorded the payment type incorrectly versus what’s in your cash drawer/deposit.  

You can elect to void the wrong type payment after the fact, and repost it correctly – but this will put you “out of balance” for the date of the void/repost as you will not have any actual “cash/check” to deposit on the date of correction, ie. no check and/or cash to show in deposit since it was deposited days before on the original payment transaction date.

This is most typical when they bring a precut check that is a little short, and they want to pay the difference in cash. First, make sure your fees are invoiced.  Go to My Navigation > Payment, select the Pay button – input your first payment type, ie. check, and payment information but do NOT hit SAVE, instead hit PAY MORE.  This will bring up the payment window again – now input your second payment type, ie. cash, and payment information, now select SAVE. 

What this does is put both payment transactions together on one individual receipt with the same payer which is ideal, and you don’t have to do the allocation of a ‘partial payment’.  Otherwise, processing two separate payments, saving each separately results in two receipts.

Definition:  Used to reduce the outstanding amount that the customer owes under the terms of the invoice.

Case:  you didn’t complete the plan review in time, so you have elected to not collect the full fee for plan review and provide the customer a ‘discount’.

Info: this payment type is a way to ‘discount’ outstanding fee balance – and is not the same as refunding paid monies.  You would first process a partial payment for the payable amount.  You would then process a second, separate payment of payment type Credit Memo for the unpaid amount you are ‘discounting’ – in the Payer field you will type “Credit Memo Payment” and in the Payment Comment, as best practice, you would include a brief comment of what you’re giving them a credit on, why, and who authorized it.

This payment type effectively “pays” the unpaid amount you are crediting them and does not show up on your cash balancing and revenue reports as a result of it not being actual revenue.   It does however show up on your transactional GL/Account reports since a payment is being applied to fees and accounts.

Definition:  Used when it is necessary to include a fee on a permit, but a resolution/policy indicates a fee or some portion of the fee is not being paid or is ‘waived’.

Case:  a Habitat for Humanity home is going up, and your Department has elected to waive the permit fees.

Info:  fees are assessed and invoiced as typical – you would then process a payment of payment type Fee Waiver for the amount you have elected to waive – in the Payer field you will type “Fee Waiver Payment” and in the Payment Comment, as best practice, you would include a brief comment of what you’re waiving as per policy, why, and who authorized it.

This payment type effectively “pays” the waived fee amount and does not show up on your cash balancing and revenue reports as a result of it not being actual revenue.  It does however show up on your transactional GL/Account reports since a payment is being applied to fees and accounts.

Write Off payment type

Definition:  Used when an invoiced fee cannot be collected.

Case:  you are monitoring your aged receivables report, and you have decided you are done trying to collect an outstanding balance on a record and are now going to write it off, and potentially send to collections as well if your agency does collections.

Info:  this payment type allows you to write off outstanding invoiced fees as “bad debt” and uncollectable – most Finance Departments require aged receivables to be monitored and tracked closely.  You would process a payment type Write Off for the amount/fees you cannot collect on – in the Payer field you will type “Write Off Payment” and in the Payment Comment, as best practice, you would include a brief comment of what you’re writing off, how aged it is, why you’re writing it off, and who authorized it.

This payment type effectively “pays” the outstanding write off balance/amount and does not show up on your cash balancing and revenue reports as a result of it not being actual revenue.  It does however show up on your transactional GL/Account reports since a payment is being applied to fees and accounts.

Definition:  used to reflect/record a payment that was posted or receipted outside of Accela, such as receipted to a financial system directly.

Case:  Deposit or Bond payment was made to the City/County cashier and receipted in the agency financial system directly.

Info:  this payment is only used to reflect payments made outside of Accela.  You would process a payment of Journal Entry for the external payment amount – in the Payer field you will type “Journal Entry Payment” and in the Payment Comment, as best practice, you would include a brief comment that a payment was made in an external system, what system, the receipt number from the other system, the payment method, the date posted, and any sort of approval code or check number.

This payment type only reflects the external payment amount/type/details, and does not show up on your cash balancing and revenue reports as a result of it not being revenue posted in Accela.  It does however show up on your transactional GL/Account reports since a payment is being applied to existing fees and accounts.

Definition:  used to restore a payment to a record where a payment was voided in error.

Case:  6-month old payment was voided in error; void was accidentally done on the wrong record.

Info:  this payment is only used to restore payments voided in error as the monies were already deposited on a prior date/year/fiscal cycle.  You would process a payment of Restore Payment for the voided payment amount – in the Payer field you will type “Restore Payment” and in the Payment Comment, as best practice, you would include a brief comment that a payment was voided in error and is only being restored, and reference information to the original ‘voided’ payment such as original receipt #, payment method, payor, and original posting date.

This payment type effectively restores the original payment amount/type, although on current date, and does not show up on your cash balancing and revenue reports as a result of it not being “new” or current revenue.  It does however show up on your transactional GL/Account reports since a payment is being reapplied to existing fees and accounts.

Important note:  Restore Payment should only be used to restore ‘Cash’, ‘Check’, ’Credit Card’, ‘Fund Transfer’, ‘Internal Transfer’ and ‘Refund Check’ payment types.  Using it to restore other exceptional payment types to include ‘Credit Memo’, ‘Fee Waiver’, ‘Write Off’ and ‘Billed’ will not appear correctly on reports and will cause financial issues.

Definition:  used when another department within the agency is paying.

Case:  the Public Works department at your agency is purchasing a Commercial Plumbing permit for a water main replacement.

Info:  this payment is from one internal account (GL) to another.  You would process a payment of payment type Internal Transfer – in the Payer field you will input the department/workgroup name of who is paying (ideally indicated as the Applicant and/or Contact on the record) – enter the full GL account number of the account that is paying into the ‘Internal Transfers – Acct # to Transfer From’ field, and in the Payment Comment indicate the workgroup, the project, and any other important details.

This payment type effectively records the account number for payment and the payment transaction itself does show on transactional GL/Account code reports, but the paying GL would likely need to be processed as a journal entry into your financial system.

Definition:  used when the customer will be billed externally from the Accela system.

Case:  the local school district comes in to purchase permits with a Purchase Order.

Info:  this ‘payment’ is effectively for the purpose of being able to issue the permit without payment-in-hand and to advance the workflow, and is almost exclusively for Purchase Orders.  A Purchase Order is a ‘promise to pay’ of guaranteed funds – as best practice, the “Bill To” party indicated on the Purchase Order should minimally be a Contact on the record as “Bill To” and the amount indicated on the Purchase Order should be adequate to cover specific fee items in full.  Prior to payment, print/generate the invoice to send to the “Bill To” party.  You would then process a payment of payment type Billed – in the Payer field you will record the “Bill To” party name from the Purchase Order – in the Payment Comment you will enter the full Purchase Order number from the Purchase Order.

This payment type records the Purchase Order number and ‘pays’ the record for issuance.  The printed invoice should be sent to the “Bill To” party and/or provided to the Applicant at time of application for payment upon receipt.  Once the actual payment is received, you will void the Billed payment and post the actual payment as whichever payment type it is – in the Payment Comment you would enter that it’s a payment for a purchase order.

Definition: user to record a refund that was/will be issued external from the Accela system.

Case: a refund has been requested/determined, and once documentation is received, your Finance Department cuts the refund check to the customer regardless of original payment type.

Info: in this case, a refund must first be processed in Accela and the documentation printed/forwarded to your Finance Department for check processing [see Refunds in Accela V360 Back Office training document for step instructions on how to process a refund in Accela].  Once the refund has been processed in Accela, you would process a payment of payment type Refund Check to ‘pay the refund out’ – in the Payer field you will indicate the name of the party/person you are refunding – in the Payment Comment you will enter a brief comment indicating the reason for refund and any other pertinent information.

Definition: Accela function when paid funds are transferred from one record to another record(s).

Case: customer pulled two permits for same address – want paid monies transferred from duplicate record to pay issuance fees on other.

Info: must first void paid fees to credit on the source/duplicate record; this unapplies the monies and makes them available for fund transfer to another record.  Copy [CTRL-C] the record number where the unapplied funds are.  Then search to the record that is going to be receiving the monies, open the record and go to My Navigation > Payment > select the Funds Transfer button.  Paste in [CTRL-V] the source record number into the Record Number field for search, select Submit.  The resulting record should be the one that has the unapplied funds – check the checkbox and Select.  The Fund Transfer screen will load, input the amount you wish to transfer – we strongly recommend you only transfer the amount you need – unused unapplied monies should remain on the record they were paid on to retain the payor relationship.  Input a comment referencing why the monies are being transferred and who authorized the transfer, select Submit.  The Payment screen will refresh to show this transaction – place a check in the checkbox next to the Fund Transfer payment in the Transaction at the bottom of the window, select Apply.  The Accela Fund Transfer function will never apply the transferred monies; you will always have to manually apply these monies as needed.   The Apply screen will load and you will need to indicate how much to which fee items accordingly, then Submit.  The Payment window will refresh again and Amount Not Applied should now equal $0.00 and the Total Balance should be adjusted to reflect the amount applied from the received Fund Transfer.

Best practice would indicate that the person who paid the monies should provide authorization for the transfer of their money, and that the record receiving the transferred funds should have that same person associated to it in order to maintain payer history for audit purposes.