Payment Plans

About Payment Plans

Payment plans allow a student to spread out a balance over time. Campus Cafe leverages the financial aid module to schedule payment plans.

Create a Payment Plan

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

Create a Financial Aid Code

1. Navigate to Student Financials > F/A Code Maintenance
2. Click New Code
   Refer to setting up financial aid award codes for information about fields; the below fields have specific setup required for a payment plan.
   Award Type must be P - Is PayPlan
   Disbursements Can Span Multi-Award Years must be checked if the payment installments will span multiple financial aid years.
   Reminder Days Out represents the range of future payments a student will see. For example, entering 365 will show the payments upcoming within a year of the first installment date.
3. Click Create

Create Installment Pattern

The installment pattern is set using financial aid disbursement rules.

1. Navigate to Student Financials > Payment Plan Rules 
2. Click Add
3. In the Award Code drop down choose the financial aid code corresponding with the payment plan
4. In the Award Year drop down choose the financial aid year that encapsulates the installments
5. In the Add Number of Disbursements Per Semester enter the total number of installments
6. Click Add
7. The award code for the set year will appear in the results below, repeating each time for the total number of disbursements
8. Check the select box for disbursement period 1
9. Click Edit
   Percentage Disbursed: The percentage of the balance due for this installment. All disbursements totaled must equal 100%.
   or
   Amount Disbursed: Instead of splitting the payments by a percentage of the total, the user can assign fixed amounts to a payment plan.
   Day of Month: The installment will be scheduled on this day of the month. Entering 31 will indicate the last day of the month regardless the number of days in the month.
   Interval In Days: The disbursement date will be set to the date of the first disbursement plus the number of days entered in this box.
   Days Offset: The disbursement date will be set to the start date of the semester plus the number of days entered in this box.
10. Click Update
11. Repeat for each installment

Apply Payment Plan to Student

Because each student may have a unique situation, balance and cost of attendance, payment plans must be applied individually to each student.

1. Navigate to the student
2. Navigate to Person Selected > F/A
3. In the Award Code drop down choose the payment plan code
4. In the Semester drop down choose the semester
5. In the Start Date Override box enter the date that will start the disbursement rule.
   • If using day of the month as the disbursement pattern, the system 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.
6. Click Add
7. In the Award Amount box enter the total balance for the payment plan
8. Click Save
9. The system will automatically create installments

Remove Payment Plan from Student

If no payments have been applied to a payment plan, the entire payment plan may be deleted.

1. Navigate to the student
2. Navigate to Person Selected > F/A
3. Next to the payment plan to delete click the red X

If payments have been applied to some installments but not all, the outstanding installments may be deleted.

1. Navigate to the student
2. Navigate to Person Selected > F/A
3. Next to the payment plan to delete click the dollar icon
4. Next to the outstanding installment to delete click the red X
5. Click OK to confirm the deletion

Create Auto-Debit Payments Plans through Authorize.net Integration

A prerequisite to setting up Authorize.net Auto-Debit Payment Plans through Campus Cafe is to follow the steps here to Generate Authorize.net Signature Key and Webhook.

Once the webhook has been installed:

1. Navigate to the student
2. Navigate to Person Selected > F/A
3. In the Award Code drop down choose the payment plan code
4. In the Semester drop down choose the semester
5. In the Start Date Override box enter the date that will start the disbursement rule (Auto Debit Payment Plans must have their first payment scheduled for the next day or a day in the future.  You may not schedule the current day or a day in the past.)
6. Click Add
7. Click the "Override Default Rules" checkbox
8. Input the fixed payment amount and the number of payments
9. Check the "Collect and Setup recurring payments in Authorize.net" (If the box is not checked, auto-debit payments will not be created in Authorize.net)
10. Click Save
11. The user will then be prompted to provide a payment information that will be used for the auto-debit, once filled out, click Submit Payment to send the information to Authorize.net
12. The system will automatically create installments in Campus Cafe as well as in Authorize.net
13. To review scheduled payment plans in Authorize.net click on "Reoccurring Billing" in the navigation menu once logged in and click on "Subscriptions"
14. The page will show you the active reoccurring debit schedules for your students to see additional details and the Campus Cafe Student ID's, click on the Subscriber ID 

Troubleshoot "Invalid OTS Token" error

When submitting payment information on the payment screen for a pay plan, the process and connection to Authorize.net may process too quickly for both systems to save the payment data, resulting in an error "Invalid OTS Token". If this error arises, the recurring auto-debit has not been applied, and will not be scheduled.  To avoid this error, a new Custom Control Program ID, WEBPAYMENT Sequence 3 Parameter 4, has been created to insert a pause in the process to allow Authorize.net and Campus Cafe to successfully complete the payment. The value entered is a whole number, and will be treated as the seconds the system will pause to allow the process to complete successfully. Campus Cafe recommends a value of 8, for an eight second pause.

Show Payment Plans on Student Bills

For students to see the payment plan installments and amounts on billing statements, configure F/A Control for the year in which the payment plans are scheduled. Refer to the F/A Control documentation for additional information.

In  addition, the Custom Control (Admin > Custom Control Maintenance) PAYPLANSHO must be set to Y.

Student View

Students will see the payment plan on their billing statement (My Info > Billing Statement)

Apply Payments to Payment Plans

When payments are received they must be associated with the payment plan.

Regardless of how the payment is received (by the student or manually), the payment will appear in Cash Batch (Student Financials > Cash Batch).

For Payments that are received from the student or from the scheduled reoccurring auto-debit integration through Authorize.net, the earliest applied payment plan with an open balance for the student will be assigned automatically.

To remove/change the automatic applied payment plan, or to add a payment plan to an existing manually added transaction with a Payplan Semester listed:

1. Click the pencil next to the transaction
2. In the PayPlan Award Code drop down choose or remove the pay plan to associate the payment with
3. Click Save
4. Process the Cash Batch

Affect on Balances

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.

Searching for Student Payment Plan Installments

To find all payment plan installments, whether paid or outstanding, use the F/A Disbursement Roster.

1. Navigate to Student Financials > F/A Disbursement Roster
2. Next to the Award Code box, use the three-bar menu to select desired payment plan(s)
3. 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
4. Click Submit

Understanding the Results

Use the column visibility button to display additional pieces of information

• Award Code corresponds to the payment plan
• Scheduled Date represents the payment plan installment date
• Scheduled Disbursement represents the payment plan installment amount 
• Gross Disbursed indicates the amount paid toward the payment plan installment amount 
• Optionally select a population of student and click the Send Selected To Student Finder to carry the ID numbers to the Student Finder where additional information can be combined 

Payment 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.