Payment batch screen

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Use the 'Payments' transaction to enter payments for existing orders. You use the batch method to enter payments. Before starting to enter payments, sort them into batches of similar types—the same payment type and payment amounts. By grouping them in this way, you won't have to type this information over and over and you'll reduce the chance of making errors.

Except for combination orders, you always apply payments to a specific order, not to the overall subscription. If a customer has a subscription with more than one unpaid order (a rare occurrence), you must designate the order to which you're applying the payment. This shouldn't be a problem, because the customer usually sends payment with the return half of a bill, which has the order number printed on it. (Click here for an explanation of the distinctions among a customer, an order and a subscription.)

If the customer pays less than the amount due for an order, QuickFill warns you. If the difference is more than the minimum bill amount you specified on the publication definition form, QuickFill asks you if you want to write off the difference, send a bill to the customer, or change the price of the order to match the payment. If you want to bill the customer, QuickFill resumes the billing series for that subscription and issues bills for the remaining amount due (Click here for details on defining billing policies for a publication and defining billing series).

QuickFill also warns you when a customer pays more than the amount due. QuickFill gives you the choice of accepting the overpayment or changing the price of the order to match the payment. If you accept the overpayment and you chose on the publication definition form to refund overpayments, QuickFill automatically issues a refund the next time you run the 'Refunds' update. Otherwise, QuickFill automatically applies the credit to the next renewal (Click here for details on defining refund policies for a publication and details on the refund update.)

If you find that a customer has sent you a duplicate payment (you'll know it's a duplicate because the order shows an amount due of zero), you may want to accept the payment and apply it to a renewal instead of returning the amount to the customer. Here's the easiest way to do it: Enter the payment for the current order, which gives the customer a credit balance. When you finish posting the payment batch, enter an unpaid renewal for the subscription. (Click here for details on the 'Renewals' transaction.) QuickFill then automatically applies the credit to the renewal.

• Hint: renewal at birth

On your bills you may offer your subscribers the opportunity to extend their subscriptions by increasing the amount of their payment by the difference in price between a one-year and a two-year subscription. When you receive such a payment you should enter it as a renewal, not a payment. QuickFill will then create a renewal order and automatically split the payment between the original order and the renewal.

• Hint: reinstate

If you post a payment to an order that QuickFill has suspended for nonpayment, QuickFill automatically unsuspends the subscription—as long as the payment is enough to cover all the issues the customer has received to date. You don't have to use the 'Reinstate' transaction.

If you post a payment to an order that QuickFill has canceled for nonpayment, you'll get a chance to reinstate the subscription—as long as the payment is enough to cover all the issues the customer has received to date. Again, you don't have to use the 'Reinstate' transaction.

Payments for combination orders

When a customer orders multiple items and asks to be billed, QuickFill will combine the orders into a combination order and list all of the items on a single bill. You do not have to enter a separate payment for each order in the combination. Instead, when you enter the combination order number QuickFill will display a list of the orders and the amount due for each one. When you enter the payment amount QuickFill will automatically distribute the payment amongst the orders. If the payment is insufficient to cover all of the orders, the payment will be applied to the most expensive order(s).

Fields on the payment batch screen

When you select 'Payments' under 'Transactions' on the main menu, you'll see a batch header form.

On the top line is the number QuickFill has assigned to this batch and the date. Enter in the two fields below—'Declared number of items' and 'Declared dollar amount'— the number of payments in this batch and the total payment amount.

Fill in the remaining two fields of the batch header if all or most of the payments are of the same type or for the same amount:

Payment type

Enter a code here if all or most of the payments are the same type. You can type one of the codes listed below or right click in this field to get a list of payment type codes from which to select.

• Note: Pre-processed credit cards

Use payment types MP, VP, AP, DP, NP and PN to enter orders for which you have already processed a credit card payment and you do not want QuickFill's Credit Card processing feature to process the charge.

• Note: Internet orders

If you accept orders via the Internet you should flag the Internet orders by suffixing the payment type with an "I". Using the payment types ending in "I" tells Element Payment Services that this is an e-commerce transaction.

Payment amount

Enter an amount in this field if all or most of the payments are for the same amount. Otherwise leave this field blank.