Automatic Payment Collection
Payment collection, as the name suggests, generally involves all processes or tools for actively collecting money from customers – instead of just waiting for them to pay.
In JustOn, specifically, payment collection refers to payment run jobs that automatically collect pre-authorized payments via integrated payment providers.
Understanding Payment Collection
Generally, you distinguish between procedures for triggering outstanding payments within the regular due terms and those for collecting overdue receivables.
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Automatic payment collection | JustOn can store credit card or bank account data and, if supported by the payment provider integration, use it to automatically collect payments for open invoices. |
| SEPA payment orders | JustOn exports bank transfer orders – SEPA Direct Debit and SEPA Credit – for invoices or account balances, which can directly be used by banks for triggering the corresponding payment operations. |
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Account statements | Account statements are reports that show the billings and payments of a given account for a specific time period. Businesses can use them to remind customers of sales that have not yet been paid, without expressly stating an overdue receivable and without starting a dunning process. JustOn implements account statements using specific statements that summarize the account's balances. |
| Dunning statements | Dunning statements officially notify customers of overdue payments. According to the overdue status, these notifications can progress from friendly reminders to firm warning letters. JustOn implements dunning process support based on configurable dunning statements. Using multiple dunning levels, you can build your individual dunning escalation scenario. |
| Debt collection | If the dunning communication remains unfruitful, businesses may turn customers over to debt collection agencies, who usually proceed to take other collection options. To support this option, you can specify the name of a debt collection agency when configuring your dunning levels. When set, JustOn copies the name to the invoice, where it is then available for further custom processing. |
| Individual value adjustment | Individual value adjustment (or IVA) is an accounting procedure for devaluing receivables, for example, outstanding payment requests for invoices. JustOn implements IVA for invoices using specific bookkeeping data. |
| Write-off | Write-off is an accounting procedure for reducing or completely removing the value of an asset or receivable – for example, an uncollectible payment for an invoice. JustOn supports writing off invoices using specific balances that count against the invoice balance. |
Payment Collection in JustOn
JustOn can store credit card or bank account data and use it to automatically collect payments for open invoices.
Info
For credit card-based payments, the payment collection requires a payment provider integration (via the legacy JustOn Self-Service Extension) with support for pre-authorized payment transactions.
Implementation Details
The (legacy) JustOn Self-Service Extension has included a payment page. It has provided invoice recipients the option to pay their invoices. To this end, the JustOn Self-Service Extension has integrated with payment service providers.
General payment workflow
Assume a merchant's org that integrates the JustOn Self-Service Extension with a payment service provider. The payment page is set up to provide invoice recipients (as payment guest users) the option to pay their invoices.
General payment workflow
(1) The invoice recipient (as payment guest user) clicks Pay Now for one of the available payment providers.
- This displays an input form that allows to enter the banking details.
- The user clicks the pay button on the input form.
(2) Upon receiving the payment request, the payment provider validates the data.
(3) On successful validation, the payment provider captures the payment amount in the user's bank. Otherwise, the payment provider returns an error, which is displayed in the input form.
(4) The payment provider notifies JustOn about the capture result.
- If the capture is successful, JustOn creates a Balance record for the captured amount, and displays the success message. The balance field
TransactionNois set to a provider-specific transaction number for this capture. - If the capture is not successful, JustOn creates a Payment Entry record that holds the provider-specific information about the failed capture, and displays an error message.
(5) On the next settlement date, the user's bank transfers the captured amount to the payment provider. Subsequently, the payment provider passes the amount to the merchant's bank.
Future Payments
Depending on the payment provider you use, the JustOn Self-Service Extension can expose the Future Payments option on the payment page. Future payments make use of provider-specific means to pre-authorize and execute recurring charges (or other subsequent payments) without the need to repeatedly prompt users for card or account numbers.
Payment Instruments
With the future payments feature enabled, JustOn creates an account-specific Payment Instrument record, which holds the corresponding credit card or bank account information. The payment instrument records are accessible via the corresponding related list on the account detail page.
Payment Run
Based on the saved payment instruments, JustOn can execute payment runs in order to automatically collect pre-authorized subsequent payments.
If there are multiple active payment instruments for one account, the payment run will pick one at random. JustOn therefore recommends to keep only one active future payment-related payment instrument. For details about deactivating payment instruments, see How to disable payment instruments?
Invoices with the payment method Bank Transfer are excluded from the automatic payment collection. Note that customers may modify their payment preferences, enabling credit cards and future payments after invoices have been issued. So to make existing open invoices subject to the payment run, you change the payment method to Credit Card.
Payment Collection Workflow
In broad outline, the automatic payment collection usually works as follows:
(1) A first invoice is issued to the customer.
(2) The customer pays for the invoice via credit card and allows to store the card data for future use. JustOn saves the card data in an account-specific payment instrument.
(3) A second invoice is issued to the customer: The customer is notified that the payment is collected automatically using the stored card data.
(4) Once the payment due date has been reached, the payment run job collects the payment using the stored payment instrument, creates a corresponding balance and sets the invoice Paid.
Invoices with the payment method Bank Transfer are excluded from the automatic payment collection. Note that customers may modify their payment preferences, enabling credit cards and future payments after invoices have been issued. So to make existing open invoices subject to the payment run, you change the payment method to Credit Card.
Postponing the payment due date for an invoice suspends applicable payment collections for the specified time.
JustOn allows a maximum of three failing payment instrument-based payment requests. With the fourth failed attempt, JustOn disables the payment instrument. If the fourth attempt succeeds, JustOn resets the retry count, allowing for three failing payment requests again.
Note
By default, there is no option for your users to disable the automatic payment collection after they have opted to use future payments. If required or on your user's request, you deactivate individual payment instruments manually (see How to disable payment instruments?). Make sure to establish according business processes.