Lessons

Lesson Plan

1. 		Description	Action

1. 01

   Remittance is the process during which the funds are disbursed back to a merchant. During the remittance process, a fee structure is applied to obtain specific charges that the merchant owes for processing and support services. The resulting fees, as well as any appropriate reserves, are subtracted from the total volume processed and the net amount is remitted to the merchant as either an direct debit transaction (when done automatically) or as a check (when done manually).

2. 02

   Merchant remittance can be organized in several ways: Cycle-based remittance is based on a time cycle approach (usually a calendar month). ”On-demand” remittance is based on approach when money is sent to the merchant fixed number of days (usually, one or two) after the original transaction was processed. There are two ways in which the “on-demand” approach can be implemented: Remittance based on transactions’ funding date - the funding of a transaction happens after a fixed time period counted off of the date when the transaction is funded by the underlying processor. Remittance based on transactions’ response date - the funding for a transaction happens after a fixed time period counted off of the response date of the transaction.

3. 03

   For additional knowledge about remittance organization approaches, review Remittance organization article.

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4. 04

   Remittance process is handled through a specific merchant which is represented as a remitter within the system. If you are not interested in information about remitter, go to the step 8.

5. 05

   Remitter is a specifically configured merchant that performs remittance processes. Remitter's account contains settings of the particular bank accounts. Funds are deposited to these bank accounts during the remittance. As a rule, there are four remitter accounts – for CC, direct debit, American Express and commissions transactions (for resellers).

6. 06

   The process of a remitter creation is the same as the creation of a merchant, the only difference is its type.

   screenshot

7. 07

   Practice Creating a merchant (basic) tutorial.

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8. 08

   Important role in remittance process goes to the fee structure. Fees are divided into three categories: Processing fees - fees charged for transaction processing. They are further subdivided into volume fees and per item fees. Volume fees are charged based on total volume (total amount) of transaction processed, while per item fees are charged on per transaction basis (total count). Flat fees - additional charges applied to certain types of transactions, usually either to cover corresponding processing cost (chargebacks, direct debit returns) of these transactions or to cover additional services rendered specifically for these transaction types (decline, recycle). Monthly fees - subscription service fees that are charged to cover various types of service charges, hardware cost and support. They are subdivided into two groups: monthly and annual. If you are not interested in information about fee handling and reseller commisions, go to the step 17.

9. 09

   For additional knowledge about types of merchant fees, review Handling merchant fees article.

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10. 10

    Now, let's practice some tutorials related to the fees handling.

11. 11

    Practice Setting up merchant fees with buy rate tutorial.

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12. 12

    Practice Setting up merchant fees without buy rate tutorial.

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13. 13

    Fees are also represented as reseller commissions - amount that is paid to reseller to facilitate the business relationship. To learn more about reseller commissions, review Merchant Services Commissions article.

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14. 14

    Practice Setting up reseller comissions tutorial. Note that for commission collection to get started you have to enter Start Date value. If you want your commission collection to be terminated (and reseller statement not to be generated) for a particular mechant, you can do it in two ways: Enter a respective End Date value. Delete or disable commissions. Use delete option to delete commissions completely, or use disable option if you expect commission collection to be continued in the future. Otherwise, commission collection will be proceeded and reseller statements for this merchant will be generated in the future.

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15. 15

    For additional knowledge about commissions, review Merchant services commissions sharing article.

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16. 16

    You have learned how to create a remitter, set up merchant fees and reseller comissions. If you need to take a pause, you can do it now and resume with the rest later.

    screenshot

17. 17

    After you have learned how to set fees and commisions for a merchant, let's learn how to configure deposit information and remittance process.

18. 18

    There are two types of merchant funding policy: Deduction - fees will be deducted as a part of remittance. Withdrawal - fees will be withdrawn from the same deposit account or from a specific bank account that was designated for withholding of the fees. If merchant funding policy is set as withdrawal, the debt specified in the merchant statement will be withdrawn from merchant's bank account (if sale operation for this bank account is allowed). After two failed attempts to withdraw fee from the bank account, remittance hold is turned on automatically, and funding policy is changed to deduction conditional. In this case, the fee will be withdrawn with the next merchant statement, but for merchant to receive the amount, remittance hold must be turned off.

19. 19

    Practice Configuring deposit information tutorial.

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20. 20

    Practice Configuring remittance tutorial.

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21. 21

    For cases when remittance needs to be terminated (for example, if a merchant has unpaid debts), the system allows to manually stop remittance for a particular merchant/merchant account for a desired period of time. When remittance is activated again, all transactions that were processed during the period of remittance being on hold are included in the newly-generated statement.

22. 22

    Practice How to put remittance on hold tutorial.

    proceed

23. 23

    One more aspect of remittance process is reserves assigned to a merchant. If a merchant has reserves set up in the gateway, they will be included in funding. If you are not interested in information about reserves, go to the step 27.

24. 24

    Reserves can be applied for refunds, direct debit returns and chargebacks. It is basically the rate amount that is withdrawn from a merchant for maintaining merchant statement balance in non-negative state. If a gateway owner wants to change merchant's reserves rate, this can be done in merchant's funding settings. After the rate is changed, the system adjusts merchant balance automatically according to the new values of reserves. For example, if the reserves rate is decreased, the difference of all previous periods will be recalculated and returned to the merchant as an adjustment in the newly generated merchant statement. If period for reserves collection is set, reserves are collected from all transactions that are successfully processed during this exact period. In this case, reserves rate also must be set, but if period field is left empty, reserves are collected according to applied minimum amount value. If a merchant is inactive within the system and desires reserves to be returned, the reserve rate must be set to 0 and merchant statement generation policy set on Any Balance (review the screenshot).

    screenshot

25. 25

    In funding settings, amount of the merchant's reserves is included in total balance, as well as net due to the client. When the statement is sent to the bank, net balance is reset and total balance includes only reserves of the merchant.

26. 26

    For additional knowledge about reserves, review Mechant services reserves article.

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27. 27

    Practice How to change a reserve rate tutorial.

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28. 28

    For merchant funding, remittance process is based on the merchant statement generation mechanism. For reseller funding, remittance process is based on the reseller statement generation mechanism. Statement is a summary of a merchant’s or reseller’s activity, including transactions processed, reserves withheld and fees applied. Statements are divided in two principal groups – merchant statements and reseller statements. If you are not interested in information about reseller and merchant statements, go to the step 41.

29. 29

    Merchant statement is a summary of activity for a merchant for a set time interval, that includes transaction submissions, deposits, reserves, processing and monthly fees. Thus, it includes all the necessary information for remitters. Merchant statements can be of two types – deposit statements and reconciliation statements. Deposit statement - a type of merchant statement that accompanies and explains remittances associated with all of the merchant’s batches processed on a given business day. Basically, deposit statement enables merchant to understand the deposits in their bank account that result from transaction processing. Reconciliation statement - a summary statement that explains remittance activity and shows all of the associated processing fees over a defined time period, usually a month. Basically, reconciliation statement helps merchant to understand what merchant fees are charged and why. Merchant statement generation is based on the statistics which is calculated once a day, usually at midnight (server time). Thus, merchant statement for transactions that were made during the day is available next day in case if respective settings are configured.

30. 30

    Merchant statement can obtain the following statuses: Pending – statement is waiting for manual approval. Note that you can apply adjustments only for statements with Pending status. Approved – statement is approved and, if there are any adjustments, is waiting for adjustments to be applied. Usually, statements with Approved status are not displayed on the UI. Cancelled - statement is cancelled; all the information from this statement will be included in the next generated statement. Adjusted – statement is approved, adjusted and ready to be submitted to the bank. Posted – statement is submitted to the bank.

31. 31

    Practice How to enable emailing of merchant statements tutorial.

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32. 32

    Practice How to locate a merchant statement tutorial.

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33. 33

    Practice How to generate a merchant statement tutorial. You can generate a statement for either a merchant or a particular merchant account.

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34. 34

    Practice How to revert back statement's status tutorial to learn how to put approved statement back to review.

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35. 35

    Reseller statement is a summary of a reseller's activity for a set period of time. It includes information about the comissions received for transaction processing of the merchants associated with a particular reseller.

36. 36

    To set up reseller statement generation, these rules should be followed: A reseller must be attached to a merchant (to learn how to do it, review this tutorial); Deposit information and remittance settings must be set up (review the respective tutorials above); Merchant fees must be configured (review the respective tutorial above); Reseller comissions must be configured (review the respective tutorial above); A day of reseller statement generation must be set up (to learn how to do it, review this tutorial).

37. 37

    Practice How to locate a reseller statement tutorial.

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38. 38

    You have learned how to configure remittance, change a reserve rate and work with merchant and reseller statements. If you need to take a pause, you can do it now and resume with the rest later.

    screenshot

39. 39

    If it is needed to add corrections to the statement, the system allows to create an adjustment for a particular statement, or a scheduled adjustment for the future statement. Note that you can apply adjustment to a statement only if it is in Pending status.

    screenshot

40. 40

    Adjustment is an element of Merchant Statement that allows manual adjustments to the current statement balance. They can be used to rectify statements errors that resulted from exceptional business behavior, waive fees or withhold additional fees that do not generally appear on the statement. Adjustments can be added to an existing statement or they can be scheduled to be included in the next statement. Types of the adjustments can be the following: Merchant Fee Reimbursement - indicates that funds should be withdrawn from the merchant’s balance in case if the amount of the fees that were previously withdrawn is less that the one that is set in the gateway. Balance Adjustment - indicates a positive or negative amount that should be withdrawn from or added to the merchant’s balance. Merchant Fee Write Off - indicates that fees should be withdrawn from the merchant’s balance. Merchant Balance Write Off - indicates that funds should be withdrawn from the merchant’s balance. Advance Adjustment - indicates a positive or negative amount that should be added to the merchant’s balance as an advance or withdrawn from the merchant’s balance to cover previously issued advance. Convenience Fee Deduction - indicates that funds should be transferred from the merchant’s balance to convenience fee balance.

41. 41

    Scheduled adjustment is an adjustment that has a fixed date in the future when it is applied to the newly generated statement. Scheduled adjustment can be created for cases, when a gateway owner desires to make a planned adjustment to a merchant statement. For example, if a gateway owner wants to return merchant's service fees during 3 months as a bonus, three scheduled adjustments will be created (one adjustment per a month). If there is no statement generated on the date of the created adjustment, this adjustment will be applied to the next generated statement.

42. 42

    Practice How to create a scheduled adjustment tutorial.

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43. 43

    Besides the basic remittance processes, distributions managing module is available within the system. To learn how to operate it, review Managing distributions lesson.

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44. 44

    Now you're equipped with all the knowledge necessary to manage remittance processes within your gateway and can make your hands dirty.