Overview

This article will cover the process for running a payment cycle. This process triggers the system to look for any unpaid (unreconciled) match appointments during the date range and then create payment records for each individual containing those match payments. This allows for bulk processing of payments.

When running the payment cycle you can select the payment method that should be used.

You can also select the Payment Status, we recommend setting this to Generated as this gives you a good way of identifying the records to do some validation or further processing as explained in the complete process below.

Each time a Payment Cycle is processed it will be assigned a unique Payment Run ID, this will be reported on the screen following the completion. It is recommended to take a mental note or write down this Payment Run ID, it is the unique identifier that allows you to easily search for the payment records created by the run or should you need to contact support it will assist the team in troubleshooting.

A Payment Run Template can be created to save your configuration and easily allow you to rerun payment cycles using the same configuration. This is recommended when you have a more advanced configuration than the system defaults.

The payment cycle feature is targeted at competition finance roles is typically used in the following ways:

  • At the completion of a 1-5 day competition to process all the payments. You may also choose to process this each day once the match appointments are verified all changes complete
  • At regular intervals throughout a season competition (e.g. every 2 weeks)

Best Practice Tips

  1. Use a Time Slot status that allows payment processing and locks the time slot as readonly when finalizing the match appointments. This prevents changes to appointments once payments are processed.
  2. Use the Payment Record Status to assist your workflow with removing zero value payments or with missing/incorrect details from a run before exporting them for payment.

Run Payment Cycle

IMPORTANT! Before processing a payment cycle, make sure the match appointments are finalized and ready for processing. Time slots must be set to Published and the correct Status for your competition configuration (e.g. Completed) for them to be processed.

  1. Navigate to the Payment Portal > Run Payment Cycle
  2. Select the dates to process and search for unpaid match appointments. You may choose to run each competition day individually or just process the whole competition in one run.
  3. Set the Payment Status and Payment Method appropriately. Recommend Status=Generated and Method=EFT.
  4. Adjust any other filters/configuration you require.
  5. Click the Generate Payments button
  6. Take note of the number of records generated and most importantly the Payment Run ID
  7. Navigate to the Payment Portal > Search
  8. Search for the payment records you just generated (adjust the dates and filters, or simply use the Payment Run ID)
  9. Review and validate the payment records.
    1. If you had to make adjustments to appointments use the reprocessing tool to bring in changes to your payment cycle run.
    2. If required use the Data Export to save the data as CSV and import to Excel for detailed review. More info here.
  10. Use the bulk edit to adjust the payment status to prepare your payment export. For example:
    1. Update any payments not to be processed to Payment Withheld status (this may be due to missing information or any other reason)
    2. Set any legitimate payment records of zero value to Paid status

Marking Payments as processed and exporting for data processing

  1. Following on from above steps
  2. Return to the Payment Search, re-run the search if needed. Use the Payment Run ID and status filters.
  3. From the results select the payment records you will process for payment based on your data validation above
  4. Click the Bulk Edit button and change the status to Processed for Payment, click Update Records
  5. Using the Search, adjust the filter to be just the records you want to export for payment.
    1. This should be achieved by filtering for just Processed for Payment status if following the previous step.
  6. Use the Data Export (bottom of page) to save the records as CSV, ABA, or the type appropriate for your financial system. More info here.
  7. Make the payments using your financial system
  8. Once payment is confirmed, return to the Payment Search, filter for the items you have paid.
  9. Select all the payment records as appropriate. Click the Bulk Edit button and change the status to Paid. Click Update Records and wait for this to complete.
  10. [Optional] Email the remittance advice to the members

Exporting ABA file

The next step after generating the payment records is to export the files for processing. Further information available here.

Processing match official payments

The following video is part of our Tournament Run Sheet best practices series. It is provided here for reference.