Overview

• Member Payments allow the user to enter payments into the Office system as they are received by members. Depending on the club’s operations, there are several payment options available. These options include Cash/Check, Credit Card, Credit Card Auto Payment, and Bank ACH.

• In this guide we will discuss the preliminary procedures to follow before entering an ACH payment, how to enter an ACH payment, as well as how to Refund an ACH payment.

• Clubessential also offers web based payments that are automatically synced to the Office system for reporting purposes. If your club is not currently configured to accept one of these payments, and you would like to do so in the future, please contact your Account Manager for additional information. 

Required Permissions

Accessing the Tool

Member Bank Accounts

To effectively receive an ACH payment from a Member, the Member’s profile must first contain the appropriate banking information.  Within the Membership Module, Manage Members section, select a Member, and then navigate to the Bank Accounts tab within the Financial Information section of the Member’s profile.  Click New to add an account, complete the tab for the Member’s account they wish to use for ACH payment purposes, and click OK.

Once the Bank Account is created, right-click on the account and select Enable Autopay. This will enable the Bank Account for Auto Payment.

Entering an ACH Payment

1. Select Membership from the user menu, and then choose Member Payments.

2. Select, Quick Add.

3. The Cash Receipt Wizard will launch.

Cash Receipt Wizard

The Cash Receipt Wizard is designed to help simplify the payment entry process. Please see instructions below.

Cash Receipt Wizard - Screen 1 (Payment Specifications Screen)

To enter a new payment, please follow the below steps in sequential order.

Step 1 - Select the Cash Receipt Batch. When creating a new batch, the system will default to the next available batch number.

Step 2 - Verify the Transaction Date.  This is date the transaction will post to member’s account and to the General Ledger.

Step 3 - Select the Bank ACH, Cash Receipt Type by selecting the lookup. Cash Receipt Types specify which GL account to debit, and the payment type to process.

Step 4 - Select the ACH Payments Processing Method. This option should be selected when utilizing ETS, or Open Edge for ACH processing. 

• Automatically add all members with non- zero balances that are configured for Auto- Pay - If checked, when the user clicks Next, all members who are configured for Bank Account auto payment (Bank ACH) will populate on the next screen.  If this box is checked, the user has the ability to narrow the payment batch down to a certain Member Type or Member Group.

Step 5 - This step is Null for ACH payments, move to Step 6.

Step 6 - Click, Next.

Cash Receipt Wizard - Screen 2 (Payment Entry Screen)

The following Payment Entry screen will appear next based on selections made in Screen 1 of the Wizard.  The Payment Entry screen is used to specify the member, payment amount, and the AR account.

If Automatically add all members with non- zero balances that are configured for Auto- Pay was checked in Step 4 of the previous screen, the payment entry screen will list all members in the system who are configured for Bank ACH payment.

The Member(s) will pre-populate, Check number will say ACH for reporting purposes, the payment amount will be equal to the AR balance due of the member, the payment field will populate the bank account on the member’s profile, and the Ledger field will contain the Primary AR Account linked in System Settings.

Please verify that all payments in this screen are correct before moving to the next step.

Capture Funds

1. Once all payments have been verified, the funds for the payments must be captured from the member’s bank account.  To capture these funds, select Capture Funds at the bottom of the payment entry screen.

2. Funds that have been captured successfully will have a gray checkmark to the left of the Member’s name.  Funds that have not been captured successfully will have a red X to the left of the Member’s name. This indicates there was an issue with banking information or available funds.

3. A message will pop up if there are declined transactions; choose Yes if you want a report of declined payments.

4. Another message will appear asking if the user wants to move the declined members to a separate batch so they can post the successfully captured transactions.

5. Select Yes and the system will split the payment transactions to separate batches. All successfully captured transactions will be in one batch and all transactions with errors will be moved to a separate batch.

6. Click Finish.

   1. Batch Exit and Re-Entry Note: To exit batch prior to batch completion, click Close at any time.  Batch will automatically be saved, and can be re-opened by selecting Member Payments and choosing the appropriate batch from the lookup list.

7. Print Deposit Slip - Once Finish has been selected, system prompt “Would you like to print a deposit slip?” will appear.

8. Click Yes to load the Cash Receipt Deposit Summary, and select printer icon to print the deposit slip.  After the slip has printed, close the Cash Receipt Deposit Summary and the Payment Batch will generate. Click No to proceed directly to generating the Payment Batch.

Post the Payment

1. Payment batch will appear for batch review.  Verify the GL posting is correct and select Post Batch.

2. Payments will post to Member accounts as noted in this Member’s Profile.

Reprocessing Failed Captures

As mentioned, transactions that were not captured successfully will have a red X to the left of the Member’s name. This indicates there was an issue with banking information or available funds. If the issues with the declined transactions have been fixed please follow the below instructions.

1. Go to Member Payments and double click on the batch.

2. Click Next.

3. Click Capture Funds again.

4. If the funds were captured successfully the red X will change to a green checkmark to the left of the Member’s name.

   1. Notes: If you fixed a few members within a batch but have not been able to fix all members you can still go into the batch and capture the funds. This process can be done as many times as you need. 

Refund Bank ACH Payment

To refund a Bank ACH Payment:

1. Navigate to Approve Payment Batches by selecting the Membership menu and choose Approve Payment Batches.

2. Click to select the Payment Batch that needs refunded and choose Unpost Batch.

3. Navigate to Member Payments and select the unposted batch from the lookup.

4. Select, Next to proceed to the Payment screen.

5. Select the arrow to the left of the payment to refund.  Selected Payments will be highlighted in yellow.

6. Click the Delete key on your keyboard. A message will populate asking the user if they would like to refund the transaction. Click Yes.

7. The system will attempt to refund the payment and will indicate whether it was successful or not in refunding the funds.

8. If the system indicates it was able to successfully refund the payment, the payment line will be deleted.  If only one payment within a batch with multiple payments needs to be refunded, proceed to refund the payment as normal, and once the single payment is refunded, re-post the batch for the remaining payments.

Unsuccessful Refund

If the system prompts that the payment was not refunded successfully, call your processor and have them manually refund the payment. The payment line within the batch will also NOT be deleted.

Once confirmation is received from your processor that the payment was refunded, re-post the Payment Batch as normal.

However, as the refunded payment line was not deleted from the batch, you will need to post a Member Charge to the member’s account using your Payment Adjustment item to offset the refunded payment. 

Best Practices

• Perform bank recs timely to ensure ACH postings are properly reconciled.

• Refunds can only be issued the Same day that the payment was originally processed. If you are trying to refund the next day or any day in the future, you will need to contact the processor to have the refund issued.  Then, to reflect within CMA, create an item called refund, then charge the amount of the refund using that item in a member charge so the member will owe the amount again.

FAQs

• Q. Can I have multiple payment types in the same batch?

• A. Batches are intentionally limited to one payment type to assist with the processing and the reconciling of the payments.