Payment Suspense Manager is an optional BRM feature. By default, this feature is disabled. To enable payment suspense, you modify the appropriate /config/business_ params storable object. For more information, see "Enabling Payment Suspense in BRM".
After you enable Payment Suspense Manager, you must perform the following tasks:
■ Set up a BRM payment suspense account.
The payment suspense account is an ownerless account that stores each suspended payment along with details such as credit card number, payment channel, payment method, and so forth.
If, during validation, BRM determines that a payment should be suspended, it performs one of these actions:
– If the payment was submitted through a third-party payment gateway, it automatically moves the payment to the payment suspense account.
– If you are working with a payment in Payment Tool, it moves the payment to the payment suspense account when your payment clerk submits the payment batch to the BRM database.
– If you are working with Payment Center, it moves the payment to the payment suspense account when your payment clerk performs an undo allocation operation on a posted payment.
After a suspended payment is corrected, BRM moves the payment from the payment suspense account to the correct customer account.
The payment suspense account is assigned to a unique G/L segment, and the payments in the payment suspense account will only belong to this G/L segment: not the G/L segment to which the customer accounts belong. Thus, while the items in the payment suspense account are excluded from normal financial reporting, billing, and collection, you can obtain information on the associated revenue by generating financial reports for the G/L segment to which the payment suspense account belongs.
For more information, see "Creating a Payment Suspense Account".
■ Define suspense reason codes and action owner codes.
Note: By default, the payment suspense account is included in the billing run. For information on how to suspend billing on the payment suspense account, see "Suspending and Resuming Billing of Closed Accounts" in BRM Configuring and Running Billing.
About Payment Suspense Manager
The reason codes and action owner codes provide information on why a payment is suspended and who is assigned to correct the problem. To help payment clerks understand the nature of a suspended payment, BRM displays descriptions associated with reason codes and action owner codes in Payment Tool and Payment Center. In addition, BRM uses reason codes and action owner codes to populate selection lists in these tools.
For more information, see "Working with Suspense Reason Codes and Action Owner Codes".
■ Define any custom suspense rules.
BRM validates a payment by determining whether the payment has certain mandatory information such as the correct account number and bill number. You can customize BRM such that it considers extra validation criteria like the customer segment. You can also define the conditions under which you submit a suspended payment to the payment suspense account (for example, a minimum payment amount).
For more information, see "About Customizing Payment Suspense Manager".
About the Payment Suspension Process
Payment suspension begins when you collect payments from a financial institution: whether you use payment clerks to manually post payments from batch files or you use a third-party payment gateway to automatically post payments. When payments are received, BRM validates payments based on the following criteria to determine whether they should be suspended rather than posted immediately to customer accounts:
■ The account number and bill number are missing or incorrect.
■ The account number and bill number are correct, but the bill belongs to a different
account.
■ The account is closed.
■ The payment attributes (for example, the customer segment or payment amount)
do not comply with your custom BRM validation rules.
The payment processing phase involves three steps: validation, suspension, and correction. These steps are sequential and rely on the completion of the prior step.
1. Validation: BRM determines whether a payment meets the validation criteria and assigns a status of successful or “to be suspended.” BRM takes the following actions:
■ If the payment is successful, BRM posts the payment to the account. ■ If the payment does not meet the validation criteria but has enough
information to qualify for suspense, BRM marks it as “to be suspended” and forwards it to the opcodes responsible for suspending the payment.
BRM can suspend both successful and financially failed payments. For example, a payment batch includes two check payments, each with an Note: You can also create additional search fields in Payment Center and additional batch types in Payment Tool. For information on modifying payment options in these tools, see BRM Developer's Guide.
About Payment Suspense Manager
incorrect account number. The payment information indicates that one check has cleared and the other bounced.
Coming into BRM, the first payment would be considered successful and the second, failed. When BRM validates the payments, both would be marked for suspense because, regardless of the financial success or failure of the payment, neither payment can be posted to the correct account.
■ If the payment does not meet the validation criteria and also does not qualify
for suspense, BRM informs you that the payment cannot be posted. You must create an exception batch to handle payments that fall into this category. Payment validation is initiated automatically through the payment gateway or manually by a payment clerk.
For details on payment validation, see "About Payment Validation".
2. Suspension: BRM moves the payment to the payment suspense account and creates the associated events and items to store information on the suspended payment.
There are two distinct situations in which payment suspense can occur: during payment processing, when a payment batch is submitted to the BRM database, and during account maintenance, after payments have been saved to the BRM database.
■ During payment processing, payment suspense is initiated automatically
through a third-party payment gateway or manually by using Payment Tool. It is initiated in Payment Tool when you submit a payment batch that includes payments marked for suspense. Such payments can be successful payments that you manually mark for suspense because you suspect they have a problem or you know they require manual allocation. For details on
suspending unposted payments, see "About Processing Suspended Payments in a Payment Batch".
■ During account maintenance, payment suspense is initiated manually by
using Payment Center. Payment suspense is initiated when you undo the allocation of a payment from a customer account. For details on suspending posted payments, see "About Processing Suspended Payments in the BRM Database".
3. Correction: To correct a suspended payment, you use Payment Center to assign it to a correct account number or bill number and apply it to the customer account. You can also create a distribution list for a suspended payment, which enables you to apply the payment to multiple accounts.
After payment analysts correct suspended payments and assign them to one or more accounts, the payments must be validated again. If the payment validation is successful, BRM posts the payments to the correct accounts. If the suspended payment is allocated completely (an amount does not remain in suspense), BRM reverses the suspended payment, removing it from the payment suspense account. While performing this operation, BRM creates the required objects and events.
Note: Payment correction is always initiated by a payment clerk through Payment Center; this step is never automatic. If, during revalidation, the payment still meets the suspense criteria, BRM again assigns a status of suspended and the payment is resubmitted to suspense.
About Payment Suspense Manager
For details on payment correction, see "About Payment Correction".
Figure 9–1 shows the steps involved in payment suspension and the basic operations they perform:
Figure 9–1 Basic Operations and Steps Involved in Payment Suspension