Online Payment Systems

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Online Payment Systems

Has your district implemented an online payment system? Not sure why you would consider this best practice? Learn how an online payment system can save your staff

time and money, and why so many districts use them

Why Do We Need Them?

House Keeping

• Integration –Linking together different software applications functionally, to act as a coordinated whole.

Table Integration-Can push information bi-directionally when the command is made.

File Sharing/Passing-A file of information is created to pass information from one system to another. The file is only accurate at the time the file is created. (Are there more?)

• ACH -Automated Clearing House (ACH) is a secure payment transfer system that connects all U.S. financial institutions. The ACH network acts as the central clearing facility for all Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) transactions that occur nationwide.

• Guaranteed ACH -A guarantee of payment on a check received, even those that are returned or rejected. (Competitors charge fees) ?

• Merchant – The owner of the account. The name that will read on the cardholder’s statement. • User – The person utilizing a system/site/software at a given time.

• Real Time – Data is available to be grabbed or pushed back at any moment. Definitions

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Risks

 Records Accuracy, Management, Automation, Retention

 USDA free and reduced rules and regulations, as they pertain to fees, opt in categories and opt out, the intertwining of fees and the district policies

 Real costs per transactions  FERPA

 PCI compliance  Security

 Visa MasterCard Rules  Anti-Spamming email

We have replaced systems in districts where the district was unaware of the rules and had been violating them for years.

Putting the district at risk. Potential risks are listed below:

Rewards

 Account validation, validate the information against the student information.

 We handle rollovers from year to year as students move grades

 Parents Manage their own account and passwords

 Integration with other software in the district

 Posting messages to parents on the site and receipts

 Auto-Replenishment of lunch funds

 Installment payments

 Partial Payments

 Pay for multiple students and fees in single transaction

 Assign fees to students

 Assign G/L codes to fees

 Parent Portal Syncing

 Out of district Patron

Features that will save the district time/payroll and money. Look for these when selecting an online payment product:

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(Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974) Federal

legislation in the United States that protects the privacy of

students' personally identifiable information (PII). The act applies

to all educational institutions that receive federal funds.

FERPA

While not every school asks us to operate under FERPA, DBS does operate under those

guidelines and procedures.

FERPA only covers the students, but DBS goes a step further and protects the parent information as well. We will NEVER EVER sell any parent information to 3rd parties. Any questions that are addressed to us that require us to divulge student information, we will direct them back to the district level.

There is no way for us to authenticate the person on the other end of the phone. Student information is housed behind the same firewall as our PCI compliance. DBS is not required to do that, but we do in order to make our services even more secure for our customers.

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Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a proprietary information security standard for organizations that handle cardholder information. Defined by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, the standard was created to increase controls around cardholder data to reduce credit card fraud via its exposure. Validation of compliance is done annually — by an external Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) that creates a Report on Compliance for organizations handling large volumes of transactions, or by Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) for companies handling smaller volumes.

DBS absorbs the fee that MC/Visa accesses to our customers for PCI Compliance.

PCI COMPLIANCE

Convenience Fees/Surcharges

(MasterCard Manual Public)

5.11.1 Discrimination

A Merchant must not engage in any acceptance practice that discriminates against or discourages the use of a Card in favor of any other acceptance brand.

5.11.2 Charges to Cardholders

A Merchant must not directly or indirectly require any Cardholder to pay a surcharge or any part of any Merchant discount or any contemporaneous finance charge in connection with a Transaction. A Merchant may provide a discount to its customers for cash payments. A Merchant is permitted to charge a fee (such as a bona fide commission, postage, expedited service or convenience fees, and the like) if the fee is imposed on all like transactions regardless of the form of payment used, or as the Corporation has expressly permitted in writing. 5.11.3 Minimum/Maximum Transaction Amount Prohibited

A Merchant must not require, or indicate that is requires, a minimum or maximum Transaction amount to accept a valid and properly presented Card.

MC/Visa require that we notify our customers within 48 hours if there is a breach of information. • Use online or don’t use online – Does PCI affect you? Forms?

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DBS Security Process for Information Inputted into DBS programs:

**Constantly working in the background of this extremely secure process is a company called Alert Logic (www.alertlogic.com) . We pay this company to try to hack our systems 24/7. They then supply us with any system vulnerabilities which are immediately addressed.

Confidential Information Is Entered by the parent online

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Goes Through Web Application Firewall

2

Load Balancer

Divided between 10-12 virtual servers that are only used for DBS transactions and located behind the firewall

3

Flows Through Another Firewall

This is where our SQL servers reside which are not exposed to the public in any capacity (no public IP address). Only 4 people internally have access to SQL servers and they are required to have 2 forms of authentication. (Once they log in, there is a network key password that changes every 15 seconds and then they must enter another username and password.)

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Anti-Spamming Email

Federal rules require the following for commercial email sent to

your mobile phone:

Identification

The email must be clearly identified as a solicitation or

advertisement for products or services;

Opt-Out

The email must provide easily-accessible, legitimate,

and free ways for you to reject future messages from

that sender;

Return Address

The email must contain legitimate return email addresses, as well as the

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Data Collection, Forms, Ticketing, Tracking

Automate the “Packet” Sent Home with Students

Facility Rentals

Dances Prom Home Coming Hand Book

Registration

Parking Permits Car Information

…Much More and

More work to do Sports Camps All Athletics Game Tickets New Student forms

Authorization forms Emergency contacts

Field Trips Email Rosters

AP Testing Seat Reservations Check in Check Out

Fundraisers Participation Fees Donations Ticketing

Athletic Events Theater Events

Get your Teachers back to teaching, your Coaches back to coaching, Production Directors back to directing

SHARING INFORMATION WITH OTHER PROGRAMS

Dear Parent/Guardian:

To save you time and effort, the information you gave on your Free and Reduced Price School Meals Application may be shared with other programs for which your children may qualify. For the following programs, we must have your permission to share your information. Sending in this form will not change whether your children get free or reduced price meals.

No! I DO NOT want information from my Free and Reduced Price School Meals Application shared with any of these programs.

Yes! I DO want school officials to share information from my Free and Reduced Price School Meals Application with [name of program specific to your school].

If you checked yes to any or all of the boxes above, fill out the form below. Your information will be shared only with the programs you checked.

Child's Name:

___________________________________________School:___________________________________________ Child's Name:

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Fee Nightmare

“Good morning Real School families:

If your student(s) are on free and reduced lunch we need to request the waiver letter you received notifying you of this status. This allows us to adjust

school fees off of your students account. If we are not provided this letter by the parent, we can not credit the account and waive fees; we have no way of

accessing this information in any other mannerdue to very stringent confidentiality laws. The school district will reimburse the school for many of

these reduced or eliminated fees through federal funding sources marked specifically for this use. If we do not have the letter, we can't access these fees

placing a higher burden upon our school level budget. If you have any questions, please email or call Mrs. Bookkeeper, our

bookkeeper. Her contact information is:

[email protected] or 248-Really-OMG. Thank you!”

70,000 kids in the district, with x % that had to be adjusted and refunds processed.

Real Costs Per Transactions

Other online payment products will charge districts a percentage; a flat dollar amount or both per transaction.

Percent per transactions

3.5% of a $100.00 = $3.50

3.5% of a $50.00 = $1.75

Dollar amount per

transaction

$1.75 of a $100.00 = 1.75%

$1.75 of a $50.00 = 3.50%

$2.00 per transaction looks like a good deal…. Or does it?

Average Transaction

Fee Amount Percentage Per Transaction Dollar Amount Total Charge Actual Percentage

$20.00 0.00% $2.00 $22.00 10.0%

$100.00 0.00% $2.00 $102.00 2.0%

$44.00 0.00% $2.00 $42.00 4.76%

$20.00 3.00% $0.49 $21.09 5.45%

$100.00 3.00% $0.49 $103.49 3.49%

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Real Costs Per Transactions

Convenience Fees:

Credit cards: 3% PLUS $0.50

(1.50% surcharge for foreign cards)

eChecks: $0.49 MasterCard and Visa strictly prohibit the discrimination of the surcharge at checkout

Displaying two different rates for different payment types is telling the user to discriminate.

Questions To Ask When Looking

For An Online Product

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Questions To Ask

Athletic Directors

• How do you currently handle sport camp payment and registration? How do your coaches feel about this system? What concerns do you have about coaches handling cash/checks? If you could change one thing about sport camp payment and registration, what would you change?

• Are you currently offering credit card payment options for game tickets - both at the gate and online? Is your community requesting a credit card option? Do you believe online/advance sales could increase your gate revenue? How many people/gate workers are handling cash each week?

• Are you currently offering credit card or online sales for sport season passes? Would it be helpful for you if data was collected for season passes and organized into an excel spreadsheet? If this service was automated, how much time do you believe this would save your admin. assistant? With this time saved, what other things could your assistant accomplish for your department?

Theater Directors

• How are you currently handling advanced ticket sales? Do you offer credit card sales at the box office? Do you offer online ticket sales?

• How do you currently handle reserved seating?

• Do you have a house manager that organizes ticket sales? Who is ultimately responsible for cash, accounting, receipts?

• What services could be provided that would allow you more time and energy for your show and students?

• Do you believe online sales would increase your theater revenue?

Box Office and the Sports Gate Ticketing

Questions To Ask

Guidance Office

• How do you currently handle payment and registration for Summer School and Enrichment Courses? How do your parents and teachers feel about this system? If you could change one thing about course payment and registration, what would you change?

• Are you currently offering credit card payment options for course registration? Is your community requesting a credit card option? Do you believe online payment and registration would increase your participation?

• Would it be helpful for you if data was collected for course registration and organized into an excel spreadsheet? If this service was automated, how much time do you believe this would save your department? With this time saved, what other things could your staff accomplish for your department? Activity Director (Dances, Fundraisers, 5K, Golf Outings)

• How are you currently handling advanced ticket sales? Do you offer online ticket sales?

• How do you currently handle data collection and management for your events?

• Who is ultimately responsible for cash, accounting, receipts?

• What services could be provided that would allow you more time and energy for your event and students?

• Do you believe online sales would increase your event revenue?

Paper forms to e-forms for Prom Advisor, Guidance Office, Principal, Homecoming Coordinator,

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Questions To Ask

• Eliminates parents from selecting the wrong student

• Gives the district the ability to assign specific fees to students • Parents cannot see fees that they should not pay

• Keeps predators from gathering information about students or

districts

• Allows the district to only have to enter student data once (saves time

and energy)

Integrate with Student Information System

Questions To Ask

• 37 reasons why a bank would consider an ACH “bad” • Only one of those is for NSF

• Other companies will charge an extra fee for this service. We will not. Guarantee ACH payments so the district will never see a bad one

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Questions To Ask

• Storing credit card information requires Payment Card Industry

compliant practices like multiple encryptions of data, data stored in a secure location, hack testing, etc. While not required to do so, we treat ACH like Credit Cards

PCI Compliance

Questions To Ask

• To allow convenience for parents who want to use multiple payment

methods

• To be Visa/MasterCard compliant the payment method has to be

chosen before the parent can check out because they cannot discriminate between payment methods.

Store multiple payment methods and types that parents manage

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Questions To Ask

• Setting a default payment type before starting a transaction allows

us to be compliant with Visa/MasterCard rules, and still have different costs for payment types

• Parents manage their own passwords and can change it at any time • This saves the district time and energy

Parent can edit their account information and select a default payment type

Questions To Ask

• districts can alert parents to special instructions, registration process

requirements, notices and alerts

Messages to parents are customizable on every page and customizable messages can be added to receipts

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Questions To Ask

• We never delete the history so parents can access the information to

confirm they paid for a fee or if they have tax reporting

• Conforms with record retention acts

Parents can view the history of all of their transactions from the site

Questions To Ask

• Ensures that the parent entered an account that is accurate • VALIDATION

• Verifies that we can send emails to the parent that they will see Email verification when setting up an account

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Questions To Ask

• Follows the anti-spam guidelines

• Give the parent a choice of seeing low balances, outstanding fees,

fees paid, monthly account activity statement, and nutrition purchases

Opt-in email notifications

Questions To Ask

• Accept online payments for non-district users (Community Ed,

Summer School, Facility Rentals, Retiree Insurance, and much more)

• Users not in the SIS system

• PFI Auto Assigned User ID: ensures no duplicate IDs are created and

makes for easier reporting

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Questions To Ask

• Parents can pay multiple fees for multiple students in one transaction,

while incurring only one transaction fee

• Cost Efficient for districts and Parents

One Transaction = Multiple Fees / Multiple Students

Questions To Ask

• Add multiple payment methods; Credit Card, Debit Card, and/or ACH

Electronic Check account(s)

• Users can schedule future payments, installment payments or

reoccurring payments depending on the districts policy

• Student Accounts; cash account for student(s) tied to specific fund

(Before/After School Care, Transportation, Library, Spirit Wear purchases, Swimming Pool visits; anything)

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Questions To Ask

• Schedule fees and activities by effective start and end dates for when

items become available for parents to see and pay online

• Saves time from having to re-create Fee and Activity assignments • Assign a quantity (number of slots available) for items with a capped

availability

Set Fees and Activities on a Schedule

Questions To Ask

• Fees can be assigned to students individually or you can assign fees

to a group of students and subgroups

• Saves the district time having ability to assign one fee to multiple

students at once

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Questions To Ask

Assign activities/optional fees at a district, school or grade level • Minimizes parents paying for incorrect fees or activities

• Example: Prom Ticket can be restricted to 11/12th graders

only and parents with kids outside of these grades will not see the option to purchase a prom ticket

Questions To Ask

districts can set student max and family max payments for fees • Efficiently manage student or family max amounts parents

pay for fees

• Assign a max amount parents pay for fees when students

or family is eligible for reduced payments

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Questions To Ask

• Assign G/L Codes to individual fees • Customize file for G/L systems

• Automate online and face-to-face payment import file to accounting

software

• Several G/L payment reports available for easy reconciliation G/L Codes with Reports

Questions To Ask

• Create and Assign a Fee Type to individual fees or a group of fees • Run reports to categorize fee payments by Fee Type

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Questions To Ask

• Set as a %, or

• % & a per transaction fee, or • a flat dollar amount per transaction ICF and Transaction Fee structure

Questions To Ask

• districts can pass 100% of the Internet Convenience Fee and/or

Transaction Fee to the user

• The cost can be split by applying a percentage or a flat dollar rate Managing ICF and Transaction Fee

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Questions To Ask

Add funds to a student’s lunch account

• Allow parents to replenish their student’s accounts in a

convenient and secure way

• Take cash and checks out of the hands of students and staff

Questions To Ask

Create automatic replenishment payments to student lunch accounts with a minimum balance and set charge amount that can be turned off

• Provide automation to parents for adding money to their student’s account

• Parent receives a customizable notification before a replenishment charge is made

• Reduce the need for the school to contact parents regarding zero balances

• Allow for a stop-date, which minimizes the number of parents carrying a large lunch balance into the summer

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Questions To Ask

Make partial payments for fees (district option)

• Give parents a flexible payment amount and timeline that is

ideal for their individual financial situation

• Turn this feature on or off with each fee that is created

Questions To Ask

Select the maximum number of students who can purchase or participate in a specific activity

• Keep parents informed and help staff monitor space by

keeping a running tally of spaces left

• Assist the staff with budgeting and inventory, by ensuring that

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Questions To Ask

Make installment payments until the fee is completely paid for (district option), and this process is managed by the site

• Allow parents to schedule automatic transactions until the

whole amount is paid in full

• Ensure timely payments of school fees

Questions To Ask

Create afterschool programs where parents can register students and select different childcare programs

• Provide convenience to parents and create less paperwork

for staff

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Questions To Ask

View, download and/or print what students have purchased in food service for the past 30 days

• View itemized detail list of what students are buying for

lunch

• Ability to print students lunch activity history

• Helps parents monitor what their kids are eating for lunch

and Ala Carte purchases

Questions To Ask

View outstanding fees assigned to students

• View and print outstanding fees still owed for one or all

students

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Questions To Ask

View lunch fund balances and pending deposits into the lunch fund accounts

• View individual student lunch balances

• Ability to see lunch payments in pending status until funds

deposit to student lunch accounts

Questions To Ask

Flexible reporting for reconciling bank statements, program management, state reporting, and more

• PayForIt offers 15+ different reports for easy reconciliation

to bank deposits

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Questions To Ask

Support parents with FAQs, tutorials and videos

• Multiple avenues available for parents and administrators

in need of support or assistance: Phone (855) 210-8232 | Email [email protected]

• Easy access to FAQs and tutorials for parents to assist with

using PayForIt.net

• Parent Video Tutorials available at:

http://vimeopro.com/user15751241/payforit-tutorials

• Administrator Video Tutorials available at:

http://vimeopro.com/user15751241/payforit-admin-tutorials