CivicPay Online
My Agency > Settings > Payment Settings
The CivicPay Online Settings pages are used to set up how your citizens will interact with your CPO site.
Payment Settings
- The Payment Settings page is used to set up payment details for CPO.
- The Min/Max Payments section is used to specify optional minimum and maximum payment values.
- Specify a minimum and maximum value in the ACH Minimum Payment and ACH Maximum Payment fields in the ACH - Electronic Check section.
- If you specify maximum or minimum values, they must be greater than or equal to 1.00. If you specify both, the minimum value must be less than or equal to the specified maximum value.
- If an ACH payment is returned, the system will deactivate the relevant payment method, require the citizen re-enter the payment method details, and remove the payment profile from Auto Pay enrollment if enrolled. CPO will also generate an email notification alerting the citizen that the ACH payment was retuned, they may be charged a returned payment penalty fee, the payment method was disabled, and they are unenrolled from Auto Pay if applicable.
- Specify a minimum value in the Card Minimum Payment field in the Credit/Debit Cards section.
- If you specify a minimum value, it must be greater than or equal to 1.00.
- Specify a minimum and maximum value in the ACH Minimum Payment and ACH Maximum Payment fields in the ACH - Electronic Check section.
- The Utility Payment Options section is used to set up how the Citizen Payment Portal handles custom payment amounts.
- Check the Prevent citizen-entered payment amounts toggle to limit the options available to citizens making payments via the Make Payment and Utility Quick Payments pages of the Customer Payment Portal. This will limit the payments a citizen can make to total account balance, previous account balance, or current charges.
- This will not prevent agency staff from specifying a custom Amount to Pay when processing call-in or walk-in payments via the Agency Take Payment page.
- Check the Only allow payment of total account balance toggle to require that all payments be for the full account balance and disallow overpayments or partial payments. This toggle does not affect admin payments, recurring payments, or non-utility payments.
- When this toggle is checked, the Prevent citizen-entered payment amounts toggle will be checked by default.
- Check the Prevent citizen-entered payment amounts toggle to limit the options available to citizens making payments via the Make Payment and Utility Quick Payments pages of the Customer Payment Portal. This will limit the payments a citizen can make to total account balance, previous account balance, or current charges.
- The Show Owner Information section is used to display the owner information on the bill.
- The Show Customer Mailing Address section is used to determine whether the customer mailing address will be displayed on the citizen views. This will default to Yes.
- If the Show Owner Information and the Show Customer Mailing Address are both set to No, only the Service Address will be displayed when the citizen accesses their account.
- The Bill Delivery Options section is used to set up how bills will be delivered. A delivery option must be selected.
- The Paper Bill option will result in only a paper bill being generated.
- The E-Bill and Paper Bill option will result in both paper and e-bills being generated.
- The E-bill or Paper Bill option will result in only an e-bill being generated.
- The Auto Payment Options section is used to display the organization's automatic payment settings.
- NOTE: This section will appear differently for organizations that have auto payments set up in different ways and use different versions of Springbrook.
- Organizations that are on Springbrook 7.15.0.0+, have Auto Pay enabled, and have Scheduled Payments enabled will see the following options:
- The Pay Current Charges and the Pay Total Amount Due options allow organizations to decide what payment amount options are available to citizens when setting up auto pay. Payment amounts are derived from the committed new and final billing and are either the total current charges from the billing (Pay Current Charges) or the account balance at the time of the billing (Pay Total Amount Due) which includes the prior balance plus new charges. These options are READ-ONLY. You must contact Springbrook Support for assistance when setting up these auto payment options.
- Click the information icon
to see the payment details associated with the two auto payment options.
- Click the information icon
- The Payment Date Options allows organizations to offer citizens additional flexibility when using Auto Pay. Once this option is enabled, citizens will be able to schedule their payments on the Bill Due Date or to schedule their payments up to an organization-specified number of days before the Bill Due Date. Organizations can specify between 1 and 15 days when setting up this Auto Pay option. Like the options above, this is READ-ONLY. You must contact Springbrook Support for assistance when setting up these auto payment options.
- Click the information icon to see the details associated with the payment date options.
- Click the information icon
- The Pay Current Charges and the Pay Total Amount Due options allow organizations to decide what payment amount options are available to citizens when setting up auto pay. Payment amounts are derived from the committed new and final billing and are either the total current charges from the billing (Pay Current Charges) or the account balance at the time of the billing (Pay Total Amount Due) which includes the prior balance plus new charges. These options are READ-ONLY. You must contact Springbrook Support for assistance when setting up these auto payment options.
- Organizations that are on Recurring Payments for Auto Pay or that have never offered Auto Pay will see the following options. If you are considering enabling Auto Pay please contact our support team to discuss which of our options works best for your organization: Scheduled Payments or Recurring Payments.
- Check the Enable Auto Pay to activate the auto pay feature and to enable the Auto Payment Method section below.
- Check Balance after committing the current billing in order to set the auto payment amount equal to the balance at the time that the New Billing batch for that cycle was committed.
- This method does not consider any adjustments, payments, or manual bills applied to an account after the current New Billing batch was committed.
- Advantages - Your organization collects any old balances on the accounts at the time of billing. This brings the accounts in question up to date as of the time the New Billing batch was committed. Any manual bills or payments that were committed after that time will be reflected on the next billing statement and will be included in the next auto payment.
- Disadvantages - If a credit or payment has been applied to an account since the New Billing batch was committed, such as a credit for a misread meter, the auto payment amount will not reflect that credit or payment. This could result in an overpayment. This problem can be addressed by tracking any accounts that have had credit adjustments applied since the New Billing batch was committed and then modifying the auto pay amount for those accounts before processing the payment transactions. If your organization does not frequently processes manual billing, or if this tracking and adjustment approach becomes cumbersome, Springbrook recommends choosing the other Auto Payment option.
- Check Lesser of balance forward or current billing in order to compare the current balance on the account with the amount billed in the current New Billing batch. The system will then set the auto payment amount to the lesser of those two amounts.
- Advantages - Any credits or payments received since the New Billing batch was committed will be considered when calculating the auto payment amount. This can help reduce the likelihood of overpayments.
- Disadvantages - Any existing balances on an account prior to the New Billing batch will not be included, so accounts need to be current when they are included in auto pay if this method is selected. Manual Bills applied to the account after the New Billing batch was committed will also not be included. This problem can be addressed by tracking any accounts that have had manual bills applied since the New Billing batch was committed and then modifying the auto pay amount for those accounts before processing the payment transactions. If your organization frequently processes manual billing, Springbrook recommends the other Auto Payment option.
- Check Balance after committing the current billing in order to set the auto payment amount equal to the balance at the time that the New Billing batch for that cycle was committed.
- The Auto Payment Options section will not be displayed if your organization has enabled Scheduled Payments.
- Please note: Due to Visa processing rules associated with convenience fees, which prohibit charging them for recurring or installment transactions, no fees are assessed for any transactions processed through CivicPay Online Auto Pay.
- Check the Enable Auto Pay to activate the auto pay feature and to enable the Auto Payment Method section below.
- The Return Check Reference section is used to set up which fees will be applied to each of the displayed return check situations.
- The fees displayed in the field drop-down menus are set up on the Fee Code Maintenance window in Springbrook (UB> Maintenance> Fees).
- If a fee is selected but CPO encounters a problem connecting to Springbrook, an error will display alerting you of the issue.
- See the Payment Settings section above for information on returned ACH payments.
- The Auto Pay Message field is used to enter a user-defined message that will be displayed to citizens when they are signing up for or managing Auto Pay or Scheduled Payments.
- If an Auto Pay Message is not configured, the corresponding message block will not be displayed to citizens when enrolling or configuring Auto Pay or Scheduled Payments.
- This field will only be enabled if Auto Pay or Scheduled Payments is enabled for the agency and can only be edited by agency users assigned to the ORGEDIT role.
- The Auto Pay Message is limited to 250 characters and will be preceded by "Important" when displayed to citizens.
- Click the Save button
when your payments settings are complete.