Process Electronic Drafts

You can use the Process Electronic Draft page to process batch credit card transactions and bank transactions through an Automated Clearing House (ACH) network. Credit card transactions that can be processed through this Process Electronic Drafts page include credit card payments and refunds. Bank transactions that can be processed through the Process Electronic Drafts page are payments, refunds, and stipends.

Credit card transaction processing requires your institution to have a relationship with a credit card processing company, such as PayPal or ACI. Campuses that wish to use the Process Electronic Drafts page to process batch credit card transactions must configure a credit card processor for batch credit card transactions through the Credit Card Processors for Payment Schedules configuration page. You can trigger automatic emails with the payment receipts to a student's email address after making an ACI payment.

ACH processing requires your institution and financial institutions to provide files in standard ACH response file format. The files sent by your institution contain the transaction details. The files returned by the financial institutions contain responses and notifications of changes related to the transactions. Campuses that wish to use this Process Electronic Drafts page to process bank transactions must configure a processor for auto-draft through the Auto Draft Processor configuration page.

The Process Electronic Draft page provides three tabs:

On the Process tab, you specify the selection criteria and run the electronic drafts process.
On the Import tab, you select an ACH response file to import.
On the History tab, you review the status of all batches, review the results of specific batches, and manage the batches.

Prerequisites

You must have the following authorization:

Common - Processes - View
Student Accounts - Processes - Bank Deposit
Student Accounts - Processes - Post Financial Aid Disbursement
Student Accounts - Processes - Process Electronic Draft
Student Accounts - Processes - Process Tuition Discounts
Student Accounts - Processes - Reverse Revenue Recognition
Student Accounts - Processes - Void Master Check

If you want to process credit card transactions and bank transactions through an Automated Clearing House (ACH) network for a student or a batch, the student must not belong to a student group that is associated with the Refunds hold or Stipends hold action. You can view the holds for a student in the header of their Student Profile.

To use an additional payment gateway provider, your institution must have selected Yes for Enable Additional Payment Gateway Provider for electronic processing Select Yes to enable an additional payment gateway provider (other than PayPal or ACI) for credit card processing. When you select this option, it permanently disables the following configuration and processes related to credit card and ACH processing in the legacy interface: • Admissions & Housing Deposits • Process Online Applicants under Admissions • Credit Card Processor configuration for single credit card payments on the Electronic Processing tab under Campus Locations • Payment Information for students – Credit Card related areas • Payment Information for Agency • Post FA disbursements (where you can post batch an agency payment using the credit card payment method) • Post Payments – through Ledger Card and Daily menu • Process Electronic Drafts • Refunds – through Ledger Card and Daily menu under Advanced Features. (Select the Settings tile > expand System > select Advanced Features.)

Access Method

Select the Processes tile > expand Student Accounts > select Process Electronic Draft.

Procedure to Process Electronic Drafts

Process Tab

1. Selection Criteria

In the Batch Type field, select one of the following options:
- ACH - Student Payments
- ACH - Refunds
- ACH - Stipends
- Credit Card - Student Payments
- Credit Card - Refunds
- Online ACH - Student Payments
- Online ACH Refunds
The ACH Processor/Credit Card Processor/Online ACH Processors drop-down list contains the active Auto Draft processors and credit card processors and Online ACH Processors that are configured for the campuses to which the logged-in user has permission. The ACH Student Payments, ACH - Refunds, and ACH - Stipends options are file-based ACH batches. Online ACH - Student Payments and Online ACH Refunds are processed through the actual payment gateway provider.
For ACH batch types:
1. Choose the ACH Processor. The available values are configured in Anthology Student.
2. Choose one of the following options in the ACH Batch Type field:
  - New
  - Regenerate Batch
  If you select Regenerate Batch, choose a Batch ID in the Batch field and select Next. When a batch is regenerated, the original Batch ID will be reused.
  
  If a transaction in a batch was voided or a payment for a transaction was removed and you regenerate the batch, a text file containing the batch details will not be generated.
For credit card batch types, choose the Credit Card Processor. The available values are configured in Anthology Student.
For online ACH batch types, choose the Online ACH Processors. The available values are configured in Anthology Student.
Select one or more Campuses. The available campuses depend on the processor configuration.
Specify a date range in the Scheduled Date: From and To fields.

For credit card batch types, the To field is read-only and is populated with the processing date.
For ACH batch types, specify the Transaction Date. The transaction date specified must be on or after the minimum transaction date configured for the selected campus or campuses.

By default, this field is populated with a processing date plus one banking day. Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays are excluded as banking days. For example, if the processing date is a Friday, the date of the following Monday is displayed.
Select Include Past Due Payments, Refunds, or Stipends if applicable.

When this option is selected, the process gathers records that are outside of the date range specified in the Scheduled Date: To and From fields.
Select the Next button.

The Selection Criteria section is collapsed and the Results section is expanded.

2. Results

The Results grid displays the records matching the selection criteria. If students belong to a student group that is associated with a Refund hold, Stipend hold, or Subsidiary Refund hold, their student records are disabled. The grid columns are:

Amount The amount in dollars.

Campus The campus associated with the credit card or bank transaction.

Exception Indicates the error that caused the exception. For example, Expired Card, CC Hold, ACH Hold, Refunds Hold, or Stipends Hold. This field displays multiple exceptions whenever applicable. If a student belongs to a student group that is associated with the Refunds Hold or Stipends Hold action, credit card refunds and ACH refunds batch displays Refunds Hold exception and ACH stipends display Stipends Hold exception.

Fund Source The fund source associated with the credit card or bank transaction.

Scheduled Date The date when the payment, refund, or stipend is scheduled.

Student The last and first name of the student.

Student Number If your institution assigns student numbers, the number your institution uses to identify the student. How the number is assigned is specified by your institution. For example, Anthology Student can be configured to assign the number, or your institution can use another method to assign it.

The record count and total amount are indicated below the grid.

By default, the records are sorted by Student (1st), Fund Source (2nd), and Scheduled Date (3rd).

Select the records to include in the electronic draft batch. You can:
- Select individual records
- Accept the automatically selected records for a credit card batch
- Select the check box in the header row to include all qualifying records
For credit card batches, you can only select records that qualify for processing, i.e., where the Exceptions column is blank. Records with exceptions, such as "Expired Card" or "On Hold", cannot be selected.
For refund/stipend batches, the grid toolbar displays an Unapprove button. The button is enabled when you select records that do not have exceptions.

If you select Unapprove, the selected refund is unapproved and will no longer be approved to pay. The electronic draft process will exclude any unapproved records the next time records are gathered for a batch. You can re-approve a refund using the Processes > Refunds/Stipends menu option.
To process the selected records, select the Queue Post button below the grid.
A message indicating the batch name is displayed. You can edit the batch name.

Select the Queue button to proceed.

This starts a job to create the batch file. A message confirms that the records were successfully queued.
When the job is completed, a notification appears in the command bar. The number of failed jobs will be indicated in red ().

Continue with the History tab.

Import Tab

Select the Choose File button and navigate to the ACH file you want to import. The file name will be displayed in the File To Import field.
Select the Queue Import button.
A message indicating the batch name is displayed. You can edit the batch name.

Select the Queue button to proceed. This starts a job to process the file. A message confirms that ACH Import was successfully queued.
When the job is completed, a notification appears in the command bar. The number of failed jobs will be indicated in red ().

Continue with the History tab.

History Tab

Process Electronic Draft Batches

The History tab displays a grid listing the electronic draft processing batches.

Batches on this tab are available for 28 days by default. Anthology Student removes them after 28 days. If you need to keep the information for a batch, use the Export ( Export button ) button on the toolbar.

Name The name or description of the batch.

Batch Type The batch types for electronic draft processing include ACH (payment, refunds, stipends) and credit card (payments, refunds) batches.

Type Name space for the batch job.

Processor Auto Draft Processor or credit card processor used to process the transaction batch.

Number of Records The number of records in the batch.

Total Amount Sum of all amounts in the batch.

Submitted By The name of the staff member who submitted the background job or batch for processing.

Started The start time of the background job.

Last Retry Shows the date and time when the Deleted jobs within the batch were last resubmitted for processing. Blank if a retry has never been requested.

Canceled Shows the date and time when the batch was canceled. Blank if the batch was not canceled.

Duration The duration of the background job (hours minutes seconds).

Job Status A status of Preparing indicates that the jobs in the batch are still being created or are waiting on the system resources required to create them. Started indicates that the batch has been started. (At least one job in the batch is Enqueued, Processing, Succeeded, or Deleted.) Succeeded indicates all jobs in the batch have been executed and ALL job states are Succeeded. Completed indicates all jobs in the batch have been executed and some jobs may be in Succeeded state, but at least one of the jobs is in Deleted state. Awaiting indicates the batch is awaiting the completion of a dependent job or batch. Deleted indicates that the batch has been canceled.

For a job with a status of Succeeded, select the link in the Name column to review the records in the batch.

The Job Results section is expanded.

Job Results: <Batch Name>

The label of the Job Results grid indicates the name of the selected batch. The available grid columns are:

Student The last and first name of the student.

Fund Source The fund source associated with the credit card or bank transaction.

Scheduled Date The date when the payment, refund, or stipend is scheduled.

Amount The amount in dollars.

Campus The campus associated with the credit card or bank transaction.

File Path File path for the generated ACH file. This column is populated for ACH batches only.

File Name Name of the ACH file generated. This column is populated for ACH batches only.

Job Started The start time of the background job.

Job Created The date that is automatically added by the system when the task is created.

Job Result Indicates the processing result for job. If it was successfully processed, it displays Passed or Succeeded. Otherwise, it displays the reason why it was not processed.

Reasons The reason for the job result.

Response Response from credit card processor regarding the status of the credit card transactions, e.g. Approved or Error Code.

Select the link on the Student Name to view the student's ledger card in a new browser tab.

The Scheduled Payments, Payments Received, and Refunds on the student's Awarding page are updated based on the electronic draft transactions.

For ACH responses that are imported into Anthology Student, you can configure response codes to trigger updates to other records. For example, response codes can be configured to add tasks for staff members to take appropriate action or to add students to a hold group.
For ACH batches, select the link in the File Name column to view a generated text file containing the batch details.

Each time a batch is regenerated, the extension of the text file is incremented. For example, if the original file was named ACH1.001, the regenerated file is named ACH1.002.
If the job status is Successful, you can select Regenerate Batch in the grid toolbar to create a new batch and export a file out of an existing batch.
If the job status is Completed, select the Retry Batch button in the grid toolbar to resubmit the job.
To remove a batch, select the Cancel Batch button in the grid toolbar.
Select the Export button () on the toolbar to export the grid details to Excel or PDF.