The new Distributor Installment Plan module allows for the creation of installment payment plan options for distributor orders.
Setting up the Installment Plan Options
The foundation of the installment plan module functionality is the es100 interface that allows you to create, edit and delete the different installment plan options.
es100>Company>es100 Setup>Order>Pay Plan Schedule
Creating a New Installment Plan Option
To create a new installment plan, select the “New” button within the interface. A pop up window will show the fields available for setting up the installment plan.
The “Quantity” fields (fields 1 & 2) indicate the number (amount) of individual line items within in an order.
The “Installment” field (field 3) indicates the number (amount) of payment installments that the total price of the order can be split into.
Setting the low and high values in the quantity fields followed by the amount of installments in the final field and selecting “Save” will create a new payment installment plan option available for distributor orders.
For example, if you set the first field to 1, the second field to 3 and the final field to 3 then you are creating a payment installment plan for distributors who order between 1 and 3 items that will split their order cost into three payments.
Editing or Deleting an Installment Plan
At any time you can also use the es100 Payment Installment Plan Add/Edit interface to edit or delete previously created installment plan options.
To edit a payment installment plan, select the edit button to the right of the desired installment plan, use the popup interface to make changes, and then select “Save.”
To delete a previously created payment installment plan, select the delete button to the right of the desired installment plan, and then use the pop up window interface to indicate you are certain you want to delete the record by selecting “OK.”
Please note:
Payment installment plans are recorded on each individual order level. This means that you can edit or delete the installment options within this interface without affecting any existing installment plans that have already been assigned to an order.
The quantity fields represent parent line items on an order, component/child items of a group are not counted towards the installment plan Min and Max quantity values.
An infinite # of ranges can be specified. The ranges/installments can be updated, but the changes will only take effect on new payment schedules. Existing payment schedules will remain unchanged.
Assigning Installment Options to Inventory
Now that you have created the installment plan options to be available to your distributors, you need to enable specific inventory items that can be purchased via a payment installment plan.
Navigate to the inventory item(s) desired, and then select to Edit
A new “Order Category” has been created, labeled “Payment Plan.”
By setting an inventory item to an order category of “Payment Plan” and saving, that item will now be enabled to order on an installment plan during the distributor shopping process.
Please note: Only items with an order category of “Payment Plan” (to be created) will be allowed to have a payment installment plan. This will also require that installment plan items not be ordered with conventional, non-payment installment plan items.
Installment Plans for Distributors
Multiple Payment Accounts
To provide distributors with greater payment flexibility, a new interface has been created in the Extranet to allow a distributor to create multiple payment accounts. The payment types can be credit card or echeck.
Extranet>Information>My Payment Accounts
The user can set the name of the accounts (for example: “My Visa Card”) and the relevant payment details (CCName, ExpDate, EcheckAccountNumber, Routing Number, etc.).
Purchasing an Installment Plan Order
The Extranet shopping carts will be modified to allow an order category (Renewal, General, and Payment Plan) to be specified in the shopping links. If a valid order category is provided in the query string, then the shopping cart left hand categories will be restricted based on the provided category.
During the checkout process, when a distributor attempts to make a payment for an order within the Make Payment popup window, they will have the option to “Create a Payment Schedule here.” Payments may only be scheduled for orders that have not yet received a payment.
If the distributor selects “Create a Payment Schedule here,” they will be directed to a new window that allows them to view the installment plan schedule for this order.
The distributor will be allowed to choose the payment method from their available payment methods (see Item #5). If a credit card is used for payment installment payments, then the card will be validated to require an expiration date later than the last scheduled payment date.
When they have selected the payment method desired, the distributor will select to “Create Payment Plan.” A popup window will prompt the distributor to confirm they want to create a payment plan for the order and that plans cannot be removed once created.
NOTE: The first payment on a schedule will be scheduled for the 20th of the following month. The first payment will include all of the shipping, handling, and taxes on the order. Only one schedule will be allowed per order. The order will be posted upon scheduling the payment.
Distributor Review of Existing Payment Installment Plans
Distributors will have a new interface in their Extranet to allow them to view the scheduled payments for all of their orders and to change the payment method associated with a scheduled payment. For credit card payment methods, the expiration date will again be validated to be later than the final scheduled payment date.
Extranet>Information>My Payment Plans
The distributor will see a listing of their orders that have been purchased with payment installment plans.
Corporate Processing & Auditing
Scheduled Installment Processing
The “Process Scheduled Payments” interface will allow the payment processing to be triggered for all scheduled payment install plan payments with a schedule date of the current date or earlier (that have not been processed previously).
es100>Processing Tab>Sched. Payments
When payment processing is requested, a grid display of all of the eligible payments will be displayed. The user will have the option to remove a payment from processing by checking the “Bypass” box next to the desired payment to skip. When a scheduled payment is skipped, the system will save the schedule and generate the same payment previously skipped on the next scheduled payment process run.
Once the payments to process are confirmed, the process will begin sending the payment requests. As each request is completed, the results of the request will be displayed in the far right. If there is an error processing one of the payment records, the merchant error message will be displayed.
es100 Scheduled Payment Report
For auditing pending scheduled payments, a new report has been created in the es100. The report can be run by order date range, schedule payment date range and payment status (all optional).
es100>Reports Tab>Order Reports>Scheduled Payments
The resulting report will display all relevant information for pending scheduled installment plans as well as include drillable functionality on the order# field to review each specific order. Note that a single order with multiple installments pending will show up multiple times.
Subject Type – Always distributor
Subject # – distributor number
Subject Name – distributor name
Schedule Date – reflects the date (within search criteria) of a scheduled payment
Payment Date –reflects the date (within search criteria) of a payment that was processed
Scheduled Payment Date Age – reflects # days since payment due
Installment # – reflects the installment number of the plan that corresponds with the date on that line
Total Installment Count – reflects the orders active total installment count
Scheduled Payment Autoresponders
To maximize the communication and understanding of payment installment plans, we have created 3 new autoresponders for notifying your distributors when payments are pending, processed, approved and declined.
es100>Company>Autoresponders
- Payment Approved
- Triggered upon successfully processing an installment payment via the es100.
- Payment Declined
- Triggered by a decline during the installment payment processing.
- Payment To Be Processed
- Triggered by a nightly process (time to be determined by client).
The recipients will be those distributors who have a scheduled payment to be processed in the next X days (X to be controlled by a hard coded setting).
es100 Order Aging Report & Accounting Report Modifications
The es100 Order Aging Report and Accounting Report have been updated to assist in auditing orders that have installment plans. Both now have an “Order Category” criterion that will enabled the filtering of installment plan specific orders. The results of the report are the same.
es100 Order Detail Page & Installment Plan Editing
Editing orders with installment plans is not recommended. The below section will outline the process for editing and/or deleting an installment plan, but these actions should be avoided if possible to limit the confusion that could ensue in the future.
Editing an Installment Schedule
The order detail page in the es100 has been modified to remove the ability to add a payment to an order with an installment plan. Orders that have an active payment schedule will have a line item added to the payment listing to alert the user that there is an active payment schedule on the order – “Edit Pan.”
The “Edit Plan” button will only be made available for orders with an active payment schedule.
When selected, each scheduled payment on the order will be displayed. Processed payments cannot be altered. Unprocessed payments may have the payment amounts changed. Payment schedules may also be removed (a checkbox will be displayed for each scheduled payment line item; if checked the schedule will be removed upon saving).
There will be a single save button and save action that will validate and process all of the requested changes (updated payment amounts, deleted schedules, etc.). If any scheduled payments remain, then the sum of scheduled payments will be validated to match the remaining balance on the order. No changes will be made unless the entire change request passes validation.
As a reminder, the first payment will include all of the shipping, handling, and taxes on the order.
When an installment is processed for the order, the “Payment Date” field will reflect the date of payment.
All other fields within the interface are editable, but keep in mind the validation must pass to successfully save any changes.
NOTE: Edits of scheduled payments will be logged to the User Activity. A new User Activity item type will be created for scheduled pay