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Internet Payment Posting

Last Revised: July 3, 2019

 

Table of Contents

There are currently several steps involved to post Internet payments:

Quarter pay accounts are normally put in escrow.  The normal client preferences for tolerance payments are also observed.  

For accounts whose monies you want to put in escrow for further research, enter the desired escrow jurisdiction number in the Lockbox Jurisdiction field in the Account Detail screen.

Funds for accounts that are blocked for payment are placed in refund for the accounts.

ClosedUser Entitlements

The following user entitlements must be set for each user who needs access to the Batch Menu and Batch Request screens. They are part of the Run Batch Processes task.  See Tasks, Entitlements, and Jobs for more information. The user entitlement for each batch menu no. mentioned below must be set to Y for each authorized user. Batch menu nos. default to N when they are added.

BATCH_MENU - access to the Batch Menu to generate the reports.

BATCH_REQUEST - access to the Batch Request screen to see the reports.

FILE_UPLOAD - check the box to use the File Upload button

ClosedClient Preferences

LOCKBOX_CLEARACCT: Set to Y to allow monies for invalid accounts to be stored in a LOCKBOX-CLEAR account; set to N to not allow this (which will cause the lockbox to stop processing). ACT recommends that tax offices that have lockboxes set this to Y.

LOCKBOX_CLEARTU: Enter the tax unit to store LOCKBOX-CLEAR funds.

INTERNET_PAYMENT_DELAY: Set this to the number of days to wait between the day a payment is entered on a web site to the day it can be posted with automatic posting program.  For ex., entering '1' means that payments made on the Internet yesterday will be visible in the Internet Payment screen and on the Account Status screen's Payment Pending button. This allow funds to move through national networks to banks.

OVERPAY_STATUS: If this is set to OH, all overpayment refunds generated by the lockbox will be put on hold.

MIX_AGROLLBACK_ONLINE: If this preference  is set to N, rollback payments made through the lockbox will be put in escrow.

BANKRUPTCY_TO_ESCROW: Enter Y to send bankruptcy lockbox payments to the escrow unit defined by BANKRUPTCY_ESCROW_TU. Enter N to post these payments normally.

BANKRUPTCY_ESCROW_TU: Enter the escrow tax unit used to store bankrutpcy lockbox payments if BANKRUPTCY_TO_ESCROW is set to Y. The default is 8999.

LOCKBOX_QUARTER_PAY: Set to Y to have the lockbox pay the next available quarter pay receivable on any accounts that have been split into quarter pay receivables.  Once the earliest available quarter receivable (starting with Q2) has been paid, the next quarter will be paid, and then any remaining money will be applied to Q4.  Any remaining funds will be put into refund for the current year.  Tolerances are applied to the last quarter paid. Set this preference to N to put the entire payment amount into refund for all accounts having split receivables.

PAYMENT_BLOCK_ENFORCE: Enter ACCOUNT to block payment for an entire account; enter YEAR to block payment only for specific years of an account. The Block Account for Payment flag must be set for each year if the preference is set for YEAR.

BLOCK_ACCOUNT_TU: Enter the escrow unit to put money that is directed toward blocked payments. Remember that if PAYMENT_BLOCK_ENFORCE is set to YEAR and years other than the year that is blocked are still due, the lockbox program will pay those other years before putting money in this escrow unit.  The default unit is 8001.  If you want a different unit, you will need to change this preference.

SHORT_PAY_ALLOCATION:By default, tolerance underpayments are taken out of penalty in the tax unit set in the PRIM_JURIS client preference.  If you wish to change where the under variance is taken from, set SHORT_PAY_ALLOCATION to one of the following: ATTORNEY, PENALTY, INTEREST, or DISCOUNT.  SHORT_PAY_ALLOCATION is ignored if SHORT_PAY_GO_NEGATIVE is set to N.  For examples of this, click here.

SHORT_PAY_GO_NEGATIVE: If you want the system to allow amounts applied to 'under tolerance'  to be taken from individual tax units (not 8003), set this client preference to Y.  To have amounts applied to 'under tolerance'  taken from the escrow column of 8003 (or the unit you set in UPAY_TOLER_TU), set it to N.

OPAY_TOLER and OPAY_TOLER_TU: Set to the amount and unit, respectively, to use for overpayments within tolerance.

UPAY_TOLER and UPAY_TOLER_TU: Set to the amount and unit, respectively, to use for underpayments within tolerance.  

OVERPAY: Refunds will be placed in the tax unit specified in this client preference if CREATE_ADJUSTMENT_RECORD is set to Y

OVERPAY_STATUS: Set this to OH to have refunds created by overpayments placed on hold automatically.

LOCKBOX_POST_ORDER: Enter the number (for ex., 1) that indicates the lockbox posting order for your tax office. This preference takes precedence over the Special Rule parameter if the parameter is set to 00.  A number 1 permits posting to the year chosen on the tax office's web site first (if that option is available), then from the current year, then the oldest year. Number 2 allows posting to the year first, then from the oldest year first;   A 3 will post in order from the current year to the oldest year.

FEES_PAY: Set to FIRST to pay all fees (including Returned Check Fees) first, before any levies or penalties and interest. Set to LAST to pay fees last. Any other setting will cause an allocation of money across all units, including fee units.

ESCROW_REFUND_TU: Enter the tax unit used to accept advance payments made on the next year's taxes. If this unit exists on a taxpayer's account prior to paying via the Internet, payments can be made to this unit.

FORCE_DEP_DATE_CURRENT_MONTH: If set to Y, a deposit date within the current month must be entered. If any other date is used, the process will abort and the LB10E report will display the reason for the error. When set to N (the default), this requirement is not enforced.

DEPOSIT_LOC_ACTIVE: Enter Y to allow an office location to be selected on the Deposit Control screen. Enter N to show the location, but not allow changes to it. If set to Y, the location entered on the lockbox parameter screen (BMIs 115, 129, 145, 178) will also update the Deposit Control screen.

To select payments for posting:

  1. From the Main Menu, select Update, then Internet Payments.  The Internet Payment screen will appear, showing transactions that have not been posted.

Note: Transactions that have been voided or credited for the full payment amount will not appear, since they are not eligible for posting.

The accounts shown on this screen are those with Internet payments that were made more than the number of days entered in the client preference INTERNET_PAYMENT_DELAY.

This Internet Payment screen displays accounts for which Internet payments have been successfully processed through an ACT 7 web site. You can select either all or some of the accounts on this screen to be posted.  You should base your decisions on what funds have reached your depository bank account.

If you manually post some or all of your Internet payments, you can remove them from this screen as well.  

The accounts having payments listed on this screen will also have the Internet Payment button visible on the Account Status screen.

Payments that have already been posted into the ACT system are not shown on this screen.  Payments that have not been posted, but have been credited in full (either by Certified Payments or another vendor) will also not be displayed.  Payments that have not been posted, but have had partial credits applied to them will be displayed.  The partial credit amount will be shown in the Credit Amount column, and the Payment Amount will be the remaining amount after the credit amount is deducted.  This amount is what will be posted if you select this payment.

  1. The payments default to show as 'checked' any payments you selected the last time you updated transactions in this screen.  All other payments will be unchecked.  

To select a new group of accounts (or make changes to the previous group) for posting, you should

Note:  If you have previously selected and saved one or more of the transactions displayed, you need to re-select them each time you come to this screen if you intend to create an iPayment file with these selections (see step 3).  Make sure that any transactions that were checked when you came to the screen are unchecked if you do not want to post those payments.

To keep a manually posted  transaction from appearing in this screen,

Note: Make sure that any transactions that were checked when you came to the screen are unchecked if you do not want to remove those payments.  

If you remove transactions in error, contact ACT for assistance.

To print an Internet Credit Card Payment report:

  1. From the Main Menu, click on Products, then Batch Products.  The ACT Batch Menu will appear.  
  2. Click on the Internet Credit Card Payment Report line, batch menu no. 143. The parameter screen for this report appears.
  3. Press Enter.

Note:  Before pressing Enter, be sure the number of the report line you want is displayed in the Selection box.  You may need to key in that number before pressing Enter.

  1. Enter your tax office's ACT 7 Client ID.
  2. In the Begin Date field, enter the first date for which you want to include data on the report.
  3. In the End Date field, enter the last date for which you want to include data on the report.
  4. Click Submit Job to start the report process.  
  5. Click OK on the "OK to Submit Job" pop-up screen.  
  6. To preview and print your report, see Previewing and Printing Reports. For the date range chosen when the report is run, the report displays the total number of payments and the total amount of taxes paid.  For each date having successful credit card payments, the report also shows account numbers, payers, taxes paid, posting status, and the unique credit sequence numbers assigned by ACT, along with a total number of transactions and amount paid for the day.  This sequence number is different from the remit sequence number used in the Tax Collection System and is only used for payments made over the Internet.

The Posting Status column displays one of the following statuses for each transaction:  

To post the Internet lockbox:

  1. From the Main Menu, click on Products, then Batch Products.  The ACT Batch Menu will appear.  
  2. Click on the Internet Payment Posting line, batch menu no. 145.
  3. Press Enter. The parameter screen for this report appears.
  4. In the Batch Request Sequence No. field, enter the batch request number created when you selected transactions on the Internet Payment screen.
  5. In the Deposit No. field, enter up to 12 characters. The system will use the first 8 and assign the rest beginning with '0001'.  A separate remit sequence no. is created for each transaction.
  6. Enter a Deposit Date (YYYYMMDD format).
  7. Enter a Receipt Date (YYYYMMDD format).
  8. In the Report Option field, enter D for Detail or S for Summary.
  9. In the Posting Option field, enter E for edit, which allows you to see the list of payments to be posted, or P to post the payments in the Internet Payment screen.
  10. In the Operator field, enter a 4-character Operator ID of the person posting the payments.
  11. Leave the Deposit Override field set to the default of N to use the date entered above.  To use the system date (today's date), enter Y.
  12. In the Postmark Override field, leave the default of N  to use the transaction date of the Internet payment or enter Y   to use the receipt date entered above.
  13. In the Payer Option and Payer to Assign fields, leave the default value of 0.  An alternate payer will be assigned to each payer.
  14. In the Special Rule field,  
  15. Enter 00 to post in the order given in the LOCKBOX_POST_ORDER client preference  
  16. Enter 01 to post to coupon year first, then current year, then oldest year
  17. Enter 02 to post to coupon year first, then oldest year
  18. Enter 03 to post from current year to oldest year in order
  19. Enter 04, which will post to current year only
  20. Enter 05 to post only to prior years
  21. Enter 06 to enter only Harris County WASCHL (school) jurisdictions.
  22. Enter 07 to post to oldest year first
  23. Enter 08 if your web site allows taxpayers to specify the year to pay first and you want that year paid before any fees are paid.  If 08 is entered, the specified year will be paid first, then any fees due, then current year, then the next oldest year, etc. This order is used even if the FEES_PAY client preference is set to LAST. (For El Paso, this rule is further interpreted as follows: pay city liens after all property taxes and other fees have been paid. If more than one lien exists on an account, the oldest lien is paid in full first. The fee in unit 9111 is paid last. This payment order occurs regardless of the setting of FEES_PAY.)
  24. Enter 09 to post any overage in the unit entered in the SIT_OVERAGE_TAX_UNIT client preference. This overage will be put in the current year (the default is 8001).
  25. OBSOLETE. Enter 10 to pay from oldest year to the most recent prior year, paying taxes for each year, then fees for each year.  The client preference FEES_PAY must be set to LAST for this rule to take effect. The current year is not paid with this rule.
  26. OBSOLETE. Enter 11 to post to coupon year first, then current year, then oldest year. Only units having the Linebarger law firm
  27. Enter 12 to post to coupon year first, then oldest year. Only units having a designated law firm in Offline Remittance will be paid; amounts for other units will be put in escrow. (Offline Remittance module only)
  28. Enter 13 to pay the year entered on the web site first, then the current year, then the next oldest year. Fees are paid in the order set in the FEES_PAY client preference.
  29. Enter 15 to post to coupon year's escrow unit (defined by the ESCROW_REFUND_TU client preference) when coupon year is greater than the current tax year and account is fully paid. For unpaid accounts, if the coupon year is greater than the current tax year, the current year is paid first, then the oldest year. For unpaid accounts where the coupon year is the same or earlier than the current tax year, the coupon year is paid first, then the oldest year.
  1. In the Deposit Type field, enter CC for credit card or EC for eChecks.
  2. Leave the Do Not Use field alone.
  3. The following fields should not be changed: Request Sequence No., Portfolio Login Name, Override Escrow Status, Override Status, Portfolio Lock ID, Image URL Client Pref.
  4. Leave the Office Location Code field blank if you do not use these codes (which are set in the Office Locations screen) or enter a specific office location code to assign to the deposit being created.
  5. Click Submit Job to start the report process.  
  6. Click OK on the "OK to Submit Job" pop-up screen.  

Note: If any errors occur during the lockbox posting, the program stops and 'rolls back' any payments already posted. See the LB010 report for information on the error.

  1. To preview and print your report, see Previewing and Printing Reports.

If the first line in the lower portion of the Batch Request screen says **FATAL ERRORS**, this mean that some account numbers are invalid, the total amount of the coupons does not match the total amount of the checks, or there is a duplicate deposit name (the program looks only at the first four letters/numbers of the deposit name).  You have several options. 1) You can edit the lockbox file and remove the invalid account numbers, in which case you will have to post those manually through the Advanced Payment screen in order to balance to the bank deposit amount for the file,  2) you can locate the coupon(s) with the invalid account number(s) and edit the coupon amount to match the check amount, or  3) you can post the file without any editing.  In this latter case, the lockbox program creates a LOCKBOX-CLEAR account that contains the funds for the invalid accounts.  Once you have determined how to correct the amounts, you will need to transfer money from the LOCKBOX-CLEAR account to the correct accounts.

An error report will be created if the database is not updated correctly, which would cause the payments to still appear in the Internet Payment screen even though they were posted successfully

This process creates 10 reports that show how the file will be processed and posted to the accounts. These reports are created both for Edit and Post modes. They can be seen by clicking on the appropriate line in the bottom half of the Batch Request screen, after you have clicked on the correct batch request seq. line for the Edit or Post process you just ran.

The reports are:

LB001A:  This is the Processing Journal. It is sorted by deposit, and lists the account number, credit sequence number, charge date (the date the payment was made on the Internet), payer's name and address, and payment amount, for each transaction on the file.  If this report has '** ERROR** in it,the 'debug' report, LB010 and LB040 reports will provide information on the errors.

Debug report: This lists each 'job' run by the lockbox. A return code of anything other than '0' indicates a failure. The lockbox will stop processing and rollback any changes or posted payments already made.

LB010: This is the main lockbox processing program.  If no errors are found during the initial processing, you will not see this listed in the batch request jobs. If there are errors, a report is generated that lists the account number, year, tax unit and an error message.   There will also a second LB010 line that produces no report, but that contains these words: "FATAL ERROR. ABORT." See above for more information on this message.

LB012:  This is the Batch Payment Processing Detail Transaction Listing. It lists individual transactions by type (which defaults to coupon), account number, amount to post to each account, post date (month and year only), tax year (defaults to 0), tax unit (defaults to 0) and payee (fiduciary number).  The information is sorted by deposit number (i.e., also by fiduciary), then by account number. The remit IDs (check numbers) are given for each deposit.

LB012E:  This is the Batch Payment Processing Special Transactions and Exceptions listing. It displays by deposit, then by account number, amount to post, post date (yyyymm only, displayed as the last 6 digits of the amount to post figure), tax year (defaults to 0), tax unit (defaults to 0), deposit date (yyyymmdd) and payee (fiduciary).

LB035A:  This is the Batch Payment Processing Overpayment Detail Register. It is sorted by fiduciary number, then by account number. It also lists, for each account, the deposit number, tax year, tax unit, overpay amount and payee (fiduciary) for each check used to pay this account. If an account is listed more than once, that indicates that it is being paid with more than one check.  The total amount of overpayment given on the report is also provided. If an account is blocked for payment and sent to an escrow unit as a result, this report will have a message to that effect.

This report can be used to check to be sure that the file you are processing has not already been posted.  This will show you the refunds that will be set up in the case of duplicate processing.

LB037E: This is another Special Transactions and Exceptions report that lists partial payments and duplicate payments.  Included on the report for each account, the credit sequence number (a unique number assigned by ACT), the deposit number, tax year of the payment, and the amount of the partial payment. The report is sorted by the credit sequence number.

LB037CE: This is the same as LB037E, but shows partial payments applied only to the current year.

LB038: This program (not a report) takes duplicate payments (those for the same account and year that could result in an overpayment of that year when other years remain due) and applies the overpayment portion to, first, the current year, and then to either the oldest or most recent year.

LB38E: This report shows Coupon Collision Repairs. A coupon collision occurs when more than one coupon exists for the same account in the same batch on the file.  Coupon collisions result in a temporary overpay or refund before the money is allocated to other years.  AVAILABLE indicates a coupon collision resulting in money available to be allocated.  REMAINING shows what was left after the money was allocated to other years where money was owed.  If all money was allocated, REMAINING would be 0.00. NOT ALLOCATED indicates that the funds were not moved to other years.

LB38RP: This Tolerance Applied report displays the client preference settings for tolerances, the amounts posted to under tolerance and the tax units to which the money was posted.

LB040: Database Process Update Log.  If this states Normal EOJ, you have posted the payments successfully.  If it states Edit Mode - No Database Updates, this is confirmation that you have run this in edit mode, not posting mode.  This also lists any tolerance overpayments.

LB045 - TC298A:  This Lockbox Distribution report is sorted by deposit and gives the receipt date, and the totals per deposit for levy paid, discount given (if any), penalty & interest, attorney fees, other fees, refund amount and payment amount (a gross total for each deposit) .  Totals are given for the entire file.

LB045- TC298B ThisLockbox Distributionreport is sorted by jurisdiction, then by tax year and roll code (all, real, personal, and other).  It lists totals for each year and roll code for levy paid, discount given (if any), penalty & interest, attorney fees, other fees, refund amount and payment amount (a gross total for each roll code per year).  Totals are given for each jurisdiction.

LB045- TC298C:  ThisLockbox Distributionreport is a summary of LB045B.  sorted by year (whether delinquent or all), then by jurisdiction.  It lists totals per year and jurisdiction, and roll code for levy paid, discount given (if any), penalty & interest, attorney fees, other fees, refund amount and payment amount (a gross total for each roll code per jurisdiction).  Totals are given at the end of each year (delinquent and all).

LB050 - TC298D: This Lockbox Distribution report is sorted by jurisdiction and shows disbursement amounts separated by M&O, I&S, and total of M&O and I&S. Tax rates are shown, as are totals by year and fund for   levy paid, discount given (if any), penalty & interest, TIF amount, disbursal total (sum of levy, p&i, and TIF), attorney fees, other fees, refund amount and payment amount (a gross total for each fund per year).  Totals for each column are given for each jurisdiction.  Grand totals for all years are provided on the last page.

The 298 is run in detail mode when this lockbox is processed, so the 298D is sorted by receipt date. You will have a separate totals page for each receipt date.

LB050 - TC298E:  This Lockbox Distribution report is a summary of LB050D.  It is sorted by jurisdiction and then by fund (M&O, I&S). For each unit and fund it displays levy paid, discount given (if any), penalty & interest, TIF amount, disbursal total (sum of levy, p&i, and TIF), attorney fees, other fees, refund amount and payment amount (a gross total for each fund per unit).

Out.log: This log file lists each of the lockbox's 'jobs' and reports whether it ran successfully or not.

LB060:  This is the Batch Payment Processing Transactions With Allocations report. It is sorted by deposit, then by account. The check amount (remit amount) and check numbers (remit ID) are given for each deposit. For each account, the year, units being paid, check number (associated with a numerical sequence 1, 2, 3, etc.), receipt date (YYYYMMDD), amount to post, total amount to post, and payee (fiduciary) are given.  If an account is being paid with two checks, it is listed twice, with the amount to post being the amount taken from each check.