It has been established that auto drafting is the preferred payment method for many consumers, but implementing this process into a school can be challenging. To provide the most flexible payment drafting options for your students, you need to make auto drafting available via check or credit card.
While most banks offer software to handle checking account drafts, this requires careful management. Your staff will have to set up accounts in the software, remember to run transactions weekly or monthly, and keep up with all failed transactions as they trickle in over time. Failed transactions must be resubmitted. Doing so without first making contact with the student can result in subsequent failures and bank fees that are costly both to the school and to the student.
Credit card processing comes with similar challenges. This typically requires purchasing credit card authorization software. After obtaining credit card information from the student, they must sign an authorization form permitting the monthly draft. A member of your staff must initiate the drafts on the date(s) chosen by the student. Once again, payment failures for over limit cards or expired cards must be handled by your staff and the drafts resubmitted.
In addition to establishing a drafting schedule, choosing someone to initiate the drafts on schedule, and determining the "rules of engagement" for failed transactions, other considerations must be given. Familiarity with the very specific rules governing auto drafting is a must. These rules address changing payment amounts, changing draft dates, appropriate charges for NSF fees, etc. Your office must decide how to handle weekends and holidays when selected draft dates fall outside of the work week.
While implementing auto drafting into your school is an important step, the obstacles mentioned above often keep offices from making the option available to their students. PaymentBanc has the solution.
Outsourcing payment management is the solution to the auto drafting dilemma. Success stories abound in facilities from coast to coast. Delinquencies are down, staff productivity is up, and offices are saving time and money. PaymentBanc can help your school meet the payment preferences of the savvy consumer while overcoming the obstacles of auto drafting.
By outsourcing your payment drafting to PaymentBanc, your staff is relieved of creating coupon books, preparing monthly statements, handling payments received by mail, making bank deposit runs, processing manual credit card payments, and answering questions about payments. You also are able to present the student with the option of checking account draft or credit card draft without creating extra work for your employees. We handle all aspects of your payments including contact with students whose transactions fail, obtaining new expiration dates on cards that expire during the payment period, and keeping your office informed of payment progress.
Back to Home