Revision as of 16:58, 27 March 2018

Overview

BPAY is a payment collection method that allows customers to pay bills over the Internet or phone banking via their bank or financial institution. The invoices created by our system will also include BPAY details if you are a registered BPAY biller, and your BPAY details have been configured correctly.

For more information about setting up your BPAY biller details in order to allow BPAY as a payment method for your customers, please contact the Emersion Sales team.

Service providers can configure the BPAY reference number format to use (i.e. per your bank’s or financial institution’s requirements) that identify BPAY payments made by your customers. The system can then automatically generate each customer’s unique BPAY reference number based on the reference number format set up. The system uses the customer’s account number as well as the reference number format information to generate a number. This is then processed through a Luhn algorithm to generate a check digit. This is then appended to produce the customer’s unique BPAY reference number.

The BPAY Payment Process

The life cycle of the BPAY payment process is as follows:

1. An invoice is received by a customer. The invoice contains the BPAY biller code and customer’s system-generated BPAY reference number.
2. The primary/billing contact logs into their internet banking website, app or uses phone banking, to make a BPAY payment.
3. The customer’s bank or financial institution validates the payment and provides the customer a receipt number.
4. The payment information is forwarded from the customer's bank or financial institution to your bank or financial institution. This happens via BPAY.
5. Your bank or financial institution forwards a payment information file to you and deposits the funds into your bank account.
6. You upload the payment information file into Emersion to allocate the payments against your customer accounts.
   • For customers who use BPAY via Ezidebit, the process of creating payments received via BPAY in Emersion is automated via a poller.
     This can be monitored by running Report > List > EPS > (967) Ezidebit BPAY Importer Log Report

Service Provider BPAY Settings

Service providers need to set up any BPAY biller codes and BPAY reference number formats before they can be used. Multiple BPAY biller information can be configured.

Nav: Admin > Payment Details > Bpay Details

The BPay Details page will show any BPay biller codes being currently in use or have been used previously.

1. If you want to modify an existing BPAY biller code, click Edit in the Actions column. Otherwise, click the Create New Biller Code button.
2. Enter the BPAY reference number prefix to use when generating your customers’ unique BPAY reference numbers in the Reference Number Prefix field.
3. Enter the length of the BPAY reference number to generate in the Reference Number Length field.
4. If you have multiple BPAY biller codes configured, tick the Is Default Biller Code check box if you wish the system to use the current biller code as the default biller code (i.e. for all new customer accounts created) You can override the biller code to use for each account individually if required (see below).
5. Click the Save button to save the changes.

! Important ! It's important to understand that by setting the BPAY biller code as the global default will not automatically mean the new default BPAY biller code will automatically be used on all future invoices for customers already created. The new global default setting will only apply to new customers created after the change. If you wish for existing customers to also adopt the new biller code you will need to set the BPAY biller code for those customers manually as per the instructions below. If your customer base is the size where this is not practical, you can raise a Work Request with Emersion and we will provide you a quote for the work.

Ezidebit Customers

If you are using Ezidebit as your BPAY merchant, they will likely have issued you a unique reference number prefix (generally a 4 digit number they call a Sub Biller Code) along with their shared Biller Code (they have many - 1 example being 197988 [1] which is "Ezidebit Telecoms"). You can obtain these details from your Ezidebit account manager.

With the regard to the automatic generation of BPAY reference numbers for end users, you will need to be aware that the CRN (Customer Reference Number) has some specific requirements where Ezidebit are concerned.

1. You must match the entire reference number length to be equal to (Sub Biller Code / Prefix + Account Number + Check Digit).
   1. 4 digits + 7 digits + 1 digit = 12 digits total CRN length (enter 12 as your reference number length and the system will not add padding zeros)
2. Ensure you do not enter a reference number length greater than the previously mentioned amount of digits or the system will add '0' characters as padding to ensure the total length of the CRN.
   

Ezidebit will not be able to process BPAY payments into your bank account if end users are entering the zero padding at the beginning of their customer reference number

It is very important you use a test account, generate a CRN & have this render on a test invoice invoice before proceeding with a bill run where customers can pay by BPAY to ensure you meet Ezidebit's CRN requirements.

Example:

• If your end user account number is 1234567
• Your reference number length is 12
• Your prefix is 9999
• Your CRN will automatically generate as 999912345671 (being 12 digits in total length).

This will be received by Ezidebit as a successful BPAY payment.

If you wish to have the system generate new CRN's for your customers, you may wish to take advantage of our BPAY Reference Number Update tool.

Customer (End User) BPAY Settings

To set the BPAY biller code for a customer:

Nav: Customer > Payment methods > BPAY tab

1. Find the customer you want to change biller codes for using the Customer search.
2. On the Payment Methods tab of the customer, click the BPay sub tab.
3. Click the Edit button.
4. Select from the list, the BPay code you want the customer to use.
5. Complete the rest of the fields.
6. Save the changes.

See Also

• The Automatic Electronic Payments (EPS) System Overview
• Payments