IMPORTANT NOTE: You will not be able to accept online payments through the Customer Portal until you have set up an account with our third party payment provider, Pin Payments. To set up an account, click here: https://pinpayments.com/get-started/simplyswim
Pin Payments charges you a credit card surcharge of 1.75% and a processing fee of 30 cents. Online payments require zero administration time - families make payments online and payments are receipted onto their family account automatically.
You are able to pass a surcharge fee on to your families' online payments to recoup some of this cost. This article guides you through the steps to set this up.
Please be aware, it is not a direct passing on of Pin Payments' fees - SimplySwim allows you to configure a merchant surcharge on the online payments tender type. You can set this to be the 1.75% that Pin Payments charge, or opt for a different amount. Whatever you charge, it will not be identical to what you are charged by Pin Payments - but, it does mean that you recoup as much of the merchant fee charged to you as possible. Pin Payments will charge 1.75% on the total amount that a family pays through the portal (their fee plus the amount of surcharge that you place on the tender type) plus their processing fee. ***(see note at end of article)
How to setup a surcharge fee on online payments
The surcharge is set up as a POS item and then linked to the tender type. It will appear as a separate line in the family finance and you can create a Revenue Type for it in SimplySwim for reporting if required.
Step 1
You first need to set up a POS Item. Note: You may wish to add in a new POS Item Category and/or Revenue Type if you wish these to be separated out in reporting.
1. Go to Configuration, click on POS Items and then Add Item.
2. Fill out all fields and "Save".
a. Enter a name in the Item Description and Description on Receipt (examples could be "Online payment surcharge", "Surcharge fee", "Credit card surcharge" or something along those lines). Note: The Item Description is the name that appears in your POS Items list, the Description on Receipt is what will show on the family finance.
b. Sell amount is 0.00 (reason being you need to put a percentage amount elsewhere, explained below).
c. Select a POS Item Category.
d. Do not tick show on quicksell screen.
e. Do not tick is this a pass item.
f. Enter your tax type. If you are unsure of your tax type, please speak with your financial advisor.
g. Select your Revenue type.
Save.
An example of the POS Item:
Step 2
Now you need to update your Online Payment tender type.
(You should have created this tender type when configuring your customer portal: Configuring Your Customer Portal).
1. Go to Configuration and click on Tenders.
2. Click on "Edit" next to your Online Payments tender type.
3. Tick the box "Tender attracts payment surcharge".
4. In the "Invoice Item to Charge" dropdown menu, select your surcharge POS item you created above.
5. Enter the percentage surcharge amount you wish to charge (so if charging 1.75%, you would enter it as 1.750). Leave out the percentage sign.
6. Click on "Update Tender" to save the change.
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Following this setup, Online payments will automatically attract a surcharge fee according to the percentage you place on the tender. When families go to make a payment in the portal, the surcharge percentage and dollar amount will be displayed. You will notice that the "Processing fee" and "Total amount" fields have a grey background - these fields will automatically update depending on the "Payment amount". If the family changes the payment amount, the processing fee and total amount with automatically update.
When a family makes an online payment, it will be receipted automatically on their family finance. The surcharge fee will display on a separate line.
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Check that your online payments are working
After you have configured your customer portal options (including adding in your API Keys and configuring your surcharge if you are passing one on), it is a good idea to check that your payments are working correctly.
To do this, login to the family portal for your test family/your family account (or go to your test family account/your family account screen in SimplySwim and click on "Edit Customer Portal Options" and login to the portal that way).
Go to "Make a payment" and then pay a small amount (e.g. $1.00) off the account to check that it is all working correctly. If not, contact Support for assistance.
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For those using accounting exports
*** note - if you run an accounting export from SimplySwim, you could set up a clearing account to reconcile payments. The reasoning for using this approach:
- Pin Payments collects the whole amount from the customer. This amount is reflected on the customer account in SimplySwim and movements in MYOB/Xero for the control account. This amount is customer related.
- Pin Payments charges you an amount for processing the payment. This amount is a cost to the business, attracts GST, and needs to be reconciled to the merchant invoice/statement issued by Pin Payments each month (needed for GST reporting). This amount is not customer related, and therefore is not reported by or exported by SimplySwim to MYOB/Xero.
- In cases where you charge your customer a fee to make a payment, this amount is reflected on the customer account in SimplySwim as an invoice (revenue) and is reported and exported to MYOB/Xero as revenue. Whilst this amount may be close to or match the amount charged by Pin Payments, the amount charged to the customer by you and the amount charged by Pin Payments to your business are not related, and should not be considered to be related. The amount charged to the customer is Revenue, whilst the fee charged by Pin Payments is a Cost to the business.
- Additionally, using a clearing account for these payments allows you to show the amount owing to you by Pin Payments at any time on the balance sheet - useful for EOFY reporting where transactions have been processed in one FY but will be remitted in the next FY.
Please speak with your accountant/financial advisor for further guidance about this.
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Last updated 3 August 2022
