Adding Online Bill Pay To Your Website – PaySimple

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Before you can add online bill pay to your website you must contact PaySimple for a username and password to their gateway. Once you have received your username and password you can log into PaySimple’s gateway by going to: https://payments.paysimple.com

Under “Settings” which should be an option at the top of the page, you’ll want to select the “Web Payment Pages” tab. Next select “Add New Payment Form”.

Naming Your Form:

  1. Create a name for your payment form so you can find it later. In this example we will use “Test Form 1”
  2. Select a user from the drop down menu
  3. If you would like you can also add a description for this payment form for your reference.

Payment Options:

  1. Select which ways you would like to allow your customers to pay. For our purposes we would like our customer’s to be able to pay via ACH (electronic bank draft) and Credit Card (including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover).
  2. Next choose whether you would like a field for your customer to enter in their Invoice # to appear on your payment form. We’ll select “Display”.
  3. Select “None” under Recurring Billing Schedule
  4. If you choose you can enter “Terms and Conditions” to appear on your payment form by adding them in this field.
  5. Under “Payment Amounts” you can allow your user to enter in a specific amount or you can add preset amounts your customer can choose from. We’ll let our user enter in their own amount.

Template Fields:

  1. By default, fields for your customer’s name and billing address will always appear on your payment form. By checking “Yes” in this box you can choose to add fields for your customer to enter in a shipping address. If you are not shipping anything to your customers select “No”.

Form Customization:

  1. Enter your page title – we chose: “Our Payment Form Test”
  2. Upload your logo in either jpg, png, or gif formats – we uploaded probill_logo.jpg and then selected “Upload”
  3. Enter text for a button to return to your webpage – we chose: “Return to Website”
  4. Enter the URL of which page you’d like the customer to return to – we chose this page: http://probill.com/adding-online-payment-to-your-website-using-paysimple/
  5. Enter text for your payment button – we chose “Pay Now!”
  6. Choose a font for your payment form – we chose Arial the default setting
  7. Choose the colors you’d like for your payment form – We are going to make our page colorful so that you can see where each color selection will end up on the form.
    • Text: Blue
    • Title: Red
    • Subtitle: Yellow
    • Button: Green

Contact Information:

  1. Here you should enter your company information to appear on your payment form. By selecting “Use Account Information” those fields will be automatically filled in based on the account information PaySimple has on file for your company. Otherwise you can fill in this form as you like.

Adding the Form to Your Website:

After saving your template, you’ll be brought back to the “Web Payment Forms” page. Next to the form name you chose, you’ll see the URL for your payments form. Under actions you can choose to “Preview Payment Form”, “Edit”, or “Delete” the form. You will want to preview your form and then you can edit it if necessary from this screen. Once the payment form is the way you would like it, highlight the URL you are given, right click, and select “Copy”.

In your website’s code you will want to choose where you’d like to insert this payment option and paste in your URL.
For example you could add:

Click Here To Pay Your Bill

Adding this HTML code to you page would look like this except with your specific URL:
<a href=”https://payments.paysimple.com/Login/CheckOutFormLogin/i27JewL6khM5BEB-FB6r8Tfgirg-“>Click here to pay your bill</a>

Check For Your Transactions:

That’s all it takes to set up Online Bill Pay through PaySimple’s gateway. However, to see the transactions that are being put through on your website, you need to log in to the gateway just like you did to create the payment form. Next, select the “Reports” button from the menu on the left hand side. Under standard reports select “Web Payment Form Transactions”. At the top you can choose a different date range for the report to display. By default it is set to “Last 90 days”. You will need to enter your settled transactions into Probill, as though they were physical checks, using the approval code from PaySimple, as the Reference.

Electronic Processing Information

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To set up electronic processing in Probill, we proudly invite you to take a look at our merchant processor, PaySimple. Our partnership with them has allowed us to set competitive rates for Probill customers. Since our software is tightly integrated to their gateway, you will immediately see the benefit of additional Probill features. These features include the ability to charge on a recurring basis, check deposit dates, reconcile bank statements, and void/refund payments directly through the software.

One of the most useful benefits of working alongside PaySimple is that they also handle ACH processing. Electronic check processing is the most affordable option to automate transaction handling in Probill. With this option, you no longer need to enter single check payments into the software and then take a stack of checks to the bank to deposit – truly a time saver. As with credit card processing, setting up ACH is as simple as entering your customer’s charge information into Probill. All you need to do is process these transactions based on your billing cycles and you’ll see the funds in your bank account in a few business days. For more information about PaySimple and to view their rate sheet click here

If you would prefer to use your existing credit card processor in conjunction with Probill it may be possible. Click here for more information.
If you are only interested in processing payments via electronic check, click here for more information.

You can also feel free to give us at 1-800-409-4997 to discuss specific integration options with you.

Setting Up Credit Card With Your Own Processor

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USAePay Logo

Probill’s partnership with PaySimple enables you to reconcile bank statements, view returned checks, and void/refund payments directly through the software. It is still possible to use a merchant processor other than PaySimple, however, these specific features will not be available for your convenience.

If you choose to use your existing merchant company, they must process with a compatible back-end processor. Probill can interface with providers on the TSYS/VITAL, FDMS Nashville, Paymentech, or Global platforms using our alternative electronic processing gateway.

The registered gateway service provider that powers our electronic Gateway is USAePay with a vendor ID of 234 and software version 2.0. The USAePay gateway fee is $24.95 per month as opposed to PaySimple’s $19.95 per month. Keep in mind, ACH transactions are done through Vericheck – the ACH company both us and PaySimple partner with.

Your merchant company will help you fill out the appropriate information sheet (attached below).

FDMS Information Sheet
TSYS/Vital Information Sheet
Paymentech Information Sheet 
Global Information Sheet

At times it may be challenging to reach the correct person with your merchant processor to receive the information you need. Consider calling their technical service department as they are more likely to be able to provide you with these details. If this information becomes difficult to obtain or your merchant processor is one of the few providers Probill doesn’t support, you may consider changing your service provider to PaySimple. This is the merchant processor we partner with and they have set up a great plan for Probill customers. In addition, there are many useful features to make running Credit Card and ACH transactions more efficient and convenient through Probill. If you are interested you can view more information by following the link below.

For more information about PaySimple and to view their rate sheet click here

If you are also interested in processing ACH or electronic check payments click here

Info About ACH Payment With Vericheck

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Processing ACH payment via electronic checks is the most affordable option to automate transaction handling in Probill. With this option, you no longer need to enter single check payments into the software or take checks to the bank to deposit. To process these transactions through Probill, you simply enter a customer’s routing number and account number into the software and process the transactions based on the customer’s preset billing cycle. Recurring charges can be set to monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually. Funds will automatically be deposited into your bank account after just a few business days and the process is complete.

The company we partner with is Vericheck; they currently charge only 50 cents per transaction with a $12 monthly minimum. This option is almost always less expensive than the discount rates charged by credit card companies. If you would like to get setup to process checks electronically through Probill, you will need to set up an account with Vericheck. Simply follow the link provided below, fill out Vericheck’s application and either email the form to support@vericheck.com or fax the form to them at 404-872-3490. If you have any problems please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us directly using our contact page or by any other means of communication and we will endeavour to get back to you ASAP. We have a dedicated team of specialists who’s sole purpose is to make your transition to Probill as smooth as possible.

For more information about Vericheck and to view their application click here

How Useful is the Bill and Pay Options Report?

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The helpful bill and pay options report displays various payment options you’ve set in Probill for each customer. It can be useful in auditing your database for inconsistencies, determining how many customers you have setup for each payment type and discerning how customers will receive their bill. The report can be filtered based on any of the options in the “Bill and Pay Options” screen. You even have the ability to search for the last four digits of any credit card or bank account number.

Not only can you easily search and filter the Bill and Pay Options report directly in the software, it can easily be exported to Microsoft Excel. A helpful tip to effortlessly keep on top of expiring credit cards is to export this report and sort it by the expiration date column. This enables you to see which customer’s credit cards are about to expire so your company can reach out to them and prevent any missed payments.

New PCI Compliance Standards Effective July 1, 2018

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In order to meet new PCI Data Security Standards, we at Probill have released a mandatory security update for all PaySimple customers. Probill Software version 2.8.6 has migrated from an earlier version of TLS to a more secure protocol – TLS v 1.2. This update must be installed by all customers running Credit Card and ACH through the software by June 28, 2018 or you will no longer be able to process transactions through Probill.

What is TLS? Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol used to establish a secure communication channel between two systems. It authenticates one or both systems, and protects the information passing between the two systems. TLS was standardized by the (IETF) Internet Engineering Taskforce and has undergone several revisions to improve security over the years.

If you have any further questions or concerns about PCI Compliance or Probill version 2.8.6 please feel free to reach out to our technical support line at 1(800)-409-4997.

Why Probill Should Become Your Pool Maintenance Payment Software

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Commercial or Residential Pool Maintenance Payment Software

Whether your pool company is commercial or residential, Probill’s recurring billing software is the ideal solution to easily keep track of customers. Probill allows companies to effortlessly set monthly recurring charges for pool maintenance or generate one time invoices or proposals for services and repairs.  For a full breakdown of all of the services Probill can offer your pool company, visit our Pool Maintenance Billing Software Page. Our software allows you to easily create one-time invoices by crafting Sales Categories and Item Lists to quickly generate invoices out of items or services that tend to be used most often. For example, winterizing a pool could be set as an item on the Item List which would allow you to save this description information and cost a single time to avoid repeatedly creating this charge in the future.

While Probill makes creating one-time invoices quick and efficient, services charged on a recurring basis are Probill’s specialty. Our recurring billing software has the ability to set customers up on different billing cycles and automatically generate bills for customers based on recurring charges you’ve created. For example, if you’re charging customers monthly for a backwash and filter recharge or for testing, balancing and skimming, these would be ideal services to make into Standard Recurring charges. These services could be made into default line items, enabling you to select which service each customer is using. Set these customers up one time in the program and Probill will automatically generate invoices based on the billing cycles you’ve chosen.

Additional features of Probill’s Recurring Billing Software

Probill’s recurring pool maintenance payment software offer also include contracts, annual sub charges, or even one-time charges for special services or repairs. Want to charge customer’s electronically? Check out our video on how simple charging credit cards or automatically drafting bank accounts is using our subscription billing software. Probill is a great all in one solution to help growing pool companies spend less time worrying about receiving payments and more time focusing on gaining new clients and increasing business.

Benefits of Electronic Processing

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As you may know, the fast paced technological world we live in today can be a confusing place in regards to the way businesses and finances are run. Thankfully, there are various resources that can give us methods towards getting a jumpstart on more efficient business interactions. There are many advantages of online payments that not only improve your companies but also provide much easier transactions for you and your customers.

Efficiency of Electronic Payment Processing

With the use of Electronic payment processing, setting up recurring billing and auto-pay becomes a lot easier for your customers. Instead of tracking, organizing and processing payments manually each month, you will be able to bill customers for services instantaneously. Adding this time management skill can save your company a lot of time, making it possible for your company to focus on other important things; such as expanding the business and expanding your customer base.

Save & Make Money

A study by ConnectedPlanet shows that individual businesses spend nearly $1,000 in postage, paper, and supplies for billing every year. The way of online payments can eliminate these costs and can give your company the freedom to expand these savings toward things such as bettering your product and customer service.

The New Way

The recent shift towards online shopping is growing immensely in the way people purchase goods. This is not something to fear or hide from, but rather something to embrace. A study by IDC shows that 73.5% of American consumers now use online billing payments. With this large percentage of online consumers and the era of the tablet, can your company afford not to accept online payments?

Sales Increase

The many forms of online payments (credit card processing, electronic check) allows the ease of online payments with the few clicks of a button which grants more impulse buying rather than cash or check. If you give your customers the ability to spend more money, they will do as such.

Time Saving

Probill makes it easy to run electronic payment processing. After you are set up to run credit card and or ACH transactions, once a month after running your bills you’ll simply select Monthly > Auto Process Payments. This will give you a list of all the customers you have set up to charge on a recurring basis. You’ll hit “Process” and Probill will run through all of the transactions. If approved, the amount of the payment and approval code will be added to your customers’ history. In a few days you will see the funds from the transactions in your bank account. The whole process takes less than five minutes. Compared to the time it takes to individually enter physical check payments to each customer’s account, charging customers electronically is a breeze!

For a video demonstration of the way electronic payment processing works in Probill click here.

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Customers Not Paying on Time?

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Do you have customers not paying on time? Charging late fees is crucial for your business as it gives your customers incentive to pay when their balance is due. While there are three options to charge late fees in Probill, one is completely superior to the others.

Fixed Late Fees: By choosing this option you are electing to tell Probill to charge a certain amount after a customer goes beyond a certain amount of time past the due date. So for example, you can tell Probill to add a $5 late charge after account is 30 days past due. This is a straightforward and simple way of charging late fees and stopping customers not paying on time.

Annual Percentage Rate (APR): Charging customer via an APR is a bit more complicated. Investopedia explains APR this way:

“The annual rate that is charged for borrowing (or made by investing), expressed as a single percentage number that represents the actual yearly cost of funds over the term of a loan. This includes any fees or additional costs associated with the transaction.”

Basically you are charging interest on the payment that is owed to you. The thing that you have to keep in mind about APR is that it is the “annual” percentage rate. That is why when you put an APR into Probill it automatically divides the number by 12 (12 months per year) and gives you the monthly rate. Also note that APR has limitations to how much you can charge. This limit varies from state to state and between industries. In Probill you cannot set an APR of more than 50%. Just for an example, the majority of credit card companies (known for their high rates) don’t charge more than 30% APR.

Now there are some problems when charging you customers these fees. Let’s take two examples:

  1. A customer that owes you $25.00 on their normal recurring bill
  2. A customer that owes $6,000 on an install that you did last month.

In the first scenario a $5 fixed late fee on the $25 charge is a great incentive for customers not paying you now as well as on time in the future. However charge them a late fee at 18% APR, or 1.5% per month, and that’s only about 38 cents – not much of an incentive.

Now take the second case, to someone who owes $6,000 an extra $5 isn’t going to make much of an impact. However, charge them at the 18% APR and they’ve racked up a late fee of $90.

For this reason, Probill has a third option to charge late fees – which you will likely find far superior.

Greater of Fixed or APR: If you elect to choose this option it mitigates the problems of the other two by combining them. Basically when adding late charges, Probill looks at the amount a customer owes you and calculates the late charge based on APR. If this amount is less than your preset, fixed amount (say $5), then Probill just charges the $5. If the APR calculated amount is more than $5 than the customer will be charged the late fee as calculated by APR.

You probably aren’t going to make much money charging late charges. You should, however, charge customers as it gives them an incentive to pay and pay on time – nobody wants to get charged extra money. Now you CAN charge them whichever way you like (fixed, APR, or greater of); however, our team will always recommend that you charge them via the Greater of Fixed or APR option. It is the best way to structure late charges in a way that will always give your customers an incentive to pay you on time.

Why Switch to PaySimple?

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We have been using PaySimple as our credit card processor since 2005. For the past ten years, we have been offering their Gateway to process our customer’s electronic transactions directly through Probill. We have spent over a year and a half writing over 10,000 lines of new code in an effort to seamlessly process transactions using their Gateway.

We are sure the deal we have negotiated with PaySimple will save you time and money! The details we have worked out are below:

  • Visa/Mastercard/Discover: 2.49% + 29 cents per transaction
  • American Express: 2.89% + 15 cents per transaction
  • As an added benefit ACH transactions will be processed directly through PaySimple at the same $0.50 per transaction rate you are paying now, eliminating the need for your Vericheck account, and saving you from any $12 monthly fee from them.
  • You will have one unified bill from PaySimple each month for both credit card and ACH.
  • Your gateway fee will remain exactly the same ($19.95/month) but will be charged through PaySimple instead of Probill.

Most importantly there is no annual fee from USAePay – saving you $79.95 a year!

What are the benefits?

Version 2.8.6 enhances many features for those of you who process credit cards and/or ACH transactions through Probill. This version is capable of completely bypassing USAePay’s gateway. Instead of logging into USAePay to see the details of your transactions or to void/refund payments, you are now able to do all of this through Probill. in addition, Probill now comes with a much more advanced reporting function allowing you to check the status of your transactions as well as returned checks directly from the reports menu. The new report will also give you the ability to reconcile your bank statements with your transaction history.

Click here for a video tutorial of these new features! 

In future versions of Probill we plan on improving upon these features and adding many more in conjunction with PaySimple’s gateway, such as mobile payment processing and website integration.

Where do I sign up?

We are really excited to roll out this new version and are confident that PaySimple’s gateway will be more affordable for you and give us many opportunities to expand the features we offer!

To sign up with PaySimple or for more information click here!

If you have any questions feel free to give us a call at 1-800-409-4997 or send us an email us at support@probill.com