AR Automation is available to all customers operating in US Dollars. To activate this feature, please send an email to licensing@accountingseed.com.

Overview 

Convenience Fees are usually charged to offset the processing fees from a Payment Processor for electronic payments. Convenience Fees can be a percentage of the total transaction amount or a fixed dollar amount (flat fee). A Convenience Fee is referred to as an Electronic Transfer Fee in Sola. The Convenience Fee fields on the Payment Processor screen provide instructions for Accounting Seed to handle the Electronic Transfer Fees from Sola.

Your Sola portal includes the initial Convenience Fee (Electronic Transfer Fee) settings. These fees will be deposited into your settlement batch (Cash In). These fees differ from Processing Fees, which can also be set up in Sola. Processing Fees is the money that Sola collects from you when a transaction is processed. Processing Fees are withdrawn from your settlement batch (Cash Out).

Important: If you choose to include Convenience Fees, before enabling these fees in Accounting Seed, you should have already enabled Convenience Fees in Sola.

When configured, Convenience Fees will automatically calculate when you create a payment from an Account record, as well as on the Billing payment screens (detail and list view) based upon the selections that are made in the Payment Processor screen.

When a payment is processed, a Cash Receipt will be created that includes the Convenience Fee amount. This amount cannot be applied to Billings. Instead, when the Merchant Download job runs, in addition to the other records created, two additional Journal Entry Lines will be created on the Merchant Funds Journal Entry. These lines will post the Convenience Fees amount to the Convenience Fee GL Account and relieve the Unapplied AR GL Account.

For PaymentSite URL payments, when a customer opens the form, if Convenience Fees are enabled, the fee amount will automatically calculate when the PaymentSite page loads.  

If you are using custom permission sets and want to view the fields that are related to Convenience Fees, refer to the Convenience Fee Changes (with Custom Permission Sets) section of the Spring ’24 Configuration Changes article.

Convenience Fees Process

1. Enable Convenience Fees in Sola. After completing the setup, as mentioned above, for PaymentSite URL payments, the Electronic Transfer Fee (Convenience Fee) amount will automatically be calculated.
2. In Accounting Seed, navigate to Accounting Home and click the Setup tab. Then, under the Utilities menu, click Payment Processors.
3. Select an appropriate Sola Payment Processor. 
4. Enable Convenience Fees in Accounting Seed. Once the setup has been completed on a Payment Processor:
   • If you Charge a Customer using Sola from the Account record, Convenience Fees will automatically be calculated once an amount is entered. You can choose not to collect fees by de-selecting the Include Convenience Fees checkbox.
   • If you Receive Payment Directly from a Billing or Receive Payments from Multiple Billings, Convenience Fees will automatically be calculated based upon the amount. You can choose not to collect fees by disabling the Include Convenience Fees toggle switch on the single payment screen or for multiple payments, de-select the Include Convenience Fees checkbox for a row in the expanded drawer.
   • When the Cash Receipt is created, the Total field will include the Convenience Fees amount. However, the Convenience Fees will not be included in the Cash Receipt Applied or Balance amounts. Therefore, the Convenience Fees cannot be applied to the Billings.

Automation

 When the Merchant Download job runs after a Sola batch has been closed, additional Journal Entry Lines will automatically be created in the Merchant Funds Transfer Journal Entry. These lines will post to the Convenience Fees GL Account and to the Unapplied AR GL Account. This is why the Convenience Fees amount on a Cash Receipt cannot be applied to Billings. 

Note: Click here to view the Convenience Fee related T-Accounts information in an Excel spreadsheet.

Important: After setting up Convenience Fees in Sola and in Accounting Seed, if you later decide that you no longer want to include these fees, both the settings in Sola (Enable Convenience Fees in Sola) and in Accounting Seed (Enable Convenience Fees) will need to be disabled at the same time.

Activity Statement

Sola convenience fees are displayed on Activity Statements in the Fees type below the existing paid value in the Cash Receipt row, showing the Convenience Fee amount as a positive value in the Amount column. The running balance for each Cash Receipt row is calculated by adding both the payment amount and the convenience fee to the previous row’s running balance. This ensures the statement accurately reflects both the payment and the associated convenience fee.

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