We'll describe a few specific scenarios that sometimes come up regarding the collection of payments through Slate.

Please feel free to submit a Support ticket for issues related to the following payment categories, after you have reviewed the documentation. These categories are:

• External Payment Processor: should be used for issues related to integration with outside payment processors. Questions about collecting the actual money should go here as well. These questions will be directed to experts on payment integration setup.

• Slate Payments: should be used for questions or assistance needed regarding Slate Payments operations, the initial setup, or if you are looking to migrate to Slate Payments from another external vendor. Make sure you review FAQs specifically related to Slate Payments .

  Note: Questions related to application configurations, payment activity rules, payment amount calculation in forms, waivers, etc. should be posted in the Community Forums. Tickets submitted for these topics within a payments category will be redirected to the Community Forums for assistance.

I'm seeing a message saying "No option is currently configured to accept this particular payment type" when I go to a payment page

This message means that no integration is presently set up for the particular combination of application (or person-scoped) configuration (e.g. round/period) and payment account prompt value you are using for that particular payment due activity. For example, perhaps the payment integration is set up for most applications, but you tested with an application in a special round or a test payment account prompt. Perhaps the payment integration is set up for applications, but you tested using a person-scoped payment activity.

I'm using the form payment widget, but my users still owe money after making a successful payment

The form payment widget will add a Payment Due activity as part of the form submission process (in either configuration). Therefore, you do not also need to have any form-based Payment Due rules on top of that. Check to make sure that you don't have both the widget and a form-based rule active at the same time!

We're receiving many reports of payments being declined

• If you are using our built-in Slate Payments product, then you can see additional data about why ACH payments were declined by opening the Transaction Details on the payment history.

• Look for the section marked "Outcome":

• For other payment processors, you'll need to contact the processor to ask about declines. Do make sure that, if you're trying to accept payments in production, all configuration is set to production mode. One possible reasons for declined payments is the use of real credit cards when the integration is in test mode.

Using an external processor, I'm seeing payments listed in their system (or receiving reports from applicants that they have paid) but payment records aren't showing in Slate

With external processors, the update of Slate after a payment depends on:

1. an ID that we pass to the external processor when the transaction begins, and

2. a notification sent back to us from the processor when the payment completes (which contains that original ID and other meta-data).

If no updates are happening in Slate at all, then it's most likely that the notification method back to Slate is not set up in/at your external processor, is misconfigured there, or that your external processor has security in place that requires URLs to be specifically authorized to receive notifications. Contact your external payment processor for assistance.

If only certain payments are not being updated in Slate, you should put in a support request in the Payment Integration category. It's possible that a network or database error occurred at the moment the update was sent, or that a missing piece of data in the notification caused an error (when the message was parsed and proccessed).

Note that, in order for the payment to get recorded/updated in Slate, it must have originated from Slate. If you have a separate public link into your payment processor that does not go through Slate, payments made through that link will not update a record in Slate (since we weren't able to send in the necessary meta-data and IDs at the beginning).

A payment was made but appears as "pending"

• When payments are made through our built-in Slate Payments product, and the payment is made from a checking account, there is a delay while the payment is processed. During that time, the payment will appear as "pending. Typically, checking account/ACH payments will complete in approximately 5 business days (i.e. not including weekends or bank holidays). Infrequently we've seen these payments take one or two additional days.
  
  If the payment shows as pending after 7 business days, please enter a Support desk request in the Slate Payments category. Make sure you also review FAQs specifically related to Slate Payments

• Payments made using Flywire follow a similar procedure, although the time period will vary based on the in-country payment method that was selected.

I'd like to see exactly what is being sent to the external payment processor

If you're integrating with an external processor, in many cases we communicate with them by constructing a hidden form which is submitted to their site when we send the applicant over. You can view the contents of that form by using the Chrome inspector.

Impersonate an applicant and go to the payment page using the Chrome browser.

Right-click on the Submit Payment button and choose "Inspect". The Chrome inspector will open and you should see the HTML of the hidden form. You may need to scroll up or down a bit, but you should be able to see the contents of the hidden form we are submitting.

All of the elements that look like are the data items that we are sending to the payment processor. You can check to make sure that none of the values are unexpectedly empty or incorrect, and you may find it useful to send a copy of this form to the processor's support desk when investigating any problems.