Working with Fees and Payments

You view fees and payments associated with a submitted business license, permit, or planning application on the Fees and Payments page in the application details. You can also adjust, refund, and pay fees, as well as add fees manually and calculate additional fees.

Tip: As agency staff, you can access this page on a phone as well as on a laptop or desktop computer. The layout changes based on the device you’re using.

Fees are calculated based on agency fee setup. For more information about setting up automatic fee calculations based on business license, permit, or planning application type, see Creating Decision Models for Fees.

Fees shown on this page are calculated based on the application intake form and fee schedule mapping sources.

When fees are updated, fee notices are automatically sent out as set up by your agency. Your agency may send out notices with a consolidated list of fees on a regular basis. For more information, see Setting Up Fee Notices.

Viewing Fees and Payments for an Application

Select the Business License Transactions, Permits, or Planning Applications tile on the Agency Springboard.
Click the row for the selected application on the Transactions page.
Click Fees and Payments in the left panel or click the View Details link in the Fees and Payments section on the Overview page for the application.

On the Fees and Payments page, view a list of fees, including this information:

Page Element	Description
Fee Description	The description of the fee as defined when creating a fee item.
Amount	The amount due for each fee.
Currency	The currency in which the transaction is paid.
Status	Canceled: Indicates the fee payment is no longer required. Pending: Indicates the fee is pending the agency's finalization. The fee may or may not become due. Hold: Indicates the fee requirement has been put on hold until an issue or condition associated with the application or a permit inspection has been resolved. Due: Indicates the current fee request is due and needs to be paid. Refund Pending: Indicates that a refund was submitted for processing and approval. Refunded: Indicates the fee was reversed and a refund was issued. Void: Indicates the refund for the fee was voided. Waived: Indicates the applicant no longer has to pay the fee because it's been waived. Payment in Process: Indicates that the fee payment was initiated but not yet resolved. Typically this status is temporary and resolved to Paid once the payment is recorded in the application. When the status changes to Paid, click the Paid link to download and view the payment receipt in the format set up by your agency.
Department	The department within the agency requiring the payment.
Assessed Date	The date the request for payment was issued.
Payment Date (and payer name)	The date payment was received. This field also displays the payer name, which depends on the payment method: Cash: The name provided by the customer to the cashier. Check: The name recorded during payment processing, usually the name on the check. Credit or debit card: The name returned by the payment processor. Offline: The name recorded during payment processing. PayPal: The name returned by the PayPal. Trust account: No name is displayed.
Payment Reference	The payment reference issued for the transaction. Click the payment reference number to view the payment receipt.
Invoice	The payment invoice number of the paid fee associated with the application. Click the invoice number link to view the payment invoice.
Total Fees	The total amount of fees that may be applicable to the application.
Total Payable	The amount of fees that are designated as payable. The agency may generate fees that are not due upon application submission and are therefore not payable. For example, plan review or inspection fees may be applied based on whether a plan review or inspection is required or not. Or the agency may place a due fee on hold.
Total Paid	The amount of the total fees already collected.
Balance Due	The remaining portion of the fees yet to be collected.
Pay	Click to open the Pay Fees page, where you can select the items that you want to pay in this transaction. You can make a full or partial payment. If you want to make a partial payment, deselect the Select All check box to clear the check boxes for all the fee items and then select individual items. If the application status is Payment Pending, full payment is required. That is, fees that are due when you submit an application must be paid in full. Note: The Pay button takes applicants and contacts with application access directly to the Checkout page in payment services.
View Deposit Accounts	Click to open the Deposit Accounts page and view a list of all deposit accounts associated with the project.

Adding Ad Hoc Fees

Using the Fees and Payments page, you can manually add fees to an application if the situation arises, such as a late fee, an unforeseen processing fee, an addition to the project request, and so on. These fees are assessed outside of the automatic fees process. That is, you calculate the amount due and manually enter the fee you want to add.

When the fee status changes to Due, the system sends a notification to the applicant that new fees have been assessed and are due.

To manually add a fee:

Click Add Fees on the Fees and Payments page. This button is only available to agency staff who have appropriate permissions.
On the Fee Item Details page, you can choose to manually add an ad hoc fee or use the fee calculator to calculate fees according to a fee schedule. To manually enter a fee, select the Add Fees tab.
Select a fee item.
Enter the fee required for the item in the Amount field.
Set the status of the fee in the Change Status drop-down list. Select from these values:
- Change to Pending
- Change to Hold
- Change to Due
- Change to Canceled
- Change to Waived
When a fee with a Due status is added or a the fee status is changed to Due, the system sends notifications or alerts, as configured by your agency.
Use the Department lookup list to select the department to collect the fee.
The department defaults from the fee item, if specified. Otherwise, the system uses the department from the application type setup.
Set the appropriate date for the fee using the Assessed Date field.
Use the Memo field to add any additional description to help identify the nature of the newly added fee, which can help answer questions regarding why a fee was added during the application process.
Click Save.

Calculating Additional Fees

Use the fee calculator when you want to calculate additional fees for an application after submission. The fee calculator enables you to enter information for the calculation based on a fee schedule. After the fees are calculated, you can select the fee items you want to add to the application.

The Add Fees button is not available when the application status is Pending Payment or Pending Submittal. When the fee status changes to Due, the system sends a notification to the applicant that new fees have been assessed and are due.

Let’s walk though how to use the fee calculator:

Click Add Fees on the Fees and Payments page. This button is only available to agency staff who have appropriate permissions.
On the Fee Item Details page, you can choose to manually add an ad hoc fee or use the fee calculator to calculate fees according to a fee schedule. To use the fee calculator, select the Calculate Fees tab.
Select a fee schedule. If a fee schedule is already associated with the transaction type, the fee schedule name appears as the default value, but you can select a different fee schedule as well.
Based on the fee structure you choose, you'll see fields that are relevant to the fees. Enter the requested values.
Click Calculate Fees.
Note: This button may be disabled If the OIC is temporarily inactive. Once the OIC is active, you can start the Calculate Fees process.
On the Add Fees page, you’ll see the calculated amounts and department for each fee item. If you want to add the calculated fee to the fees due for the application, select the fee and click Add Selected.

The fee item appears in the fees list with a Due status.

Adjusting Fees

Agency staff with appropriate permissions can correct or adjust fees as needed after the application is submitted. For example, if the applicant added 6 solar panels instead of 2, the required permit fees might increase. After you update the information that was submitted during intake in the application details, you can recalculate the total fees due based on the fee schedule for the application type. The recalculation corrects the fees by either generating a new fee or changing the amount.

Here’s how you can adjust the fees for an application:

On the Application Details page for the application, click Edit.
Make changes as needed and click Done.
On the Fees and Payments page, click Recalculate.

The difference in fees compared to the original fee or the new fee appears as a separate line in the fee list. The fee totals for the application are also updated. If no adjustments are required, the displayed fees remain the same. If a fee item with a negative amount results from recalculating fees, you can process a refund to correct the overpayment.

Note: Fees are also recalculated when agency staff or applicants click the Pay button on the Transactions page or Applications page, respectively, or on the Fees and Payments page. Applicants will also see the adjusted fees on their Make a Payment page. Contacts with application access can initiate payments and see adjustments only by using the Pay button for the application record on the Applications page or on the application's Fee and Payments page.

Paying Fees

To add a payment for fees that are due, click the Pay button. As agency staff, you have the choice of paying some or all of the fees. After you select the fees that you want to pay, you can select the payment method on the Checkout page. The Pay button takes applicants and contacts with application access directly to the Checkout page.

Note: Registered public applicants and contacts with application access are not allowed to make partial payments. These users must ask the agency to make a partial payment on their behalf. If the application status is Payment Pending, full payment is required. That is, fees that are due when you submit an application must be paid in full.

For more information about paying fees, see the Payment Flow Overview.

Incomplete Payments

When a fee payment is initiated, Public Sector Licensing and Permitting gives it a status of Payment in Process which indicates that it needs to be resolved and no other payment requests can be made for the fee. If there is a network issue, the system tries to resolve the payment while the user is waiting for the payment to be processed. If the user navigates away from the checkout page or closes the browser before the payment is recorded in Oracle Permitting and Licensing, the fee status remains Payment in Process. When a user accesses the fee payment again through the Make a Payment page or Fees and Payments page, the application automatically tries to resolve the status to Paid or reset it to Due.

Note: You can reconcile card payments using the Sync Card Payment Status process. See Reconciling Orphaned Card Payments.

Refunding Fees

Agency cashiers and application administrators can process full or partial refunds of permit, planning application, and business license fee items online.

Here’s how to refund permit fees:

Click the Select Multiple icon to display the row selector.
Select one or more fee items.
You can only select fees that have been paid or fees with system-generated negative amounts that are due.
Click Initiate Refund.
Review the fee amount and refund method. When processing a partial refund, you’re overriding the default fee amount.
You must enter a refund reason before you submit the refund request.
Click Process Refund to reverse or partially reverse the fee.

After you submit the refund request, the status changes to Refund Pending and the refund moves into a queue to be approved. When you submit the request, you’ll see updated fee totals for the application. Once approved, the refunded amount appears as a new line in the list of payment items with a Refunded status.

For debit or credit, the system issues the refund using the method used for payment, while distribution for other payment methods is by manual check or other external system.

You can process multiple partial refunds to PayPal, credit, or debit cards. Note the following for reconciliation purposes:

The first refund (partial or full refund of the settlement amount) is posted as follow-on credit to the original settlement transaction in CyberSource.
Subsequent partial refunds are posted as stand-alone credits in CyberSource.

For more information about the refund approval process, see Viewing and Processing Refunds.

Viewing Deposit Accounts

Agency staff can view a list of all active deposit accounts that are associated with the current project. You select the deposit account to charge fees for a specific transaction that is associated with the project. Click the View Deposit Accounts link on the Fees and Payments page. The Deposit Accounts page lists the details of accounts:

Application ID: Click the link to drill down to the details of the deposit account.
Name: The name of the account
Primary Owner
Balance: The available balance amount in the account
Minimum Balance: The minimum balance that must be maintained in the account
Account Type

For information about deposit accounts, see <Deposit Account – Account information page>