Allocating Payments

About Payment Allocation

Payment allocation is the process of applying a payment toward an account's open items, balancing all credits and debits, and then closing all balanced items.

Payments are allocated according to how they were collected:

BRM-initiated payments for credit card or direct debit accounts are automatically allocated during the collection process.
Externally-initiated payments, such as by check, are manually allocated by a payment clerk.

You can configure the allocation level for payments. The allocation level determines where the payment is applied:

Account

When a payment is made at the account level (without specifying bill or item), the payment can be allocated to accounts with a single bill unit (/billinfo object) or multiple bill units.
- Payment allocated to accounts with single bill unit: Payment is allocated to the items of the bill unit that contains the default balance group for the account and update the account balance accordingly. When a payment is applied to an account as unallocated, the account balance is updated but the open bills and bill items are not closed. Unallocated payments can be allocated to specific bills and items at any time by using Billing Care, Customer Center, or your CRM application.
- Payment allocated to accounts with multiple bill units: Payment is distributed to different bill units of the account based on distribution logic implemented in the PCM_OP_PYMT_POL_MBI_DISTRIBUTE policy opcode. See "Allocating Externally Initiated Payments by Due Amount" in BRM Opcode Guide.
  
  When allocating payments manually, you can override the default distribution.
  
  Note:
  
  The Payment Suspense Management feature must be enabled in your BRM system for you to allocate payments to accounts with multiple bill units. For more information, see "Enabling Payment Suspense in BRM".
Bills

Payments allocated to one or more bills close the bills and the account balance is updated accordingly.

By default, bill allocation is determined during payment validation. BRM uses the bill number to find the correct bill. If the bill number is missing or cannot be found, BRM uses the bill amount to find the correct bill. If neither the bill number nor the bill amount can be determined, BRM allocates the payment to the oldest bills first, because they are collected first.

If an account-level payment is made to an account having multiple bill units, you can allocate the payment to multiple bill units of the account. To do so, customize the PCM_OP_PYMT_POL_VALIDATE_PAYMENT policy opcode. See "Allocating Account Payments to Multiple Bill Units" in BRM Opcode Guide.

Note:

You cannot allocate a payment to a nonpaying bill unit of a child account.
Items

Payments allocated to one or more items close each item and update the balance accordingly. If all items in a bill are closed, the bill is also closed. Item-level allocation also updates the account balance.

About Allocating Payments Manually

When processing payments manually in Billing Care or Customer Center, you can allocate payments before or after validating them. When you validate a payment, if you see a message in the status bar that says something similar to “Payment allocation required," you must allocate the payment.

Manual payment allocations can be required or suggested. If an allocation is required, you must make the payment allocation before the payment can be submitted. If an allocation is suggested, your business policy recommends that you allocate the payment, but allocation is not required.

You can manually allocate payments as follows:

You can allocate an account-level payment when the payment is applied to an account with multiple bill units (/billinfo objects).
If your batch supports bill-level allocation, you can allocate a payment to a specific bill when there are multiple unpaid bills for an account.
You can specify which items on the bill to apply the payment to.

A payment batch can contain either bill-level allocations or item-level allocations, but not both. You must choose the allocation level before you create a payment batch.

Allocating Multiple Payments for the Same Bill

When a payment clerk submits a payment batch that contains multiple payments for the same bill, BRM views each payment portion as an underpayment and displays a message requiring the payment to be allocated manually.

By default, BRM views each payment as an underpayment and prompts the payment clerk to manually allocate it.

Allocating Payments Later

You can create a batch for only those payments that need allocations. See "Managing Batch Entries that Fail Validation (Release 15.0.1 or later)".

Working with Multiple Currency Types in Billing Care

When you allocate payments with Billing Care or Customer Center, you choose the currency to use for each batch of payments. You can allocate a payment to an account in any currency. The amount will be converted to the account's primary currency and then posted to the account.

Finding Bills by Due Amount

If BRM cannot find a bill to allocate a payment to, BRM searches for a bill whose total due amount matches a specified payment amount. The search is restricted to bills that belong to the account with which the payment is associated. By default, this search is disabled.

To enable this feature, run the pin_bus_params utility to change the SearchBillAmount business parameter. For information about this utility, see "pin_bus_params" in BRM Developer's Guide.

To enable this search:

Go to BRM_home/sys/data/config.
Create an XML file from the /config/business_params object:
```
pin_bus_params -r BusParamsAR bus_params_AR.xml 
```

In the file, change disabled to enabled:

<SearchBillAmount>enabled</SearchBillAmount>

Save the file as bus_params_AR.xml.
Load the XML file into the BRM database:
```
pin_bus_params bus_params_AR.xml 
```
Stop and restart the CM.