NSW Finance - Cancelling a Payment Received

Note: This article is for the benefit of New South Wales schools only.

Hero understands that managing receipts requires extensive security and accuracy, therefore a payment received can be cancelled but not deleted.   A cancelled payment will remain clearly visible for audit and tracking purposes.

There are 4 common reasons for cancelling a payment received - 

• Payment amount was incorrect or entered twice - The payment has been processed incorrectly or multiple times in error.  This should be identified when reconciling the till session, so should be found quickly. 
• Payment was applied to the incorrect student - This may go unnoticed for a period of time but can be easily resolved when identified
• Payment was applied to the incorrect line item - This can be rectified by cancelling the payment or moving the funds via PIA to the correct line item.
• A cheque has been presented to the bank and has been dishonoured - This requires the amount paid to be removed from the line item and struck off the original banking.

All other scenarios (i.e. cancelling an event, returning unallocated PIA) require the refunding or movement of funds and are part of the REFUND process.  These will not be a cancellation.

To find out how to refund a payment back to a caregiver or alternatively to payment in advance for future use, consult this help article.

Handling Refunds

TO CANCEL A PAYMENT RECEIVED

All payments received by CASH, CHEQUE, MONEY ORDER or EFTPOS have the potential for handling errors so are able to be cancelled.   A CHEQUE payment is also able to be dishonoured by the bank. 

1. Find the student using one of the search tools available

2. Click on the student Finance ($) icon

3. Click VIEW ALL PAYMENTS

4. Click the Trash icon.  

5.  The cancellation popup will be displayed.   This provides clear instructions on the rules relating to cancelling a payment, in order to preserve the integrity of current or past bankings.

• If an incorrect amount or duplicate payment was entered, this should have been identified during the till session closure process.  Ensure that the cancellation is carried out on the same till, in the same till session.
• If the amount was applied to the incorrect student or line item, ensure that you cancel and re-apply the payment using the same till session.

6.  Select the Till, taking note of the above rules, entered the Reason for cancellation and the Cancellation requested by name.

7.  Click CANCEL TRANSACTION.

8.  The cancelled transaction is identified by a strikethrough on the payment received.

HOW A CANCELLED TRANSACTION EFFECTS THE BANKING

1.  When cancelling a CASH transaction,  the amount of the cancellation will be deducted from the Cash value when doing the banking.   This means that any mistakes made to amounts need to be resolved within the same till session or the banking will not reconcile.   If a payment is being moved from one student to another, by using the same till and the same payment method, the resulting banking value will be zero.

2.  When cancelling an EFTPOS transaction, the amount of the cancellation will show separately in the banking under Cancelled EFTPOS and will be deducted from the banking total.  

3.  When cancelling a CHEQUE the original cheque will show as cancelled in the till summary and deposit slip that it originally appeared on.  The strickthrough is used to identify a cancelled payment.

4.  When cancelling a MONEY ORDER, the original money order will show as cancelled in the till summary and deposit slip that it originally appeared on.  The strickthrough is used to identify a cancelled payment.

VIEWING CANCELLED TRANSACTIONS

1.  To view a cancelled transaction on an individual student, navigate to the student's finance page.

2.  Click VIEW ALL PAYMENTS. 

3.  You will identify cancelled payments by the strikethrough.  Note:  A caregiver will view a cancelled payment in the same way.

REPORTING ON CANCELLED TRANSACTIONS

To generate a report of cancelled transactions - 

1. Navigate to the Administration menu. If you have a wide-screen device this will already be visible on the left-hand side of your screen. If not, click on the Administration menu icon at the top left-hand side of your screen.

2. Under the heading Administration click on Finance

3.  Click TRANSACTION REPORTING

4.  Enter the date range that you wish to view your credit transactions for

5.  Select the arrow beside Payments and select Cancelled Payments

6.  Click TRANSACTION LIST to view a list of all cancelled payments in the entered time period.

7.  To see a list of all credit transactions (including cancelled payments) for a particular Fee Mapping use the Reports by Date options.  These lists will show cancelled payments with a strikethrough.

8.  The Line Item Detail Report is the main report used to determine if students have paid for a particular event or activity.   Although this doesn't show individual payments, a visual indicator (an asterisk) has been added if a line item has an associated cancelled payment.   This will be useful if considering why a student was accepted on a trip but hasn't paid.