Payment Processing Services

The Vendor is required to provide payment processing and financial management solution providers regarding capabilities, approaches, and best practices for supporting transaction-based billing models with significantly improved payment management, reconciliation automation, and operational reporting.
- Transaction-based billing context and complexity
•    Agencies can opt to pass billing to consumers within the transaction as fees or have the fees taken from their total deposit. 
•    Billing fees are percentage based with a minimum and maximum amount that can be applied to each transaction 
•    Card payments generally incur a form of settlement fee that agencies need to account for in the final transaction cost. 
•    This is percentage based and can change as the estimated fees are calculated yearly. 
•    A solution designed only for transaction processing (payment capture and deposit) is insufficient. 
•    The state requires a system that natively manages billing logic, account management, and reconciliation workflows as integrated functions.
- User-based billing and charge management
1. Transaction definition and management
•    Billable transactions created, modified, and canceled in your system (for example, per payment, per successful authorization, per API call, per file processed)
•    Transactions be tied to specific applications, services, cost centers, or departments
•    The system handle transaction data imports (e.g., batch files, API feeds) from state systems
2. Billing calculation
•    Billing amounts are calculated based on transaction activity (for example, per transaction fees, tiered transaction volumes, minimums, or bundled pricing)
•    System handle changes to transaction pricing (e.g., new fee schedules, tier changes) and from what effective date are they applied
•    Billing be based on different transaction attributes (e.g., channel, card vs. Ach, transaction size, agency)
3. Charge types and allocations
•    Charge types can your system manage (for example, per transaction fees, network or pass through fees, gateway or platform fees, adjustments, credits)
•    Charges for a set of transactions be allocated across multiple cost centers, agencies, or programs
•    Allocations editable after initial billing, and can changes be tracked and audited
4. Volume tiers and overage management
•    System define and apply tiered pricing based on transaction volume (e.g., 0–10,000, 10,001–50,000, etc.)
•    Overages or usage above committed transaction volumes calculated and billed
•    The system provide detail reporting that shows which transactions, applications, or agencies drove volume-related charges or overages.
- Payment acceptance and posting
1. Supported payment methods
•    Payment channels does your solution accept (ach, debit card, credit card, checks, wire transfers, digital wallets)
•    Fees deducted and reported for each method
2. Payment-to-account matching
•    System associate incoming payments to customer accounts or charges
•    Metadata or reference information can be used for matching (account number, payer email, reference codes)
•    System handle payments with incomplete or ambiguous payer information
•    Matching rules are configurable vs. hard-coded
3. Complex payment scenarios
•    System handle a single payment that should be applied to multiple accounts, departments, or users
•    System handle partial payments (payment less than outstanding balance)
•    System handle over-payments (payment exceeds outstanding balance)
•    System auto-allocate overpayments, or does it require manual direction
•    Credits or prepayments tracked and applied in future periods
4. Unmatched and disputed payments
•    Payment be automatically matched to an account, how is it flagged and made available to support staff
•    System surface to help staff investigate and manually assign mismatched payments
•    Customer disputes and payment challenges (e.g., chargebacks) tracked and communicated
5. Handling bad or returned payments
•    System identify and record ach returns and other failed payments
•    Events communicated back to the client (e.g., real-time alerts, daily reports, file feeds) and reflected in account balances, invoices, and reconciliation processes
•    Solution supports management of chargebacks and disputes, including timelines, workflows, and any automation for common scenarios.
6. Bank account and ach verification
•    Support to verify that ach bank accounts are valid and active before initiating debits or credits (for example, micro-deposits, instant account verification, pre-note transactions, third-party verification services)
•    Verification results stored and surfaced to users, and how long is verification considered valid
•    Any safeguards to prevent the reuse of invalid or closed accounts and to minimize ach returns over time.