Payment Manager overview

This article refers to our legacy product, Forms Manager. For the best Finalsite experience, we recommend using our newest product, Forms, which is already available to you in your modules list. To learn more, please review our New Forms FAQ.

Payment Manager collects all of the financial transactions made by your site, including those from Forms Manager, Registration Manager and Commerce Manager. Within Payment Manager, users can view individual transactions as well as custom groups of transactions, create reports to view specific pieces of transaction data, and export transaction info.

Like the other Finalsite modules, Payment Manager is accessed via the Modules menu. Click on “Payment Manager,” and it will pop open in a new window. There are three tabs in Payment Manager: Transaction Reports, Recurring Payment Plan Reports, and Permissions.

Transaction Reports

The Transaction Reports screen is displayed when Payment Manager is first opened.

Each row represents a separate transaction from someone on the website, whether it's a form, an event, or a commerce (school store) purchase. Each column represents a separate piece of data about a particular transaction.

By default, the Transaction Report displays the following information about each purchase:

• Transaction ID: A unique identifier for every transaction made via the website. All transactions, regardless of payment type, will have their own Transaction ID.

• Date: The date and time a purchase was processed.

• Name on card: The name provided by the end user when they made a purchase on the site.

• Amount: The amount of the transaction.

• Status: Displays whether the transaction was completed, or if there was an error preventing it from going through. Possible values are “Abandoned,” “Awaiting Payment,” “Canceled,” “Completed,” “Completed (0 sum),” “Declined” and “Pending.”

• Source: Specifies whether a transaction came from a form, an event, a commerce order, or via the admin interface (“Terminal”).

• Method: The payment method; this will usually be a credit card type, followed by a partial credit card number. Transactions made via an alternate payment method (check, purchase order, etc.) will display the name of the payment type.

• Invoice ID: Displays a unique identifier associated with a particular form, a specific event, etc. (In Forms Manager and Registration Manager, the Invoice ID can be customized by the admin who created the form or event.)

• Gateway Transaction ID: Applies only to credit card transactions. This is a unique identifier assigned by the payment gateway that processed the credit card transaction.

Sorting and filtering report data

Each of the columns on the Transaction Report can be sorted and filtered so that users can reorder the entries on the table, hide the data they don't need, and therefore only look at the information they want to see.

Sorting

Each column header has a small gray rectangle to the right of the header label. Click on the triangle once to sort the entire table by the values in that column, in ascending order. Click the triangle again to re-sort the list by the same column values, in descending order.

The transaction report defaults to sorting in descending date order, with the most recent transactions at the top of the table. Sorting will not remove any entries from the display – all of the transactions will still be listed, just in a new sequence.

Filtering

Unlike sorting, applying a filter to the results table will remove any transactions that don't match the filter's specified value or value range.

Click on the magnifying glass icon in any column header to create a filter. The most basic filters are a simple text match; for example, clicking on the filter icon in the “Name on card” column will prompt the user to enter a name. Note that the filter will include both full and partial matches. To remove the filter, click on the magnifying glass again and click the “Clear” button.

Filters on some columns can be more complex. The “Amount” column, for instance, will let users filter based on comparing the given amount to the value of each transaction. Users can filter on transactions that equal what's been entered, transactions that are greater than or less than what's been entered, as well as “greater-than-or-equal to” or “less-than-or-equal to.”

The “Source” filter is a composite; users can select one or more checkboxes to set which transactions are displayed (those from Forms Manager, from Registration Manager, or from Commerce Manager), as well as use the optional text field to further narrow down the results.

Customizing the Transaction Report

In addition to the default information listed above, there's much more information available about each transaction. Any piece of available data can be added to (or removed from) the Transaction Report.

To edit the displayed information, click the “gears” icon at the upper-right of the table and select “Set Columns.” A new window will open, showing every piece of data associated with payment transactions made via the site. Use the checkboxes to select which data should be displayed on the Payment Manager table.

The vertical arrow handles on the left can be used to rearrange the order of the various pieces of information. Click “Set” to save the column view. The table will rearrange to show all of the selected columns in the set order.

Saving custom report views

After selecting columns, users can save the current view so that they can come back to it in the future by clicking the green “Save current view” button on the right. Give the custom view a unique name and click “Save.” The name of the custom view will appear as a link under “Saved Views.” Clicking that link will automatically rearrange the columns to show the selected columns in their custom-defined order.

Exporting payment tables

Payment Manager information can be exported so that data on website transactions can be saved and edited in other applications.

To export information, click on the “gears” icon and select “Export List.” On the flyout menu, choose a format for the exported data – either XLS, CSV, or XML. After selecting a format, the browser will save a file to the user's hard drive.

The information in an exported file will mimic what's displayed on the table. Users should customize the report view to include everything they want in the saved file before exporting.

Recurring Payment Plan Reports

Recurring Payment Plans let site users set up a payment that repeats on a set schedule, such as a monthly or yearly donation to a school fund. Recurring payments can be set up for any form created in Forms Manager. The Recurring Payment Plan Reports tab displays information pertaining specifically to these types of transactions. (Recurring payments can be viewed on the Transaction Reports tab as well; this tab focuses on the Recurring Payment transaction type specifically and provides information about recurring payments that isn't available on the Transaction Reports table.)

Recurring payment data

By default, the Recurring Payments table shows:

• Billing Name: The name of the owner of the card used to make the payment.

• Email: The email address of the user (required when creating a recurring payment).

• Status: The current state of the recurring payment (“Active,” “Pending,” or “Canceled”).

• InvoiceID: Each form created in Forms Manager has a unique InvoiceID; this can be customized in the “Payments” tab of Forms Manager so that it's easier to determine which form generated the payment.

• Next Date: The date and time of the next scheduled transaction for a recurring payment.

• Prior Date: The date and time of the most recent transaction.

As with the Transaction Reports tab, the Recurring Payments tab can be customized to show selected data. Customized views can then be saved for later use and exported to be shared outside of Payments Manager.