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Electronic Check Funding Schedule

11/22/2013

Electronic Checks are the preferred method of payment in Farmigo as they have the lowest transaction fees. Electronic Checks take 5-7 business days to process. Holidays will delay funding.

Farmigo works with Check Gateway to manage electronic check payments. If your member's bank account has not rejected a payment within 4 days, Check Gateway sends our system a status of Received. Once a payment is marked as received in Farmigo, we stop reaching out to Check Gateway to check on the payment status. Most rejections occur within the first 3 days of processing, however, banks have up to 90 days to reject a payment. It is a rare occurrence, but it is possible that after a payment is marked as received in Farmigo, a bank can then go back and reject the payment. This is why we strongly advise you to compare your Check Gateway statements against your Payments Report in Farmigo.

Below are example funding schedules for an Electronic Check Payment.

Member enters transaction before noon:
Day 1 - Enter transaction BEFORE 12 noon
Day 2 - Processing Day 1
Day 3 - Processing Day 2
Day 4 - Processing Day 3
Day 5 - Processing Day 4 (technically funds released at midnight)
Day 6 - Funds available

Member enters transaction after noon:
Day 1 - Enter transaction AFTER 12 noon
Day 2 - Considered day entered
Day 3 - Processing Day 1
Day 4 - Processing Day 2
Day 5 - Processing Day 3
Day 6 - Processing Day 4 (technically funds released at midnight)
Day 7 - Funds available

Choosing the Best Electronic Payment Method

10/2/2013

We are often asked, "Which payment methods should I offer my customers?" We always recommend using electronic check transfers as your primary method of payment as this is the most affordable option. If you would also like to offer payment by credit card, you have two options - a credit card processor (we recommend PowerPay but you can use whatever credit card processor you prefer) or Paypal.

Our Recommendation: Farmigo will support any decision you make for accepting credit card payment, but we do NOT recommend using PayPal. After four years and millions of transactions later, we have seen that consumers prefer credit card payment over PayPal. In addition, there have been numerous occasions when PayPal has not properly processed member payment. In spite of our efforts to have them correct these issues, we have found PayPal's customer support slow and at times unresponsive.

In today’s tip, we want to provide you with some insight about the benefits of using a credit card processor over Paypal. You are welcome to use any credit card processor, but we are going to use Powerpay as our example in this analysis. To learn more about other credit card processors, click here.

There are a few variables to consider when choosing between PayPal, Powerpay, or another merchant provider. These include:

Cost of Service
User Interface
Quality of Customer Support

Read on to learn more.

Save with a Seasonal PowerPay Account

9/20/2013

Is your business seasonal? Then your merchant account should be, too.

A seasonal PowerPay account saves you money. Your monthly service fee drops to $1.95. And reactivation is easy. Just give PowerPay a 5-day notice that you’re going to be accepting payments again and you’re good to go.

You can put your Authorize.Net account on hold, too. You’ll no longer have to pay the monthly service fee – but there is a $25 charge to reactivate your Authorize.Net account.

For more information about the benefits of a seasonal PowerPay merchant account – or to put your existing account on hold – call Jason Jensen at 877.877.9077 ext. 1815.

Authorize.Net merchant support can be reached at 877.447.3938.

The New Payments Report

6/7/2013

We have enhanced the Deposits Received report and renamed it the Payments report. This new report will not only show you all the payments you have received (as the Deposits Received report already did) … It will also show you a summary of:

Pending payments that are past due or due in the future
Rejected payments
Complimentary payments
Fees

Check out the new Payments report generator by going to the Reports manager, found under the Status menu in your administrative dashboard. Read more below to learn about this new report.

Big Updates! Payment Management & Dynamic Fields

11/30/2012

Over the past month we have released a lot of exciting new features to the Farmigo software. Because there are so many, we decided to present a whole bunch of them to you in this week’s big Tip of the Week! Look for Tips in the upcoming weeks about more exciting features!

Read on to learn more about:

Members can now update their own payment information
Check is available as store payment method
New dynamic fields for emails

Refund Methods and Processes

9/6/2012

Every business has their own refund policy. It is important to understand the ways in which you can provide refunds to your customers. Today’s tip discusses the benefits of different refund options - (credits, paper check, and electronic refunds ) - and then walks through how to process and record refunds within the Farmigo system.

3 Refund Options

Three methods to help you manage refunds are outlined below ...

Managing Rejected Payments

8/9/2012

Today’s tip aims to help you understand and manage rejected payments. If a member is set up with an automatic form of payment including credit card, electronic check, or paypal, it is possible that at some point their payment will be rejected. First, let’s understand why a payment might be rejected. Then, let’s go through how to manage a rejected payment.

How do I know a member’s payment was rejected?

The first indication a member’s payment was rejected is an automated email called “Payment Failure.” This email is sent to your member when a payment fails, and if you are CC’d, it will send to you as well. When you receive this email, you should go to your dashboard and open the member’s card.

In the member’s card look for the payment with the orange warning triangle and the status rejected. Also, look for a note that should provide insight as to why the payment failed (ie: credit card has expired).

What should I do?

Step 1: Figure out why the payment was rejected. First, identify if the payment was made with a credit card, e-check, or paypal.

Credit Card (Authorize.net)

Authorize.net provides helpful support resources to help you understand why a payment was rejected. Click here to learn more about how to manage a rejected credit card in authorize.net.

Also, check out these helpful videos to learn more about authorize.net.

E-Check (Check Gateway)

Login to your account at Checkgateway.com. Find the member log with the rejected payment. You will see a BO Exceptions (a code entered by the bank) or a Return Reason Codes. There are links in your check gateway account for two PDF’s that help you decipher these codes, or, you can download them here:

BO Exceptions
File Size:	38 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

Return Reason Codes
File Size:	32 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

Paypal

When you login to paypal, you will see one of the following messages if a payment failed:

We cannot process your payment at this time”
The financial source you used cannot be processed. Please contact us for more information. (888) 221-1161

The best thing to do is call Paypal at (888) 221-1161 to understand the reason for the rejected payment.

Step 2: Now that you understand why the payment was rejected, contact the member to agree upon how to charge them for their order.

Click on the contact tab of their member card, pick up the phone, and give your member a ring. Depending on what the issue was, you will either need to edit the member’s bank account information or just try to chare their account again.

Update account information
Open the member’s card in the dashboard and click the manage button. Here, you can re-enter the member’s credit card/bank account information. Farmigo does not allow you to see the member’s info that is on file for their own safety. Once you have update the member’s information, press save.

Charge the member:
The next step is to charge the member. Click on the charge button.
1. Enter the amount you would like to charge the member
2. Select the preferred payment method
3. Charge the member

If the transaction worked, you will see a message that says the transaction was completed successfully and the payment will be recorded in the member’s card. If the transaction does not go through, ask the customer if there is another account/credit card you could try.

Common reasons a member’s payment would be rejected:

Insufficient funds
Account closed/invalid

Account numbers entered were incorrect
Address/zip code do not match the information on file for the bank account, credit/debit card, or PayPal account

Methods for Accepting Payment in the Web Store

7/12/2012

Upselling is a concept that has been used in restaurants for decades. You order chips and salsa at the Mexican place down the road and they say, "would you like guac with that?" and lo and behold you get your bill and you have $8 worth of guacamole added on. Can't complain though, I love guacamole, so it's a win-win.

By bringing the CSA model online, you now have the capability to upsell. "Would you like an extra lb of tomatoes with your veggie share?" Being able to sell add-ons to a member's existing share helps increase sales while keeping Italian grandmothers happy that they can cook and can enough pasta sauce to feed their family for the entire year. This week's tip discusses three options for accepting payments in the web store.

PLEASE NOTE: A store can either be set up as Balance, On Checkout, or On Delivery. These 3 payment methods cannot be used in conjunction with each other. Check or Cash are not accepted in the web store. Members can only choose from E-check, credit card, and paypal.

Balance - “put it on my tab”

The member puts money on account with the farm and all web store purchases are deducted from the member's balance. This reminds me of when I went to the pool in the summertime and my parents put money on account at the snack bar. Every time I ordered a new laffy taffy, my total would be deducted from my tab. I was friends with the snack bar staff, so when my account dropped below $0, I was able to continue ordering as much candy as my heart desired. My parents were responsible for paying the balance at the end of the season. If they wanted to, they could choose to walk away and never show their face at the community pool again, but, they needed some way to tire me out, so they always paid.

We recommend using the on balance method along with an automatic renewal payment method that will refill a customer’s account once their balance drops to $0. If you do not have a pre-approve limit set up in your system that will automatically charge members once their balance falls below a certain level, you must monitor member's accounts and choose to continue delivering to them or put them on hold until they add money to their account.

One of the benefits of the on balance method is that you can reward customers for putting money on account which gets you more money up front and ensures that the customer will spend a certain amount with you throughout the season. We can set up pre-payment plans that give customers bonus credit that can used to purchase items in the store. For example, you can ask customers to put $250 on account with you and give them a $20 bonus.

These are the payment plans found on the make payment screen in the member account view:

We find that offering a few different pre-payment plans is most effective. For example:

At Checkout - the amazon model

When a farm sets their store up for members to pay at checkout, the member is prompted for his payment information at checkout and a charge is initiated at that time. This is similar to using amazon.com where you pay for your items at checkout in order to receive them. This is what most people are used to when shopping online so it provides an ease of use for your customers. The best part is that you never have to worry about balances and members do not need to add money to their account in order to purchase something.

Here is what paying at checkout looks like:

On Delivery - the rental car model
The payment on delivery model is similar to paying for a rental car. You give the company your credit information, take the car, and when you return, you pay for the number of miles you traveled, your gasoline, and any damage done to the car. The rental company doesn't charge you until they know how much they need to charge you.

Setting up the store payment method for on delivery is very similar to this and is particularly useful when selling a product by weight. If a rancher for example sells ground beef priced at $6.00/lb., and the final weight comes in at 1.05 lbs., the total cost is actually $6.30. In this case, the admin can change the quantity from 1 to 1.05 in the member's account from the Dashboard, the system will recalculate the total cost, and the member will be charged the correct amount after delivery.

When a farm sets their store up for members to pay on delivery, the system determines if the member has payment information on file. If they do not, they are prompted for payment information and are charged the morning after delivery.

Here is what paying on delivery will look like:

Another tip:
Farmigo can allow non shareholders to access your web store and purchase items as needed (not recommended for systems set up with on balance). We can also set a minimum purchase amount. Remember, however, that this minimum will apply to shareholders as well as non-shareholders. If you allow guest access, non members with access to your store link will go through the following process:

Opening up the store to non-shareholders may be a good way to pre-sell items to ensure that your time spent at market is time well spent. If you are considering allowing guest access to your web store, contact support@farmigo.com so we can discuss how to set it up and how it will work in your system.

Using the Charge and Manage Buttons

4/1/2012

The charge and manage buttons appear on subscribed members cards in the subscription module. Today's tip is a quick review on what these buttons do. These buttons are used to make one-time charges and manage information related to a member's bank account (ACH) or credit/debit card information through authroize.net. Neither the charge button nor the manage button can be used to edit a member's paypal information.

Never noticed these buttons? Below is a screenshot of where they will appear on a member card.

Charge Button
The charge button is only available if you have set up your system to allow members to add payments via e-check or credit card. The charge button is used to make a one time charge to a member who is set up with e-check or credit card payment. When the admin uses the charge button, it will actually charge the member's account and will add a record to the payment tab of the member's card.

To use the charge button, enter the amount you would like to charge the member. Then select payment method. Depending on which method you choose, you will be prompted to enter payment details. Once all the information is entered, press the Charge button.

We don't find that this button is used very frequently, but sometimes a payment fails or the CSA manager makes a sales agreement with a member outside of the system and needs to charge the member. If a payment fails, you have two options. The member can login to their account and make the payment on their own or you can charge the member through the dashboard. To charge the member, enter the amount of the payment, select the payment method, fill in the payment method details and press charge.

Manage Button
The manage is where you can edit a member's payment method information in a secure environment. If a member contacts you to change their bank account or credit card info, go into their member card and press the manage button. Then, select the payment method. A window will open that allows you to edit their payment information.

The manage button is usually used in two situations.
1. The member is already set up on a recurring charge (i.e. prepay, installments) and wants or needs to change their payment information because their credit card expired, they changed their bank account, etc.

2. The member is not set up on a recurring charge, but they would like to be. The member can either login to their account and set this up via the make payment page or the admin can set it up for the member. This would be used mostly by a year-round farm.

When you click the manage button, a window will pop up giving you the option to edit either the Bank Account (ACH) information or the Credit or debit card information. Once all required information is entered, the Save button will become turn dark blue, indicating that it is clickable.

Select payment method to edit:

Bank account (ACH)
Required fields include: First Name, Last Name, Bank Account Number, Routing Number, and the Last 4 digits of Social Security Number.

Credit or debit card
Required fields include: First Name, Last Name, Address, City, State, Zip Code, Card Number, Expiration Date, and CCV Code.

To sum it up, the charge button is where you go to make a one-time charge on a member's account via e-check or credit card and the manage button is where you can edit the information attached to these accounts. I hope this clears up some of the mystery behind these two buttons. I know you are all busy in the fields this week. I wish you good weather and be safe!

Electronic Check Funding Schedule

Choosing the Best Electronic Payment Method

Save with a Seasonal PowerPay Account

The New Payments Report

Big Updates! Payment Management & Dynamic Fields

Refund Methods and Processes

3 Refund Options

Managing Rejected Payments

How do I know a member’s payment was rejected?

What should I do?

Credit Card (Authorize.net)

E-Check (Check Gateway)

Paypal

Common reasons a member’s payment would be rejected:

Methods for Accepting Payment in the Web Store

Using the Charge and Manage Buttons

Categories

Archives

3 Refund Options

How do I know a member’s payment was rejected?

What should I do?

Credit Card (Authorize.net)

E-Check (Check Gateway)

Paypal

Common reasons a member’s payment would be rejected:

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