The Student Account Payment feature allows administrators to process transactions by billing a user's internal institutional account directly from the administrative portal. Its primary purpose is to seamlessly facilitate purchases, such as permits or lockers, for students who pay their parking fees through their central student tuition or university finance accounts. This article is intended for OPS-COM administrators.
## Setup and Configuration Before you can accept a student account payment, ensure this specific payment type has been created and enabled within your global payment settings. For detailed instructions on configuring new payment methods, please refer to the *[Managing Payment Types](https://opscom.wiki/books/setup-configuration-for-admins/page/managing-payment-types "Managing Payment Types")* page. ## Using this Feature Administrators can guide an unpaid item through the checkout process using a student's central account in just a few steps. The following example demonstrates this process using a permit purchase. 1. Navigate to the specific user's profile and initiate the purchase or assignment process (e.g., selecting a permit in the General Monthly Lot). 2. Choose the specific permit to assign to the user. 3. Click the **Purchase this Permit** button to continue. 4. Click the **Proceed to Payment** button on the subsequent payment due page. 5. Select **Student Account** from the payment method options on the payment selection screen. 6. Click the **Submit Payment** button. 7. Review the options presented on the Transaction Details screen: - **Process Manually:** This option will complete the transaction. - **Cancel and Keep:** This option will terminate the transaction but return the permit or locker to an awaiting payment status on the user's profile. - **Cancel and Release:** This option will terminate the transaction and release the permit or locker back into the pool of available inventory. 8. Click the **Process Manually** button to finalize the transaction. ### Visual Cues and Status Indicators - **Receipt Generation:** Once the payment is successfully processed, the final screen will display a detailed receipt. Because the payment method selected was **Student Account**, the item will be permanently marked and tracked in the system history as being paid via a student account. --- ## Best Practices and Considerations**Reconciling Funds:** To ensure your institution's finances remain balanced, **run a Daily Payments Itemized report filtered specifically by the Student Account payment type**. This report should be provided to your financial department on a regular schedule to allow them to manually retrieve the appropriate funds from the central student accounts.
- **Verify User Profiles:** **Always verify you are processing the transaction on the correct user profile** before clicking the final process button. Because student account funds are handled internally, charging the wrong student profile can create complex administrative errors for your finance department to reverse.