Keywords: auto payments, autopayment queue, credit card, ACH, bank account, payment processor, declined payments
Summary
This article covers how to access and use the Auto Payments Queue in Cloud 9 to run and manage patient payments. It includes filtering options, how to process each payment type (credit cards, bank accounts, post-dated checks, and manual), how to handle declines, and troubleshoot authentication errors.
Accessing the Auto Payments Queue
The Autopayments window is accessed from the header bar in Cloud 9, from the Financial dropdown menu. This is where automatic patient payments are processed and managed. Even if your practice uses Scheduled Contract Payments, (see article here: Scheduled Contract Payments), the Autopayment Queue provides additional tools and functionality that are important and beneficial to understand.
From the Cloud 9 header bar, select Financial > Auto Payments.
You will see a screen with three buttons in the upper left, two filter sections, and four tabs down below. We will review each portion of the Autopayments Queue and what it governs below. (Screenshot shows an example of the autopayment queue before any filters are run.)
Top Toolbar Buttons
In the upper left of the Auto Payments Queue there are three buttons. The Refresh, (icon with two arrows going in a circle), the Print Options menu, (printer icon), and the green 'Post Auto Payments' button. Let's review the buttons below.
- Refresh: After changing any filter or setting, hit Refresh to reload the Auto Payments list with your updated parameters.
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Printer Icon: Opens a dropdown with four options.
- Print Postings: Prints four pages — one for each tab (Credit Cards, Bank Accounts, Post-Dated Checks, and Manual).
- Print Declines and Returns: A report of all payments that ran but were declined or returned, for both Credit Cards and Bank Accounts.
- Print Expiring Credit Cards: A list of all credit cards expiring within the selected date range.
- Print Queue: Prints out the current queue with currently loaded parameters.
- Post Auto Payments: Posts autopayments of the current tab of boxes that are checked. (We will discuss this process more in depth below.)
Upper Filters
The upper filters underneath Filters control information about the payments to load before you run them. We will review each field below.
- Start Date: This is the start date for the date range for payments you are looking for.
- End Date: This is the end date for the date range for payments you are looking for.
- Payment Source: This is where you choose which payment source you want to run for payments. Generally, you'd start with Primary to run all autopayments on their Primary payment methods.
- Location: You can pick one, multiple or all locations of auto payments you wish to view.
- Status: This controls what payments you want to look at. If you want to see those that were already run, choose Approved. To see the declined payments, choose Declined. In this instance, we want to see payments that still need to be run, so I chose Pending.
- Search is below the Status drop down. This is an optional field. If you have a lot of patients showing on the list, you can search their last name to filter by last name to find specific auto payments.
Posting Settings: Upper Right Filters
The Posting box lets you control where and how payments are posted.
- Location: Choose whether payments post to one location—for when you run auto payments by one location at a time—or Patient Location. Choosing patient location means the autopayment will post to the patient's assigned location, so you can run more than one location at a time.
- Payment Source: Run payments from the Primary or Backup source.
- Provider: Run payments by a specific provider or default to the Patient's Provider.
Running Auto payments: Auto Payment Sources
The last step is to pick one of the four tabs before hitting the refresh button. If you choose credit cards, leave it on the first tab, make sure all of your filters and posting filters are correct, and then hit the Refresh button in the upper left. This will load all payments you have filtered for. I will review all four tabs below briefly.
Credit Cards
This tab opens by default and is the most commonly used. Pending payments for the selected date range load automatically.
- Review the list before running: if a patient already made a payment recently, uncheck them so they aren't charged again.
- You can also click the payment itself and click delete payment. This removes it from the auto payment queue and deletes it so that autopayment will not be run. It is in the menu button on the left hand side of the payment, shown in the GIF below. Click the hamburger menu, then click Delete Payment. A dialogue box will come up that says 'Delete Payment from Auto Payment Queue?' You must click the red delete. This also deletes it from the contract.
- You can also click the payment itself and click delete payment. This removes it from the auto payment queue and deletes it so that autopayment will not be run. It is in the menu button on the left hand side of the payment, shown in the GIF below. Click the hamburger menu, then click Delete Payment. A dialogue box will come up that says 'Delete Payment from Auto Payment Queue?' You must click the red delete. This also deletes it from the contract.
- All checked patients will be charged when you hit the green Post Auto Payments button.
- After running, change the Status filter to Declined to review any that didn't go through. The Notes field will show the reason from your payment processor.
- For questions about what a decline message means, contact your payment processor directly. They will have more information about the errors, as they originate from the payment processor.
Bank Accounts (ACH)
Works the same way as Credit Cards, but there's an extra step: ACH payments have to be approved by the bank they're drawn from, which takes time.
- After running ACH payments, the payment will show on the patient ledger. This payment may be reversed later if the bank declines it.
- Come back to the queue 3–5 business days later. With no patients checked, click Post Auto Payments again. This pulls the latest confirmation or decline statuses from your payment processor.
- Both the Credit Card and Bank Account tabs need to be run for the task to be considered complete.
Post Dated Checks
This tab is for Canadian offices only. Post-dating checks is not legal in the United States.
- Check the boxes for the payments due this month and use the green Post Auto Payments button to process them.
Manual
This tab is for practices using a non-integrated payment processor and is rarely used. The list will vary based on your processor's requirements.
- If a patient has a charge date within the filter's date range, they'll appear here.
- The Post Auto Payments button won't be used here. Instead, print the list and provide it to your bank for processing.
Putting it all Together
Once you've selected your filters, and the posting filters, and you have decided which tab you want to run, click the refresh button in the upper left. The list will update with all the autopayments for that status in the date range selected. You can select the ones you want to run by clicking the tick box to the left of the payments, and then click the green 'Run Auto Payments' button to submit the payments to the payment processor.
If some of your payments have an error, note the error. Sometimes its just a decline retry later, and you can come back to try it later. Other times it may have a different error code. The payment processor will have the most up to date information on the errors.
You can also print the queue if you wanted to look at all the successful payments. Or print the declines and returns for the date range chosen.
ACH Return Authentication Errors
When opening the Autopayment Queue, it is rare, but you may see a message like this:
ACH Return Report — Couldn't process ACH returns from the following accounts:
[Account Name] — [Location] — XWeb 805 Authentication Error
When this message appears, it indicates your payment processor had ACH payments returned, but Cloud 9 wasn't able to pull that information back and write it to the patient ledgers. That's because the connection between Cloud 9 and the payment processor ran into an authentication error.
Authentication errors like this almost always originate on the payment processor's side, not Cloud 9. Something on their end needs to be updated or corrected before the connection can work again.
What to do:
- Reach out to your payment processor and let them know you're seeing an Authentication Error (with any identifying numbers next to the error), in Cloud 9.
- If they determine something needs to be updated on the Cloud 9 side, the payment processor will send it to Cloud 9 so we can process any integration setting changes. This is rare unless account or merchant information changes and it needs to be updated.
- In most cases, the fix is handled entirely by the payment processor. They'll need to resolve it on their end first.
As always, if you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to Cloud 9 Support by emailing us at cloud9support@planetdds.com, or chatting us online using the chat bubble on the lower right at https://cloud9support.planetdds.com/hc/en-us, or giving us a call during our business hours of 8:00 AM EST to 8:00 PM EST at the 1.800.394.6050 option 2.