Returns / Reversals/ Chargebacks Policy & Procedures 

Overview 

Through the course of business our clients and residents will make payments to us electronically and via paper check. Occasionally these payments are returned meaning the bank did not honor the payment and PayLease deducted the money from our bank account. Returned / Reversed / and charged back payments require our immediate attention to resolve. 

Return Codes : 

When a payment made via eCheck or over the phone is returned,  a detailed report including the Transaction Number, Resident, Reason for the reversal , return code, and amount is emailed to us. 

Determining the reason for the return is an important first step to do this obtain the return code from the Return Code column and reference it against the table below. The table contains the most common codes for a complete list you checkout this resource. 

 

Return Code                         Reason for return                             

Chargebacks : 

When a payment is made via credit or debit card the account holder has the ability to call their bank and report the charge as fraudulent / unauthorized / or as service or goods not received. When this occurs we will recieve a notice from PayLease such as the one below. 

Following the notification of a charge back, we can dispute it or we can accept it. 

Return Payment Policies & Procedures 

Resident Returned Payments 

When a residents payment is returned for any reason take the following steps : 

1. Open Rent Manager 
2. On the header menu click Accounting 
3. Click ePay Check returns 
4. A list of returned checks will populate 
5. Click the check box the left of the row 
6. At the bottom right click Update transactions 
7. This will post the return and NSF fee (if the payment was returned NSF) to the residents ledger. 

Returns that require a Manual Update 

You will occasionally encounter an error message instructing you to update the return payment manually. This can occur for many reasons and the above procedure will not reverse the payment. To manually reverse a Resident transaction take the following steps: 

1. Open Rent Manager 
2. Click on the Residents Tab 
3. Locate the Resident whose transaction needs to be updated 
4. Click on the Transactions tab 
5. Find the correct transaction 
6. At the bottom of the page click the NSF button 
7. Enter the required information and click Okay. 

Reviewing the ledger 

If the resident has two prior return items in the last 12 months our policy is to remove their ability to pay via eCheck this can be done in Rent Manager from the Residents tab under General and clicking the TWA button in the bottom left corner and selecting the appropriate box. 

Resident Notification 

In both of the above procedures, we still need to create a task for the CS team to notify the resident of the returned payment. To complete this take the following steps: 

1. Open CRM 
2. Create a task 
3. Under contacts select the resident 
4. Task Subject : Collect return payment from resident 
5. Task Description: Resident payment made on (Transaction date) was returned for (Account code description) please contact the resident and collect the payment from them as well as any other fees that might be due IE NSF fee.
6. If the resident will no longer be able to use to portal due to a history of returned payments please also note this in the task and inform CS team to notify the resident of this as well. 

Chargebacks Policy & Procedure 

A chargeback occurs when a credit or debit card holder reports that a charge on their card is fraudulent or that the company the payment was made to did not perform the services as they should have. Below are screenshots from each type of charge back. 

Fraudulent charge back 

 

Claims of services not rendered 

Handling Chargebacks 

We have two options and they are Accept it OR dispute it. 

When to Accept 

In the fraudulent example, you can clearly see that the card holder is not the resident who made the payment and therefore this charge back should be accepted, the transaction updated accordingly using the Manual update process discussed earlier, a task created for resident notification, and there ability to pay rent via the portal revoked. 

When to Dispute 

If the resident is requesting their rent payment be charged back, Dispute the charge back and have a manager reach out to the resident. Paylease will also send you a list of documents they need to support the charge back. Everything should be sent to them within 72 hours of receiving the charge back request.  

Returned and Reversed client payments 

1. Referring to the sheet Zego sent us, search for that transaction based on the amount and date the payment was initiated on RM. 
2.  Check the Client's ROS to confirm the redecoration of the transaction as a Client Reimbursement. 
3.  Pull up the ROS of the month as to when the payment was made. Make sure that the Option to "Show Detailed Other Transaction" is marked check
4.  Once confirmed that the transaction was recorded, which affects the Client's Bank Balance, then you can make a journal entry to move the transaction. 
5.  Go to Journal under the Accounting Menu on Rent Manager and click Add
6.  You can use one of the memorized journal transactions by clicking "Load Memorized" and selecting Returns. 
7.  Update the Property, Unit(if applicable), and the amount. 
8.  Leave a comment Describing what the journal entry is for and hit Save. 
9.  Refresh the ROS you have previously opened and make sure that your journal shows as a negative amount and the Bank Balance should have changed deducting the amount of the journal entry. 
10. Inform the client of the returned contribution