How payment obligation, receipt and credit fit together

Three terms belong together in the payments area. The payment obligation belongs to the registration, the receipt to the payment and the credit to the account. If you know how they connect, you understand open items, refunds and reversals.

What a registration owes

The payment obligation is the claim on a single registration. It arises only when the place is settled: with the committed confirmation for an offer with a fee. A provisional confirmation in the batch owes nothing yet, because it can change until the commit.

If a family gives up the place in time, the payment obligation lapses. In time means within 30 minutes of the confirmation or before the deadline Free of charge until before the start.

The payment obligation also lapses if the team rejects the registration, puts it on the waiting list or cancels the offer. If a cancelled offer is restored, the payment obligation revives. In this way it always reflects what a family currently owes. Nobody has to recalculate by hand.

For special cases, the payment obligation can be removed by hand, for example for a free place. If a confirmation was set without committing, the payment obligation can be added by hand.

What a receipt documents

A receipt documents a payment transaction, in cash at the counter, online or by direct debit. It combines one or more payment obligations of an account.

A receipt also arises before payment, for example with a payment link. It then has the status new, is called “Invoice” as a PDF and has no number yet. fepli assigns the consecutive receipt number only after payment. In this way the number sequence counts only real income.

The payment link of a new receipt is valid for 30 days. After that the receipt changes to the status abandoned, and its link no longer starts a payment. In this way no money arrives for a receipt that fepli can no longer book.

The payment obligation stays open, and the team can send another payment reminder. If the family has already begun an online payment, the receipt stays open until pmPayment confirms or declines it.

A paid receipt is no longer changed. Bookkeeping and the retention obligation require an issued receipt to stay as it was.

A reversal is therefore a receipt of its own with a negative total that refers to the original receipt. Anyone who adjusts a cash receipt also reverses the old one and issues a new one. In this way the chain can be traced at any time.

Why a direct debit receipt is paid at once

If a family pays with a SEPA direct debit mandate, the receipt counts as paid at once. It gets its number, and the registrations are paid, although the money flows only on the day of the debit. The direct debit is thus a payment method like cash and online.

The debit waits separately for the hand-over to the treasury. Families with a mandate therefore receive no payment reminder and do not appear under Open.

What happens to the money after a reversal

When a receipt is reversed, the money needs a destination. There are two ways.

Pay out the amount books the money out of the till. fepli does not pay back to the payment method automatically. The team therefore makes the bank transfer outside fepli.

Transfer to credit balance leaves the money on the family's account. fepli offsets it against the next receipt.

The choice depends on the family. If it keeps taking part, the credit saves a bank transfer there and back. For a family that no longer takes part, the payout fits.

The debtor bundles everything for an account: open items from payment obligations, payments, reversals, credit notes and the credit. From the balance, the team sees where the account stands: the family owes money, gets money back or is even.

When money and claim diverge

If the team cancels an offer, the payment obligation lapses immediately. But the money of the families who have already paid has already arrived. fepli shows these cases as Refund due so that no refund is forgotten. The same applies if someone has paid twice or too much.

Why a reduction is not a credit

If a benefit provider covers the fee, for example through education and participation benefits (BuT), the family still owes it. Someone else pays it. The team therefore books a credit that covers the payment obligation. In this way the income stays visible, and the settlement with the benefit provider matches the account statement.

A reduction of the organisation's own, for example for a pass for low-income families, waives part of the fee. No money flows for it. A credit would show income that never existed and leave the full fee in the books. A reduction therefore lowers the payment obligation itself and appears as a line of its own on the receipt.

A reduction attaches to a single registration or to the participant. The team sets the reduction of a registration when settling, and it takes precedence. The reduction of a participant applies to each of their registrations as long as their evidence is valid, even if the family pays online.

Because the fee comes about online without the team, a family's statement would lower it at once, before anyone has seen the evidence. A reduction that families state themselves therefore counts as “submitted” at first and takes nothing off. Only the team's confirmation makes it effective. What the team enters itself applies at once, because the team has already checked the evidence.