Overview

Payment Method/OP_Payment_Method is located in Financial Settings > General Settings > e-Payments > Transaction properties for addressing Payments. It defines the default payment method used when the system automatically creates a transaction from an online payment.

What This Setting Does

This setting lets the institution choose which payment method (for example, a specific way of paying recognized by the finance system) is automatically applied to transactions that are created and addressed automatically as a result of online payments. It removes the need for staff to manually assign a payment method to each such transaction.

Where It Is Used

This setting affects only the automatic, behind-the-scenes creation of transactions resulting from online payments.

• This setting is not shown or chosen on any screen by a payer; it only determines, in the background, which payment method label is applied whenever the system automatically creates and posts a transaction for an online payment.

Business Logic / Behavior

• This is a dropdown (single-select) setting listing available payment methods.
• In case of an automated transaction creation, this defines the preselected/default payment method.
• This setting is only relevant when automatic transaction addressing for online payments is being used; it plays no role if transactions are addressed manually.

Example(s)

Thornwood University automatically creates transactions for the roughly 500 online payments it receives each month and wants them all tagged with a consistent payment method for reporting purposes. The administrator sets Payment Method to Credit Card, so when a parent completes a $400 online payment, the automatically created transaction is tagged with the Credit Card payment method by default, without a staff member having to set it manually.

When to Use

Use this setting whenever the institution relies on automatic transaction creation for online payments and wants a consistent, predictable payment method applied without manual entry. Review it if the institution’s accepted payment methods change.

Notes

• Prerequisites: Enable online payments/Use_Online_Payments should be turned on, and this setting is most relevant when automatic transaction addressing (such as Automatically address transactions/OP_Automatically_Address_Transactions) is also configured.
• Related settings: Payment Account/OP_Payment_Account (Financial Settings > General Settings > e-Payments > Transaction properties for addressing Payments); Transaction Type/OP_Transaction_Type (Financial Settings > General Settings > e-Payments > Transaction properties for addressing Payments); Automatically Address Transactions/OP_Automatically_Address_Transactions (Financial Settings > General Settings > e-Payments > Transaction properties for addressing Payments).
• Related configuration: Payment Method (Financial Settings > Dropdown lists > Payment Method) – where the payment methods offered in this dropdown are created and managed.

K-12 vs Higher Education: This setting behaves the same regardless of whether Higher Education Mode (Enable Configuration for Higher Education/Xrisi_parametropoihshs_kolegiou) is enabled or disabled.