BQE ePayments

Overview

Note: Help content (except videos) has been updated to reflect the UI/UX changes in BQE CORE.

BQE CORE allows your clients to pay their invoices electronically or online from anywhere in the world using its ePayments feature, called BQE ePayments. If you are a CORE billing user, an admin user or an account owner, BQE ePayments PayFac (Payment Facilitator) model for ePayments gives you the ability to share the  payment processing options with your clients to cut down on the time it takes to collect payments from them. It also sets up payment processing options for your company that work with your existing banks. This way the company financials are seamlessly integrated into the CORE billing and accounting system. You will have a predictable cash flow and invoice collection mechanism to focus on building the practice more confidently.

BQE ePayments supports both credit cards as well as ACH transfers (eChecks) as online payment methods. Your clients must have a credit card, debit card or bank account to make online payments. Their accounts are first verified with due authorization from them. You get to choose whether to enable ePayments at the global level for all clients (Settings) or selectively that at the client, project and invoice level. CORE lets you set up multiple online accounts to control processing fees and other settings. ePayments can be used for regular invoices, statements, retainer invoices as well as late fee invoices. Click here to watch a video on managing BQE ePayments in CORE.

Note: CORE does not allow scheduling ePayments for statements and ACH transfers.

Field Descriptions

How To

Set Up ePayments Profiles

Specify Online Payment Accounts

Process ePayments

Field Descriptions

Set Up ePayments Profiles

To start offering the online payment option to your clients, you need to configure a BQE ePayments profile in Settings. First, you must submit a BQE CORE ePayments application and then set up a BQE ePayments profile. Please note that any user having access to Settings > ePayments is allowed to complete the account setup of the BQE ePayments profile and this is not restricted to the user who initiated the sign-up process. After your new account is processed, you are notified by email and can create multiple ePayments profiles. 

To set up a BQE ePayments profile, watch this video or follow these steps:

1. Open the ePayments screen from the side menu > Settings.
   
   
   
   
2. On the right panel, click Get Started. To proceed, you need to complete the steps launched in a separate browser and later return to this screen.
3. On the BQE CORE ePayments Application screen, create a new BQE ePayments account by entering the required information. Some details are pre-filled from your CORE company. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
   
   
   
   
   • About the Business 
   • About the Principal/Owner
   • Add Bank Account: Linking your bank account via Plaid is the fastest way to onboard and start processing. Manual entry of bank account details may result in delays and require the upload of bank statements and other supporting documentation before you can process.
   • Terms and Conditions
     
     Note: Federal law requires all financial institutions to verify and record information that identifies each individual or business who opens an account. So when you open an account, CORE asks for your identifiable information including your full name, address, date of birth, and other business information that will allow us to identify you. 
4. After entering all the required details, submit the application form. You will receive an email regarding the processing and approval of your new BQE ePayments account. If for any reason your account is rejected, you will get a rejection email notification along with the reason.
5. After successful account creation, you must select your bank accounts for ePayments deposits and expenses. If there are no bank accounts listed, you can create new accounts using the Add Deposit Account and Add Expense Account options. Please note that the payments received will be deposited in this bank or deposit account and payment processing fees will be charged to this expense account. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
   
   

   

    

6. Click Confirm Accounts.
7. Now choose the Payment Method for accepting online payments from your clients. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
   
   • Credit Card
   • ACH: CORE supports ACH payments for US-based companies only.
   • Both
     
     
     
     
8. Click Confirm Payments. The new ePayments profile is assigned automatically to the existing clients, projects, and invoices (draft or final).
9. Next, you have two options: either go to the Home screen (Dashboard) or go to the advanced settings. You can choose to review the settings on the newly created ePayments profile tab. 
   
   
   
   
10. On the BQE Payments CC/ACH tab, you can manage the ePayments settings. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
    
    
    
    
    • Payment Method Name
    • Deposit Account
    • Expense Account
    • Default ePayment profile
      
    • Client Pays
    • Income Account
    • Payment Options
11. Click Save Profile (or Update Profile).
12. If needed, go ahead and add another BQE ePayments profile by clicking Add Payment Method. In that case, one ACH and one Credit Card profile can be set as the default ePayments profile.
13. You can delete any ePayments profile by clicking the Delete Profile button. CORE allows you to delete a profile regardless of whether it is assigned to clients, projects, or invoices. In case, the profile you want to delete is set as default, CORE prompts you to change the default setting. 
14. You can also click Settings on the top to specify the ePayment Account Settings. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
    • Statement ePayments
    • Pay Now Button Placement
    • Send Email Notifications to
    • Email Message Options
15. You can click Manage Account to launch the BQE ePayments merchant portal. This portal has everything you need to manage your online transactions. To log in to the portal, use the same username and password that you created when registering for BQE ePayments. After login, you can access several reports related to ePayments and also check out the transaction history.

Note: After saving a BQE ePayments profile, you can update its details or delete the profile. If you delete a profile here after invoices are available for ePayments, the Online Payment Account gets reset to 'None' in the Invoices screen.

These global ePayments accounts are inherited when creating new clients; inherited from clients when creating new projects; and inherited from projects when creating new invoices. You can further enable or disable this option for existing clients, projects or invoices from the respective screens. CORE allows you to choose from multiple credit card or ACH accounts set up here to be used for making online payments.

Specify Online Payment Accounts

After you have configured the BQE ePayments profiles in Settings, the default profile is inherited by all new clients. Similarly, all new projects inherit them from the clients, and all new invoices inherit them from their projects. However, you can enable, disable or change the online payment accounts in the Clients, Projects, or Invoices screens, as required. Check out the CORE Help Center for details.

• Clients
• Projects
• Invoices

Note: If you remove the online payment profile in Settings > ePayments after invoices are available for ePayments, the Online Payment Account gets reset to 'None' in the Invoices list. Also, you cannot change the account of ACH scheduled and credit card scheduled invoices.

You can also enable, disable or change the online payment accounts in the Invoice Collections and Retainers screens, if required. Check out the CORE Help Center for details.

• Invoice Collection
• Retainers

Process ePayments

When enabled, the ePayments option appears as a Pay Now/Pay Invoice button on the invoice PDFs as well as in the body of the emails sent to the clients. Your clients can click on the Pay Now button and pay electronically from the ePayments portal (Invoice Payment Options) by entering their credit card, debit card or bank account details, and apply a partial, full or scheduled payment to the invoices (depending on your ePayments settings). If allowed, they can schedule payments on any date they choose. As long as the scheduled payment date falls on or before the invoice due date, your clients can choose when to pay and also be able to make any changes right from the ePayments portal for the specific invoice. They can also cancel the scheduled payments, if needed. However, the scheduled payment options are not available for ACH transfer payments. They can be paid fully or partially using manual entry of bank account details or automatic entry via Plaid. The payment history on the ePayments portal shows a list of previous partial payments received against the invoice. 

After your clients have paid their invoices, they are redirected to a new screen displaying open invoices ready for payment. CORE allows them to pay any additional open or pending invoices having the same client contact by clicking the Pay Invoice button, which takes them to the ePayments portal where they can follow the same steps by entering payment details. If they want to pay later, they can choose to receive a copy of the invoices via email. This process is repeated until there are no more open invoices left to pay.

The invoices reflect the ePayments Status accordingly. In case of statements, you or your clients can choose which invoices to pay on a statement and distribute the payment amount among invoices, as required. You can either apply the payment in full or do a partial payment. When payments are received on invoices that have vendor bills associated with them, CORE notifies you to pay the vendor bills tied to those invoices. You can click Pay the Vendor Bills on the notification that takes you to the Bill Payments screen where the relevant vendor bills are already selected and you can make the payment. You can also choose View Report to view the Vendor Bills List report. 

Note: This notification is generated only for those who have their ePayment notifications set in the Settings > ePayments screen.

When the payments are made by your clients and validated by the merchant, it moves the payment amount to your BQE ePayments account and deposits the same in your bank account within the next 24 hours (debiting the bank account). CORE automatically creates the payment and deposit transactions with proper accounting (crediting the accounts) and reflects the processing fees (debiting the expense account). Upon the disbursement of payments into your bank account, CORE automatically generates a corresponding deposit containing all the relevant details. This deposit serves the purpose of facilitating effortless comparison between the bank feed and deposit.

Note: During the process in which the online payments (made by your clients) move to your bank account and are awaiting payout, CORE displays a message with the pending status of these payments and notifies you as and when the deposits are created. This message also contains a clickable link that opens the ePayment Details report. This report lists those BQE ePayments that do not have deposits created against them. 

By reviewing the deposit, you can easily locate the payment within the Deposits > Existing Client Payments tab and identify the corresponding fee in the New Funds section. To simplify fee identification, CORE employs unique labels for each fee line item. It is important to note that disbursements can encompass multiple payments, and all such payments, along with their associated fees are consolidated within the same deposit in CORE. In cases where disbursements include multiple payments, similar fees, like processing fees, are conveniently grouped together.

When the disbursement of payments happens into your bank account, relevant notifications are processed and delivered to the CORE admin, user, or owner who has signed up for BQE ePayments. By clicking on the notification, you are directed to the deposit, which is generated during the payout process.