Payment Center Reference Guide

The Payment Center is your central hub for managing incoming revenue. Use this page to process ALIS Pay transactions (ACH and Credit Card), document manual payments (checks and external deposits), and manage deposit batches.

The Payment Center is optimized for bulk entry, allowing you to record payments for many residents at once. You can choose to enter payments as part of a pre-set Deposit Total or enter them in separate batches to group into a deposit later.

Access the Payment Center

To access the Payment Center, click the Billing dropdown menu > Payment Center. 

ALIS Pay Gateway and Recordkeeping options

Once you navigate to the Payment Center, you will have different options based on what is enabled for your environment. 

• ALISPay Gateway: If ALIS Pay is enabled, you will see the ACH/CC and/or Check Scanning processing tools below this header. For more information about ALIS Pay and the enablement process, refer to this ALIS Pay: Payment Gateway Reference Guide. 
• Recordkeeping: If the gateway is not enabled, you will only see options to manually record Check, ACH/CC, and Medicaid payments. 

Bulk Payment tab 

There are five primary bulk payment workflows available depending on the payment type. 

1 - ACH Pull (Processing ALIS Pay)

If your community uses ALIS Pay, use this workflow to electronically withdraw funds from resident bank accounts or charge credit cards directly. For more information on monthly ACH pulls, refer to this ALIS Pay: Monthly ACH Pulls guide.

1. Click +Collect ACH/CC.

2. In the pane that opens to the right, enter the payment details: 

   • Payment Method: Choose ACH, Credit Card, or both.

   • Payment Date Preference: Leave as "None Selected" to capture everyone, or select a specific group if you have configured different preferred payment dates for payers. 

   • The system defaults the withdrawal amount to the payer's outstanding balance. You can edit this amount if necessary.

3. Click Next: Review to finalize the withdrawal and apply the funds to resident invoices.

4. On the Payment Gateway Bulk Payment page, review payment details before submitting the payment(s).

   • The Amount and Apply to fields will populate based on your settings. Amount will either show the outstanding balance or the max transaction limit if it has been set, but you can always edit this field. The number you add to the Amount field will be the amount withdrawn or charged. 

   • Note: If you do not see any payers listed on this page, most likely you need to configure payers correctly or update the 'Balance as of' date. For more information on how to troubleshoot this, refer to this Why is a payer not appearing when I collect a gateway payment? FAQ guide.

5. Once you have reviewed payments details in full and made any necessary adjustments, click Submit Payments. When you submit payments in ALIS, these are immediately sent to your bank. The bank either declines or accepts the payment and communicates the status back to the payment processor. Your payment processor adds a fee (if applicable) based on that transaction.

To learn how to refund or void an ALIS Pay transaction, refer to this ALIS Pay: Refunds and Voids guide.

2 - Check Scanning (Processing ALIS Pay) 

If your community uses ALIS Pay for Check Scanning, use this workflow to electronically deposit checks. 

1. Click +Scan Checks.
2.  In the pane that opens to the right, enter necessary details:
   • Received On - This defaults to today's date, or the day you are running the checks. You have the ability to edit this date before scanning as well as once in the next Check Scanning page prior to submitting the check payments. You will not be able to edit this date once you process your checks and they are posted to your accounts.
   • Expected Total - This is the sum of all checks expected for this deposit. Once checks are scanned, this number will be compared to the Scanned Total. Click on the tooltip (question mark icon) to assist you with this entry.
3. Click Next: Set up Scanner and begin feeding your checks into your scanner device. As you scan checks, the page will process them and display a high-level overview of each check in the order in which they were scanned.
   • If the scan was successful and does not require any corrections, the Order column will be highlighted in green, and the Status column will remain blank.
   • If the scan contains errors or needs to be reviewed, the Order column will be highlighted in red, and the Status column will display general information regarding the error or state specific field(s) that are "invalid".
     • To make updates, click anywhere on the line item to open a righthand pane where you can view the scanned check image and edit the Check #, Check Amount, Routing #, Account #, Payer, Outstanding, and Apply to fields.
     • It is important to note that the first time you scan a check, ALIS will not automatically recognize the Account # and therefore will not be able to associate the correct payer with that account. Once you select the payer from the dropdown menu provided, ALIS will link the payer for future scans.
   • For any other issues you may encounter when scanning checks (connectivity, error message, jammed checks), refer to the detailed Check Scanner Troubleshooting Guide.
4. Once you have rectified all errors on your scanned checks, the Order column and the Submit button should be highlighted in green indicating that you are ready to submit this batch of check payments.
   • If the Submit button is still grayed out and you are unable to click it, then most likely your Expected Total and Scanned Total does not match. Once you've reviewed your scanned checks, click the pencil icon next to the Expected Total and enter the correct amount. Then click the green check mark to save. This should then make the Submit button so you can click it to process the payments.
5. When you click Submit, a pop-up appears for you to review the Received On date, Scanned Total, and number of checks scanned. If all appears accurately, click the blue Submit button to process the payments. These will then go into the Undeposited Payments tab in the Payment Center until they are cleared and posted to the applicable GL accounts.  

3 - ACH/CC (Recording Manual Payments)

Use this workflow to document Credit Card or ACH payments that were processed outside of ALIS (e.g., via a physical terminal or external portal).

1. Click +Record ACH/CC. 

2. In the pane that opens to the right, enter the payment details: 

   • Payer Type: Select Private, Medicaid, or Insurance.

   • Received On: Select the date the payment was received

   • Method: Choose ACH or Credit Card.

   • Amount: Most likely you will leave this set to the default Full Outstanding Balance however you can choose Custom or Most Recent Invoice to dictate how the payment is auto-applied on the next page.

   • Deposit Total: Enter a Deposit Total that you are balancing against a specific bank deposit. You can also upload multiple deposit files one at a time here.

   • Balance as of: (Optional) This date defaults to the first day of the current month. Always review this for accuracy and align the date entered here to your invoice date so that any payers with outstanding invoices will appear in the next page. 

3. Click Next: Review.

4. On the 'New Bulk Payment' page, ALIS will auto-fill rows for residents with outstanding balances based on the above set parameters. Review in full and make any necessary adjustments. 

   • Click +Add Another Payment to add payers manually.

   • Edit the Amount and Apply To fields as needed. Note that payments are applied to specific invoices based on your "Apply To" selection, or to the resident general account if "Do Not Apply" is selected.

5. Once your total matches the Deposit Total, click Submit Payments.

4 - Check (Recording Manual Payments)

Use this workflow to bulk-enter paper checks received at the community.

1. Click +Record Check.

2. In the pane that opens to the right, enter the payment details:

   • Payer Type: Select the correct payer type for this entire group of checks.

   • Received On: Select the date the payment was received.

   • Add payment lines for check payers with balance? Select Yes to automatically show rows for payers with outstanding balances based on the optional payment preference date. Otherwise, leave the toggle set to No to manually add rows for applicable payers. 

   • Deposit Total: Enter the total payment amount. You can also upload multiple deposit files here. 

   • Balance as of: (Optional) This date defaults to the first day of the current month. Always review this date for accuracy and  align this date to your invoice date so that any payers with outstanding invoices will appear in the next page. 

3. Click Next: Review.

4. On the 'New Bulk Payment' page, ALIS will auto-fill rows for any payers with the "Check" payment preference who also have outstanding balances (if Yes was selected).

   • Check Numbers: Enter the specific Check # for each row.

   • Click +Add Another Payment to add payers manually.

   • Edit the Amount and Apply To fields as needed. Note that payments are applied to specific invoices based on your "Apply To" selection, or to the resident general account if "Do Not Apply" is selected.

5. Once your total matches the Deposit Total, click Submit Payments. 

5 - Medicaid

Use this dedicated workflow for bulk entry of Medicaid payments.

1. Click +Record Medicaid.

2. In the pane that opens to the right, enter the necessary payment details:

   • Payer Type: Select the specific Medicaid payer. (Note that different types of Medicaid payers here will only be listed if already configured in Billing Settings.)

   • Invoice Date Range: This defaults to the previous month's invoice date range but can be adjusted if needed. 

   • Received On: Select the date the payment was received.

   • Method: Choose the payment method (include Check # if applicable).

   • Deposit Total: Enter the total payment amount. You can also upload multiple deposit files here. 

3. Click Next: Review.

4. On the 'Medicaid Bulk Payment' page, confirm the resident names, the payment amounts, and where the payments should be applied.

5. Click Submit Payments. 

Opening Balances

When first setting up ALIS Billing, you can use the Opening Balance checkbox (and Balance as of date for ACH/CC and Checks) on any manual workflow as outlined above. This creates the initial balance on a resident's ledger without generating a new invoice. For more information refer to this How to Set Opening Balances guide. 

Undeposited Payments tab

Any payments recorded in ALIS that were not immediately assigned to a deposit batch will appear here. Multi-select these individual payments and click Deposit Payments to group them into a formalized bank deposit record. You can also multi-select and Delete Payments as needed. You can click to review individual invoices from and also View GL Txns from here. 

Deposits tab

This tab acts as a historical report of all deposit batches. Click on the '+' sign to expand and view all deposits from each month. You can click the Options button on individual deposit batches to delete or view details as well as access the GL Txns pages. To print deposit slips or export the data to Excel for reconciliation, click on the linked Batch/Deposit Name and timestamp details.

Audit tab

Use the Audit tab to review a log of all activity within the Payment Center. This is an essential resource for troubleshooting missing payments or user errors.

Payment Gateway Txns tab

This tab provides an overview of all ALIS Pay transactions. Review the Status column for any 'Failed' transactions. You can then click the View button next to any submitted payments to see more specific transaction details.

Related articles:

• How to Set a Resident Payer
• ALIS Pay: Payment Gateway Reference Guide
• ALIS Pay: Check Scanning Reference Guide
• ALIS Pay: Monthly ACH Pulls
• ALIS Pay: Refunds and Voids

For more assistance with ALIS Pay,

Contact our ALIS Customer Success Team:

888.404.ALIS (2547) or support@go-alis.com