Payments: Direct Debits/Credits

The Direct Credit feature in Discover is used to reflect a refund of money on Bill Payer Accounts.

Please note: The Direct Credit in which money is actually transferred to the Bill Payer Account must be completed via Bank Portal outside of Discover. On Discover, administrators can create the subsequent transaction on the Bill Payer Account to record the refund.  

Processing Direct Credits:

To process Direct Credits, navigate to Reports > Finance Reports > Centre Balance Report or Homebased Service Balance Report. 

Under ‘Centre Balance Type’ select the option ‘Pay By Direct Credit’.  

Tick the check box to the left of each relevant Bill Payers' name to include them in the export.

Credit amount can be changed by clicking on the blue pencil icon next to the value.

Once you have reviewed the report and are ready to export the Direct Credit File, click on the Export as BNZ button. This will export a .txt file. This file then can be uploaded to the BNZ Bank Portal. 

Although the report shows the Total Credits as a negative number, the value in the exported file is a positive number (value converted to cents).

Hold Back Amounts

Though the report will allow you to adjust the credit amount, in the Bill Payer's profile, 'Hold Back Amount' can be used if you want a specific amount to be not Credited (refunded) back. 

Based on the details saved, the report can be re-run to see the changes. The example below shows the Bank Account Number is now displayed as "Yes" and the amount that can be credited is $581, which $681 - $100 (Hold Back Amount). 

You can create refund notes (transaction) in bulk on all the Bill Payers on the report. This is not mandatory, and transactions can be created manually if preferred. 

To create refunds in bulk, click on Create Refunds.  

Below is an example where a Refund Note has been created, with mention of the hold back amount.