Included in this Article
- Summary
- Accessing the client portal
- Responsible staff
- Credit card processing fees
- Exclude payment methods
- Payment method labels
- View previous payments
- View PDF of paid invoices
- Late fees
- Net terms
- Date of invoice
- Due upon receipt
- Terms of service
- Card payment failures
- ACH blocks, disputes, or failures
- Special configuration: Multiple business entity
Summary
The client portal is the portal through which client payments are made.
All payments must be made through either a client portal or through a Quick Payment Link "clientless" portal. This article consolidates all features and functions of the client portal, however for more information about the Quick Payment Link "clientless" payment experience, please review the article Quick Payment Links.
By default, all (active) clients in your practice management system automatically have a corresponding Aiwyn client portal through which payments (invoice or non-invoice) can be made.
If your firm uses Aiwyn Engagement Letters in addition to Payments & Collections, then the same client portal is used for the engagement contacts (who received an Aiwyn generated engagement letter) to sign and/or review the letter and setup saved payment method (or choose to skip).
Firm staff can access any client portal, and any client can access their own client portal(s), both through a variety of methods.
All unpaid invoices are shown in the client portal, even those from before you implemented Aiwyn, and even if the person does not have an Aiwyn client portal user account.
However, the PDF of the Invoice is not available for download in the portal if it wasn't sent through Aiwyn.
Read Aiwyn invoice emails for more information about the Aiwyn invoice email process.
- A client will see unpaid Invoices
- They will not see debit memos
- They will not see zero dollar amount due invoices
Debit memos applied to invoices in your practice management system will affect the invoice amount shown to the client in Aiwyn to pay.
Debits do not appear as "previous payments" in Aiwyn.
The client portal is the place where clients will make payments on invoices, setup saved payment methods, see past payments (if allowed), link multiple accounts to their user, and setup recurring or AutoPay payment plans. Firm users can conduct these tasks in a client portal on the client's behalf if desired.
The client portal has their own help center with articles and videos that guide clients on how to make payments, set up payment plans, account settings, and answers to common questions. Feel free to access the Client Portal Help Center.
Accessing the client portal
How clients access the portal
Clients can access their specific portal in a variety of ways: from an invoice email/smart statement email or from your client portal URL.
They can only access a client portal for which they are authorized to see, by either receiving an invoice email or smart statement, or by going to your firm's client portal URL and entering their client number and invoice number associated to the client number.
If your client is a billing contact to multiple client entities in your practice management system, then when they create an Aiwyn client portal user with the same email address, they will automatically be linked to all their client entities and see invoice(s) for ALL client entities to which they are the designated billing contact.
Invoice email / smart statement: If a client was sent an invoice email or smart statement that includes the 1-click button, they will see a large “Pay Invoice” button in the email that when clicked guides them directly to the client portal with the invoice(s) pulled up and ready to make a payment on, all without entering any account numbers or invoice numbers.
Client Portal URL: Firms should also include their unique client portal URL on their website and other “pay bill” links that directs them to the sign on page. A client could either sign in, create an account, or even pay invoice without signing In. The client portal URL is provided to you during Implementation.
Client portal overview
Each client portal contains the following sections:
- Invoices: Displays all unpaid invoices
- Payments: Displays upcoming scheduled payments and entire payment history (if enabled)
- Settings: Provides client with options to include additional emails for notifications, setup AutoPay or recurring payment plans, and create saved payment methods
Types of things that are NOT shown in the client portal include:
- Debit memos
- Unposted invoices
- Reversed or deleted invoices
- PDF of paid invoices
How firm staff access the client portal
In order to do things such as make a payment on a client’s behalf or setup a recurring or AutoPay payment plan for a client, Firm staff can access any client portal for any active client that exists in the practice management system through their access to the Aiwyn firm portal.
- Log into the Aiwyn firm portal (using your firm SSO credentials)
- To see the client portal viewing just one invoice, go to the invoices tab of the firm portal
- To see the client portal viewing all outstanding invoices, go to the clients tab of the firm portal
- From either place, search for the client by name, invoice number (if on invoices tab) or client number
- Select the three small dots and select “Client Portal View”
Firm staff can use the client portal to make payments, setup recurring payments, setup AutoPay, or setup saved payments.
Configuration options
There are several configuration options available for how the client portal appears to clients. During implementation, Aiwyn will put these in place based on your preferences.
Responsible staff
When a client is viewing one invoice in the client portal, they will see a contact name and an option to send an email. This is referred to as the "responsible staff".
In the example below, the responsible staff is Tanner Fritz. When the "send an email" link is clicked, a new email is created and Tanner's direct email would be automatically added as the recipient.
This is helpful if the client has any questions about their particular invoice.
There are two options for who you would like to have shown to a client as the responsible staff:
- Use the client's bill manager, account manager, partner, or some other staff selection that is on the client's record in your practice management system.
- Use a single staff person that is in your practice management system and have that staff contact shown on all invoices for all clients. If you choose this option, this can be a real staff person. Or you can create a generic staff person in your system, give them a first and last name, and an email address. This generic staff person can even be inactivated, it just needs to exist. In turn, when a client sees the "responsible staff" in their portal, if they click send an email, it can go to a single centralized email that could be shared by your team.
Credit card processing fees
Payments made with a credit card can include a processing fee.
These are fees you will incur for all credit card payments. Whether you choose to pass some or all of these fees onto your clients is up to you. By default and unless otherwise noted by you during implementation, credit card processing fees are passed to clients during payment.
We recommend communicating with your clients if credit card processing fees will be assessed for the first time or increased. Read Best Practice: Charging credit card processing fees for advice and guidance if you plan to start charging (or will raise) credit card processing fees to your clients.
The processing fee you choose is universal, meaning all credit card payments made in the client portal will automatically have the selected processing fee rate factored into the total amount to be paid and cannot be edited by a client.
You do have the ability to exclude credit card surcharge based on state
Exclude payment methods
You can choose to exclude debit cards/pre-paid cards from being an accepted payment method.
This is sometimes a preferred excluded payment method due to the fact that no processing fees can be added to payments made with debit/pre-paid cards but are still subject to your Aiwyn merchant fees for card payments based on your contract.
How it appears in the client portal if debit/pre-paid cards are excluded:
- Under "Cards" payment method, a note displays "Debit and prepaid cards are not accepted"
- If a debit card is keyed in, it shows in red that it is not accepted and the payment cannot process.
You can also choose to exclude credit card payments made from non-US banking institutions, which require an additional 1% processing fee.
For additional information regarding accepted payment methods, please read the article Accepted payment methods.
Payment method labels
By default, the payment methods shown in the client portal are "US bank account" and "Card".
However, this can be customized by Aiwyn implementation or support on your firm's behalf at your request. For example, if you accept credit and debit cards, you could display "Credit/Debit cards" instead of the default "Card" label.
During implementation, you will be given the chance to make this customization when you remit your configuration options to Aiwyn.
If you are already live with Aiwyn Payments & Collections and would like this updated for your firm, please contact support@aiwyn.ai
View previous payments
You can choose to allow client portal users, who are signed into a user account, to view previous payments, including payments made outside of Aiwyn and before Aiwyn was implemented.
This will show the client all payment history for all time.
It will only display actual payments. Credits do not appear here.
As a configurable feature, during Implementation your implementation manager will inquire if you would like to have previous payments viewable in the client portal.
View PDF of paid invoices
If you allow previous payments, and the invoice was emailed to the client via the Aiwyn invoice email method, then the PDF of the paid invoice is visible to the client.
Example client portal, payment history
Example client portal, payment history with option to view or download invoice PDF
Late fees
Late fees are payable in the client portal. Late fees are charges you assess for a client within your practice management system. The total amount of all late fees as charged by you in your system is displayed to the client within their Aiwyn client portal.
This value is displayed in the payment summary area.
There is no way for a user to make a partial payment on their late fee, if they want to pay their late fee they must pay the full amount.
If you remove or adjust a client's late fee in your practice management system, the adjustment is immediately reflected in the client portal.
As a firm admin, you can view a client's late fee by going to their client portal.
Steps to view late fees
- Go to the firm portal, select Clients tab
- Choose or search for the client
- Firm staff with permission, select three small dots, "go to client portal"
- View the late fees in the client payment summary section
Late fees are also included in the smart statement email.
Late fee requirements
You can choose to require the client to pay their full late fee balance, disabling altogether the ability to select the "remove" option in the payment summary.
If late fees are optional, a client portal user can click “Remove” to remove the fee from their payment summary but this does NOT remove the late fee from their account balance in the practice management system. The next time that client goes to make another payment in the portal their late fee would be displayed again.
Example of late fees optional
Example of late fees required
During implementation, you will be given the chance to make this customization when you remit your configuration options to Aiwyn.
If you are already live with Aiwyn Payments & Collections and would like this updated for your firm, please contact support@aiwyn.ai
Late fee display name
You have the option to rename the words "Late fee" seen in the client portal to something else, such as "finance charge".
During implementation, you are given the option to provide an updated display name for the late fee.
If you are already live and using Aiwyn Payments & Collections and would like to update the late fee display name seen by clients, please contact support@aiwyn.ai
Late fees and linked accounts
A client portal user can have more than one client entity linked to their user.
If one or more of these linked entities has any associated late fees, the late fees are displayed to them in the payment summary, even if they selected to pay an invoice of a client account that does not have any associated late fees.
Net terms
Several factors of how invoices and smart statements function and appear are affected by your net terms, meaning the number of days until an invoice is due.
- Invoice aging (e.g. due in 5 days / overdue by 5 days) seen in client portal
- Due on date seen in invoice email
- Timing for sending/staging of smart statements
During implementation, Aiwyn will help you to establish your net terms based on the above factors, and this can be changed after implementation by Aiwyn support at your request.
Date of invoice
The date of the invoice is used in conjunction with your net terms to display to clients the invoice due date, invoice aging, and smart statements. It is the "start date" of an invoice aging towards or from the due date.
Date of invoice + net terms = due date
Choose one of the following configuration options:
- The date of the invoice is the posted date of the Invoice in your practice management system
- Updated based on the date you sent the Invoice to the client through Aiwyn. If an invoice is not sent through Aiwyn, then the date of the invoice will be the posted date.
If your system is configured to pull the date of the invoice based on the posted date, if you update the posted date of the invoice to a new date in your system, the date of the invoice and due date will update in the client portal accordingly to match.
If your system is configured to update the date of the invoice based on the send date through Aiwyn, that date is "locked in" and even if the invoice were to be resent to the client through Aiwyn, the original send date will be maintained as the date of the invoice.
During implementation, Aiwyn will help you decide which configuration option is best for you. After implementation you can request from Aiwyn support an update to this configuration setting.
Due upon receipt
In place of invoice due date and invoice aging, you can choose to instead display "due upon receipt" in the invoice email and client portal.
Due upon receipt configuration affects several areas and should work in conjunction with your net terms and date of invoice configuration options.
Review the table below to compare aging versus due upon receipt. During implementation, you will be required to choose one of these options.
| Aging | Due upon receipt |
Terms of service
We have standard terms of service that are located in the client portal and must be agreed to when a client is submitting a payment. Click here for the terms of service.
You have the option to keep these terms of service or replace them with your own terms of service. If you choose to use your own terms of service, please send us the actual terms.
Card payment failures
If a client makes a payment with a card and it fails, the payment does not process, the invoice is still unpaid, and the client is presented with the error message giving them the reason why the payment failed.
Failure types include:
- Card was declined - a general decline message if no additional details are provided by the bank. Could be incorrect card number entered.
- Insufficient funds
- Incorrect Security code entered
- Incorrect zip code entered
ACH blocks, disputes, or failures
Due to the length of time it takes for ACH payments to process, an ACH payment can first appear to the client as successful.
For all ACH payments, Aiwyn temporarily covers the funds of the payments being sent to you from the client while this process settles. All payments made through Aiwyn are deposited into your bank account connected to stripe two (2) business days after the transaction. However keep in mind that ACH payments may not actually clear until 3-5 days after the transaction.
In the event that an ACH payment fails, is blocked, or is disputed, the transaction will show on your payment export file as a negative value on the day the ACH processing has completed, and the funds from this failed ACH transaction are removed from that day's payout.
Both your payment notification email recipient(s) as well as the client payer will receive an email notification that their ACH payment has failed at the time the ACH processing has completed.
To determine why an ACH payment has failed, please contact support@aiwyn.ai
Additional resources:
Special Configuration: Multiple Business Entity
If your firm requires the setup of multiple business entities in order to receive Aiwyn payouts to multiple bank accounts based on the type of invoice or type of client, then the following client portal experience will apply. For more information about multiple business entities, click here.
Clients with unpaid invoices from multiple business entities can only pay invoices from one business entity at a time. The client portal will inform the user of this when they are reviewing and paying.
The respective business entity and account name is shown for each unpaid invoice.
Up next: Firm Portal