Retail Installment Plan functionality in the IDI platform requires the following setup:
Arrange with IDI to enable this functionality
General ledger Setup
Billing Product Setup
Permissions
Set up Installment Plan Profiles – At least one is required. See
Assign profiles to Retail Products that you intend to sell on installment.
Allowing/Disallowing Installment Plans by Credit Classes – Credit Classes can be set up to allow or not allow installment plans.
Offset Payment Posting Date - By default, the posted date of a pay-in-full transaction is set to the same day as the transaction. This may result in crediting the payment prematurely. Admin Console settings let you delay when the payment posts as a function of days prior to the end of the current bill period. This may be used to ensure system processes are not affected due to premature crediting.
Enabling Retail Installment Plans
Service providers must pay a fee to enable the new functionality; otherwise, all applicable GUIs and controls will be hidden. Once paid, a new setting in the ConfigurationValue database table called EnableInstallmentPlanProfiles must be set On (True) to enable the functionality.
Note
This setting is only available to authorized IDI personnel using SQL Server Management Studio. How to set this value is described in Enabling Enhanced Installment Plan Functionality in the IDI platform.
When this setting is disabled, the following functions are not visible to users:
Viewing and configuring Installment Plan Profiles
Assigning an Installment Plan Profile to a Retail Product
Disallowing installment plans by Credit Class
Enhanced Customer Management capabilities
The ability to pay off in full via POS Front Office
When the setting is enabled all above controls and associated functionality are available to authorized users.
General Ledger
This is required for correct posting of the sale and subsequent posting of billed installments.
There are two GL posting processes for Retail installment plan sales – one to post the full installment amount for the POS sale and one to post billed installments as they occur. Both processes should be set up to use the same GL account.
The process for posting installment plan sales is driven by the respective POS locations where installment plan sales are tendered. This setup is covered below. GL setup for billed installments is driven by installment plan billing products, and is covered in Billing Product Setup.
It is recommended that for all store locations where retail installment plan sales are tendered, you select a specific GL Account to suit your business process. IDI recommends using an Accrued Accounts Receivable account. To do this, at each location you need to override the default GL account for the Retail Cash General Ledger Property on the Future Installment Tender Type and select your designated installment plan GL account.
In the Desktop Client
Choose Applications > POS Back Office > Locations.
Right-click on the Store location and choose Edit.
On the Location Configuration form:
Select the General Ledger tab.
Select the Override these values option.
Select the Future Installment Tender Type and click Edit.
On the Edit Tender Type form click Edit.
On the Edit Assigned GL Accounts form, for the Retail Cash subcategory select Override from the Override drop down menu and then choose the designated GL account (Accrued Accounts Receivable recommended).
Click Save.
Close the Edit Tender Type GL Accounts form.
Click Save on the Edit Location form.
Billing Product
At least one billing product must be set up in the Product Catalog. This billing product is associated to the retail product being sold on an installment plan. The product is simply a marker to drive scheduled payments after the sale. It does not establish any of the parameters related to installment plans such as number of installments, down payment amount, and so on. The price is set on the retail product. All other variables (number of payments, down payment, whether or not to require a 1st payment…) are set on an Installment Plan Profile which is then associated to the retail product. The billing product is also specified on the Installment Plan Profile.
Although only one such product is required, users may want to configure multiple billing products. The content of the Description (or Alt Invoice Description) field is used as the description for the corresponding line item on the invoice. Therefore, if you need to distinguish between different installment payments on an invoice, multiple billing products would need to be created and named accordingly.
GL Setup for the Billing product
This GL setup accounts for the posting of billed installments. You have two options for GL setup on the billing product. You can either set up the GL on a Product Category, and then assign the Product Category to the billing product, or you can set up GL directly on the billing product. It is good practice to have a Product Category associated to all products in the Product Catalog, so this method is recommended. The GL configuration process for Product Category and billing product is basically the same as the respective forms look and operate the same way. This section covers the Product Category method.
Product Categories are added via Product Management (Product Management > Product Categories).
This displays the Product Category form. To create the Product Category:
Right-click in the grid on the Product Categories form and choose New from the context menu.
Assign the new Product Category a meaningful name such as Installment Plans.
Click Edit. This displays the Edit Assigned GL Accounts form.
On this form find the Earned and Billed Revenue Subcategory.
Set the Override column to Override.
Then set the GL Account column to the same GL account as specified for GL posting of installment plan sales (see General ledger Setup). An Accrued Accounts Receivable GL account is recommended.
Click Save.
Click Save on the Add Product category form.
How to assign the Product Category to billing products is described below.
Note:
If a customer is using both the enhanced retail and older billing product-based installment plans, and there is a need to GL them separately, separate Product Categories should be set up and assigned to the respective billing products. It is recommended that customers contact IDI for assistance with this setup.
Configuring the Billing Product
The following parameters must be properly configured to enable the billing product to be selected on a profile (to be present in the corresponding drop down menu on the profile):
Charge Cycle must be set to Once to enable the Allow Installments check box
Prorating Type must be set to None
Charge Tax Class = No Tax Class Assigned
Allow Installments must be checked.
Note
Do not enter a value for Max Number of Installments This field on the New/Edit Product form is ignored when enhanced installment plan functionality is enabled in the system.
The following setup is also required:
General Ledger setup for the billing product can be accomplished either via the General Ledger tab on the product, or by selecting the designated and properly configured Product Category as shown below.
Entry in Description (or Alt Invoice Desc) determines the line item description on the invoice
Permissions
Permissions for restricting access to Installment Plan Profiles must be enabled in the permission profiles of users charged with managing Installment Plan Profiles. The path is: Application > CostGuard Client > Product Management > Installment Plan Profiles.
POS Permissions Governing Sales
These permissions control:
Whether users can right-click on a retail product during the sale to add an installment plan when the profile makes installment plans optional
Whether users can override the rule that prevents installment plans based on credit class
There are separate permissions for Sales/Returns and Sales Requests:
Application> CostGuard Client> POS> Front Office> Sales and Returns> Apply Retail Installment Plans
Application> CostGuard Client> POS> Front Office> Sales Requests> Apply Retail Installment Plans
Users having the Apply Retail Installment Plans permission disabled can only sell installment plans when the profile makes an installment plan mandatory on the retail product. If the profile makes an installment plan optional, users will not have the ability to add an installment plan during the sale. Users having the Apply Retail Installment Plans permission enabled can sell installment plans in either case.
Users having the Override Do Not Allow Installment Plan permission disabled will not be permitted to sell an installment plan when the customer’s credit class dictates that installment plans are not allowed. Only users with this permission enabled can allow such a sale to go forward.
Note:
The Edit and New permissions are NOT functional and have no effect on users’ ability to add or edit an installment plan during a sale.
Permissions for Installment Agreements
Existing permissions that controlled Service Agreements in POS Make Sale now apply also to Installment Agreements. These permissions are to allow/disallow skipping signing an Installment Agreement and to allow/disallow using a test signature.
The branch has been renamed to convey the permissions apply to installment agreements.
Path: Applications > CostGuard Client > POS > Front Office > Sales and Returns > Service & Installment Agreements
These permissions are disabled by default.
An additional Installment Agreement permission controls whether or not users can view Installment Agreements via Client.
Path: Applications > CostGuard Client > Customer Management > Customers > Catalog Items > Installment Agreements
This permission is disabled by default.
Permission for manager Override During Sale
The ability to perform Manager Override of an Installment Plan’s Rules in POS Make Sale and/or Make Sales Request is regulated by the Override Installment Plan Details permission. There are two different instances of this permission for Sales and Returns and Sales Requests.
Application > CostGuard Client > POS > Front Office > Sales and Returns > Apply Retail Installment Plans, and
Application > CostGuard Client > POS > Front Office > Sales Requests > Apply Retail Installment Plans
Note:
These permissions are disabled by default.
Allow Installment Plan Exchange
The Allow Installment Plan Exchange permission is required to perform an Installment Plan exchange via the Exchange wizard. This permission is disabled by default and must be enabled as needed. The permission is available in Admin Console > Security > Profiles > Permission Profiles under:
Application> CostGuard Client> POS> Front Office> Sales and Returns (for POS Make Sale transactions)
Access to Installment Plan profile setup in Product Management
POS-related functions such as selling a product on installments when the product does not have an assigned profile
Allow/disallow skip service agreement
Allow/disallow override configured rules during a sale
Allow/disallow access to the exchange wizard
Set up Installment Plan Profiles – At least one is required.
Assign profiles to Retail Products that you intend to sell on installment.
Allowing/Disallowing Installment Plans by Credit Classes – Credit Classes can be set up to allow or not allow installment plans.
Offset Payment Posting Date - By default, the posted date of a pay-in-full transaction is set to the same day as the transaction. This may result in crediting the payment prematurely. Admin Console settings let you delay when the payment posts as a function of days prior to the end of the current bill period. This may be used to ensure system processes are not affected due to premature crediting.