Bluefin is the payment processor we've partnered with to bring secure credit card transactions to PatronManager. Before reading the rest of this article, check to make sure you're using Bluefin - if you're not, this article won't be particularly helpful!
PayConex is the payment portal through which your credit card transactions get to Bluefin. It's a useful tool for reporting on batches of transactions, and looking into specific transactions more carefully.
In this article, we'll:
- Talk about some scenarios for which you might want to use PayConex
- Show you how to log in to PayConex for the first time
- Give you a tour of the interface
What do I use PayConex for?
Lots of things! Here's some examples:
- Compare daily batches to your reconciliation reports in PatronManager.
- Confusion or problem surrounding a patron's payment? Find the transaction both in PatronManager and in PayConex. If there's a discrepancy, submit a case in the Client Community to let us know.
- If a patron claims they've been double-charged for a purchase, find the transaction in PayConex. If you've double-charged them, it will show up in the transaction history. If you don't see two identical charges, then the issue is with the patron's credit card company.
- When a payment has been declined, you can check PayConex to be sure the charge has not gone through..
Logging in to PayConex for the first time
If you haven't logged in to PayConex before, you'll need to activate your new account.
If you've been in touch with us about setting up Bluefin, you've likely also received an email invitation from PayConex. It'll look something like this:
If you haven't received this email, submit a case in the Client Community and we'll ask for it to be resent.
1. Click the custom link on your welcome email
2. Set a new password
3. Congrats, you're in!
Go to secure.payconex.net to access the log in screen. You can use your previously created credentials to log in from here.
PayConex Tour
The first thing you'll see when you log in to PayConex is a scary looking "ACCESS DENIED" screen. Don't worry, you didn't do anything wrong, and you'll still be able to access your reports and transaction history.
Let's click on the "reports" tab.
Why "access denied"?
PayConex, while being a great reporting tool, can also receive, refund, and import credit card transactions. However, processing transactions in any way here doesn't interact whatsoever with PatronManager, meaning your bank statements, disbursements, and financial reports won't match. As you can imagine, this can create pretty big bookkeeping headaches.
PayConex reports tab
Here's where you'll spend most of your time in PayConex. You've got lots of options, so let's go through each one by one.
Both links actually lead to the same place: a list of the most recent transactions you've processed.
1. If you'd like a copy of this report in Excel, click the Download CSV button.
2. If you don't see the transaction you want, use the Search feature
3. Click the magnifying glass next to the transaction for additional details
Search
You can search for the transaction based on the amount, customer name, date of transaction or transaction type ("Sale" or "Refund")
Use the Refund search term to confirm that a refund has been processed. Keep in mind that refunds take about 7-10 days to appear in a patron's account. If this much time has passed and the patron still hasn't received their refund, they should contact their bank.
Additional details
If you click the magnifying glass next to the transaction, you can see additional details such as card type, how the payment was entered, and more information about the purchaser..
If you'd like to set up a specific report that you can run every day, week, or month, use custom reports.
Name your report, give it a good description, choose fields to display in your report, and set whatever filters you want!
Here, you'll get a quick look at your transaction totals for each day of the past week.
The payment type report is a good way to get a quick peek at your most important summary numbers. Use the drop-down menu to select a day in the past 14 days.
The card batch report is a more detailed summary of your transactions from each day.
- Clicking the links in the Batch ID, Batch Number, or List columns brings you to a more detailed report of the transactions from that batch day, similar to the Transaction History we described above.
- Clicking the card icon gives you a summary of that day's transactions, divided out by card type - see below for more.
- Click the symbol with a down arrow and large black box to download the batch report for that day. This report includes all fields, most of which you might not need.
- Click the symbol with the smaller box to download the lite report for that day. This report only includes the most commonly used fields, so you might want to start here.
Card summary
Your transactions from the day are summarized by card type and by sale or refund total.
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