Setup Considerations: Student Payments

You can use this topic to help you make decisions when planning your configuration and use of student payments. It explains:

Why to set them up.

How they fit into the rest of Workday.

Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.

Security requirements and business process configurations.

Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.

Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What It Is

Student payments represent the money that students pay directly for their student charges. These types of payments can also satisfy student charges:

Financial aid awards.

Student sponsor contracts.

Student waivers.

Business Benefits

Student payments enable students to pay for the charges on their accounts. You can:

Define the forms of payment that you accept.

Prioritize the payments for application.

Specify which charges the payments apply to.

Use Cases

Set student payments to apply to certain student charges before others, based on payment precedence. Example: You can apply payments to tuition first, then housing or books.

Enable convenient online options for students to pay their student account balances.

Integrate with third-party vendors to enable students and their proxies to make credit card payments.

Apply outside scholarships to student charges and inform the financial aid office so that they can include it in the financial aid packages for students.

Questions to Consider

Questions	Considerations
What payment options do you want to offer students?	You can enable students to select from: Forms of payment, such as Cash , Check , or Credit Card . Categories, such as General Payment or Tuition .
How do you want students to pay charges?	You can enable students to: Make payments toward individual charges, such as housing, tuition, or library fines. Pay specific charges separately from other charges.
Do you plan to enable credit card payments for student charges?	You can enable credit card payments using a third-party vendor.
What are your payment and charges priorities?	In Workday, precedence groups control both the priority of different student payments and their charges. Workday recommends creating additional precedence groups for multiple payment items that apply only to specific charges, rather than 1 precedence group for multiple payment items. Workday Student also uses precedence groups for: Award items Sponsor contracts Waiver items
Does your institution use Worktag Balancing?	You can configure worktag balancing for your tenant. Worktag balancing assigns the required balancing worktag to the offset side of journals for all financial transactions that use balancing rules. Most institutions use Fund as the primary balancing worktag. If your tenant uses worktag balancing, you must: Configure worktag balancing before creating any transactions in Workday Student Financials. Define a default balancing worktag for excess student payments, as excess student payments don't inherit balancing worktags from associated transactions. Once you turn on worktag balancing, you can't turn it off.

Recommendations

Post excess student payments to a separate ledger account for on-account student payments. This separate account enables you to track overpayments and initiate refunds to students.

Process your private scholarship payments using the

Record Student Private Scholarship Payment

task. These transactions route to Financial Aid automatically adding to the Total Financial Assistance for the student.

Requirements

Associate all academic units with a company. This association enables you to post student payments to operational accounting journals and run reports about the payments.

Limitations

Workday Student:

Requires a third-party vendor for credit card payments and cash management.

Doesn't support third-party vendor payments through mobile devices.

Tenant Setup

No impact.

Security

Configure these domains in the Student Financials functional area:

Domains	Considerations
Manage: Student Payment - Cancel Manage: Student Payment Adjustment Processing Manage: Student Payment Processing	Users can view, process, adjust, and cancel student payments.
Process: Student Payment/Settlement	Users can view and settle student payments.
Reports: All Student Payment Transaction Types Reports: Student Payments	Users can report on student payments.
Manage: Student Deposits Manage: Student Deposit - Cancel Reports: Student Deposits	Users can deposit student payments, as well as cancel and report on the deposits.

Business Processes

Business Processes	Considerations
Student Payment Event	Configure to record student payments in Workday.
Student Deposit Event	Configure to deposit student payments in Workday.

Reporting

Reports	Considerations
Find Student Deposits	Users can view the deposit information including the: Bank account Payment date Reference Status Total amount
Find Student Payment Items	Users can find Student Payment Items based on name and receipt type.
Find Student Payments	Users can view payments posted to student accounts, and attributes of the payment, including the: Amount Date Payment type Student
Unapplied Payments for Student Payment Transaction Types	Use this report to view unapplied payment amounts and identify fully applied payments by transaction type, including: Credit memos Disbursement payments Student payments Student waivers

Integrations

Web Services	Considerations
Get Student Payments	Users can retrieve specific student payments or all student payments.
Import Student Application Fee Payments	Users can load a large number of application fee payments for students at once.
Import Student Payments	Users can load a large number of student payments at once.
Put Student Payment Item	Users can create a new student payment item or update an existing student payment item.
Submit Student Payment	Users can record a new student payment for charges.

Connections and Touchpoints

Student payments interact with these components of Workday Financial Management:

Features	Considerations
Companies	Workday posts accounting for student payments to the academic unit company for the payment item.
Financial accounting structure	Workday uses the accounting structure of a company in operational journals to post student payments on the correct account.

Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.