PayNearMe’s business rules are logic-based if/then statements used to perform automated processes that support your unique business operations. These rules mitigate risk, reduce operating expenses, and decrease the time and expense involved with declined payments and returns.

PayNearMe has defined several out-of-the-box standard and premium business rules that can be quickly implemented in a few simple steps. PayNearMe can also create custom business rules that determine how, when, and if you should accept a payment. This document details standard, premium, and custom business rules and provides real-world examples of how clients have used business rules to improve their operational efficiency.

Anatomy of a Business Rule

Both PayNearMe’s standard and custom business rules follow a specific formula consisting of the following elements:
Trigger + Conditions = Action

A Trigger is a system event that tells the rule when to run. Business rules can be triggered by the following events in the PayNearMe flow:

Flow Point	Trigger Event
Pre-Payment	When a consumer or agent accesses an order
During Payment	At payment time, after an amount is entered
During Payment	When scheduling a payment
During Payment	When determining allowed payment types
Post Payment	When a payment is declined
Post Payment	When a payment is returned

The Conditions of a business rule are a list of key-value pairs that all must be true in order to run the rule. Think of conditions as the “If” part of a business rule’s “If/Then” statement. The “Then” part of the statement belongs to the Action, or what happens when the trigger event occurs and conditions are met. Typically, the action in a business rule is blocking the payment from occurring in a schedule or a one-time transaction or preventing a consumer from using a particular payment method to complete a payment. For example, when a consumer’s ACH payment is returned (Trigger) as NSF (Conditions), PayNearMe will remove the ACH payment method option from the Consumer Portal (Action) for that consumer/order.
The following list displays the actions that can result from a business rule:

Disallowing the payment for ad-hoc, scheduled, and autopay payments
Disallowing a specific payment method
Canceling an autopay schedule
Canceling all future-dated payments and autopay schedules
Disallowing consumers from skipping autopay payments
Preventing agents from canceling a payment
Preventing agents from refunding a payment
Enforcing payment limits
Displaying a warning message to agents and/or consumers

Standard Business Rules

The following table displays the out-of-the-box business rules that can be enabled for a standard electronic payments contract. Your PayNearMe Technical Account Manager (TAM) can quickly configure one of the following rules to help your business prevent overpayments or prevent excessive ACH returns. After the action occurs, a message displays to the consumer or agent notifying them of the rule and the payment limitations in place. Message text can be customized with verbiage specific to your business. Your PayNearMe TAM can help you craft each message.

Business Rule	Description	Trigger	Action
Prevent Overpayment Amounts	Defines the maximum amount allowed for an order. You can configure this rule to only apply to consumers (i.e., agents can submit higher amounts), electronic payments (i.e., cash payment amounts can be higher), and/or ad-hoc payments (i.e., autopay payment amounts can be higher).	At payment time, after an amount is entered	Prevent payment
Block ACH Payment Method After Return	Disallows all ACH transactions for an order once an ACH payment has been returned for revoked authorization (i.e., return codes R07, R10, R11, R29).	When a payment is returned	Prevent ACH payment

Premium Business Rules

The following table displays the premium, out-of-the-box business rules that your PayNearMe Technical Account Manager (TAM) can quickly configure for your unique business requirements. After each action occurs, a message displays to the consumer or agent notifying them of the rule and the payment limitations. Message text can be customized with verbiage specific to your business. Your PayNearMe TAM can help you craft each message.

Business Rule	Description	Trigger	Action
Minimum Payment Amount	Defines the minimum amount allowed for an order. You can configure this rule to only apply to consumers (i.e., agents can submit lower amounts), electronic payments (i.e., cash payment amounts can be lower), and/or ad-hoc payments (i.e., autopay payment amounts can be lower).	At payment time, after an amount is entered	Prevent payment
Allowed NSF Returns Per Given Days	Defines the number of NSF returns allowed in a configurable number of days. PayNearMe will no longer allow ACH payments for consumers who reach the NSF limit within the defined number of days (e.g., disallow ACH payments if a consumer has 2 or more NSF returns in the previous 90 days). NOTE: Cash and card payments will still be allowed. You can configure this rule to only apply to consumers (i.e., agents can submit ACH payments on behalf of the consumer), and/or ad-hoc payments (i.e., autopay ACH payment allowed).	When a payment is returned	Prevent payment
Check for a Specific Parameter Value	If a specific parameter contains a defined value, the payment will automatically decline (e.g., if `account_charged_off=true`, then decline payment) This rule can be configured to only stop consumer payments (i.e., agents can still make payments against the account) electronic payments (i.e., only cash payments allowed) ad-hoc payments (i.e., autopay payments allowed)	When a consumer or agent accesses an order	Prevent payment
Payment Count Velocity	Defines the number of payments that can be made in a configurable number of days. This can be configured for all payments, just electronic payments, or just consumer payments.	When a consumer or agent access an order	Prevent payment
Payment Amount Velocity	Defines the total amount allowed for payments within a configurable number of days. This amount can be a fixed value or equal to a specific parameter and can apply to all payments, just electronic payments, or just consumer payments.	When a consumer or agent access an order	Prevent payment
Maximum Days in Future to Set Autopay Schedule	Defines the maximum number of days in the future an autopay schedule can start.	When scheduling a payment	Prevent payment
Maximum Days in Future to Schedule Payment	Defines the maximum number of days in the future a one-time payment can be scheduled.	When scheduling a payment	Prevent payment
Block Recurring Payments	Based on a specified parameter, this rule blocks a consumer and/or agent from creating an autopay schedule for an order and removes the Set Autopay button from the Consumer Portal.	When scheduling a payment	Prevents autopay schedule creation
Block Future-Dated Payments	Based on a specified parameter, this rule blocks a consumer and/or agent from creating a future-dated, one-time payment and removes the Payment Date picker field from the “Complete Your Payment Details” screen of the Consumer Portal.	When scheduling a payment	Prevents future-dated payments
Cancel Autopay After Decline	Defines the number of payment declines allowed in an autopay schedule before the schedule is canceled. This rule can be configured by tender type (e.g., ACH, credit, debit) and timeframe (e.g., cancel the schedule if three or more declines have occurred in the last 90 days.)	When a payment is declined	Cancels the autopay schedule
ACH Limits by Consumer – Tier 1	Prevents consumers from making ACH payments higher than a certain amount until a specified number of successful payments has occurred. Once the payment is successfully made and not returned, the consumer can make higher amount payments. This rule primarily pertains to gaming clients since ACH payments in gaming environments carry a higher risk of return from fraud.	At payment time, after an amount is entered	Enforces risk limits for newer consumers
ACH Limits by Consumer – Tier 2	Prevents consumers from making ACH payments higher than a certain amount until a specified number of successful payments has occurred. Clients can configure the number of non-returned payments required before consumers can begin making higher-amount payments. This rule primarily pertains to gaming clients since ACH payments in gaming environments carry a higher risk of return from fraud.	At payment time, after an amount is entered	Enforces risk limits for newer consumers

Custom Business Rules

In addition to standard and premium business rules, PayNearMe engineers can also create custom business rules that determine how, when, and if you should accept a payment. Custom rules can be quickly configured and implemented without the need for a formal software release. Like standard business rules, custom business rules follow the same formula:
Trigger + Conditions = Action

The same Trigger events that apply to standard business rules apply to custom business rules and should be kept in mind when trying to formulate a custom business rule:

When a consumer or agent accesses an order
At payment time, after an amount is entered
When scheduling a payment
When determining allowed payment types
When a payment is declined
When a payment is returned

The customization part of custom business rules occurs in the Conditions portion of the formula. These conditions tend to fall within the following categories.

Specific Parameter Conditions

Use any parameter that you pass to PayNearMe to determine whether or not to accept payment for that order. For example, if a consumer’s account is in active collections or bankruptcy proceedings, you can send a Boolean flag like consumer_in_collections or consumer_bankruptcy in your bulk file and create a custom rule that says if either of those parameters are marked as true, do not accept payment. This concept extends into runtime values from the Consumer Portal or Embedded Consumer Client UIs. These values can include ad-hoc payment values like amount and payment method or recurring payment values like frequency, next payment date, amount, and payment method.

Examples:

Consumers who have filed for bankruptcy should be blocked from making a payment.
Consumers with pending litigation should be blocked from making a payment.
If the loan has a status of “Repossession in Progress,” block consumers from making payments, but allow agents to take payments.
If the loan has a status of “Pending Collections” then display a disclaimer/warning message to the agent and allow payments from both the agent and the consumer.
Block consumers from creating autopay schedules using a credit card.

Date and Time Conditions

If your business requires payment “blackout” periods for compliance regulations or end-of-quarter processes like reconciliation, you can create business rules that enforce these payment restrictions for the specific days of the month and hours in the day. Date and time conditions can also be used to enforce late payment restrictions and autopay scheduling restrictions.

Examples:

If an account is more than 15 days overdue, the minimum a consumer can pay is the full delinquent balance.
If the loan is future-dated more than 14 days, prevent submission of payment posting.
The scheduled payment day MUST be on or before the monthly due date.
Block all payments from midnight to 6AM PST on the 28th of every month for month-end reconciliation.
If today’s date is 10 or more days past the due date of the order, disallow payment for both agents and consumers.
Only allow recurring payments to occur on the first seven days of the month; otherwise, block the consumer from creating autopay schedules.

Dispute, Return, and Decline Conditions

Use dispute, return, and decline conditions to help minimize your business’ risk exposure to card chargebacks/disputes, ACH returns, or recurring declines. Rules using these conditions ensure high-risk consumers do not subject your business to unnecessary fees and processing penalties. These conditions can be set up to keep a running count of each consumer’s chargebacks/disputes, returns, and declines and can even be configured to only act upon specific return codes or chargeback/dispute statuses. Use these conditions to block card payment methods of consumers who have initiated one or more chargebacks in the last 90 days or configure a rule to only allow cash payments for consumers who have had multiple ACH payments returned as unauthorized.

Examples:

Block ACH payments from the consumer if four NSF payments with error code R01 are made in the last 6 months.
If the consumer has a chargeback in the Open status, block debit and credit payments.
Cancel a consumer’s autopay schedule if his/her/their payments have declined three times in the last 90 days.
If payment on account has been returned as unauthorized (R02, R03, R04, R07, R10, R16, R29), block the consumer from making further ACH payments.
If the consumer has had four or more returned payments, block all ACH and debit payment methods for both agents and the consumer.
Remove ACH as an available payment method after the consumer receives two or more returns in a row when making payments toward the order.

Payment Attribute Conditions

Payment attribute conditions can be configured in custom rules that enforce amount, payment method, and payment channel restrictions. Clients can choose to force payments for the full order amount and/or can define an acceptable range of minimum and maximum amount limits for certain consumers. You can also configure custom rules to only allow specific payment methods for specific payment channels. For example, you could only allow ACH or debit card payment methods for consumers who make IVR payments or enforce a minimum amount for all credit card payments made by agents.

Examples:

The immediate payment amount must be the full order amount for commercial mortgages.
Past due consumers are not allowed to create a schedule of recurring payments; however, if a past due consumer makes a one-time payment to become current, allow the agent to then create an autopay schedule.
Block payments for consumers who have made more than three electronic payments (i.e., non-cash) in the last 14 days.
If the consumer has successfully made more than 10 debit payments since the last return, allow him/her/they to make ACH payments in the Consumer Portal again.
Minimum immediate payments made by agents must be greater than or equal to $12.
Disallow the payment if the payment amount exceeds the total balance of the loan.
Maximum immediate consumer payment is limited to $1500.
Do not allow a past-due consumer to pay less than the amount needed to become current.
The immediate payment amount may not exceed the total balance for a credit card.
The scheduled/future-dated payment amount cannot exceed the total balance for credit card payment methods.
Limit electronic payment amounts to less than or equal to $1500.
Limit the amount allowed for IVR payments to the value submitted in the regular payment amount parameter.

Order Attribute Conditions

Use the order attribute conditions to update orders with the most accurate information and to prevent fraud. Business rules with these conditions are especially helpful if your orders require frequent changes, such as daily interest calculations or payoff amounts. You can also configure rules that apply to linked orders (e.g., a consumer that has multiple loans at the same location, such as a mortgage, and two car loans) to prevent fraud and potential disputes/returns.

Examples:

If the order was created via API call, block all payment methods except cash.
If the payment amount is greater than the balance due, block the payment.
If a linked order is suspended, block payments for both agents and consumers.
Suspend the order if the first payment is returned as unauthorized.