While you can manually log a charge on an individual loan or line of credit account, recurring charges let you automate those charges according to your business logic, letting you increase your operational efficiency without sacrificing control over how your accounts are managed. This article will go over setting up a recurring charge for a loan or line of credit account.

Creating a recurring fee for a loan

To create a recurring charge, navigate to Settings > Loan > Charges > Recurring Charges. Click ‘Add’ to show the following window.

Enter the data in the top section to define your recurring charge. The options include:

• Title: The title of your recurring charge that will distinguish the charge from others you may create.
• Included in past due calculations: Choose whether the charge will contribute to the amount and days past due on the loan. If you choose "No", the charge will still come due, it just won't be part of the amount or days past due.
• Amount calculation: Choose how the charge amount should be calculated from the following options.
  • Scaling fee: Tell the system to determine the fee amount based on whether the current principal balance, original principal amount, next due amount, or payment amount fall into a specified range. Learn more by visiting scaling fees. 
  • Fixed: The fee amount will be a flat amount entered by you.
  • Percentage: The fee amount will be a percentage of the amount past due, current principal balance, next due amount, next scheduled payment amount, or original total loan amount depending on your selection.
• Charge info: Any additional information you want to add for this charge. 
• Trigger type: Determine the method the system will use to add the charge to an account from the following options. 
  • Daily qualifying: Charge will be added to a customer account when the account is updated daily if it qualifies based on the rule entered for this charge.
  • Event: Charge will be added to a customer account when a loan event occurs (i.e. change due date, loan activation, loan modification, loan origination, payment reversal – any reason, or payment reversal – NSF).
• Charge amount: If the amount calculation is set to fixed, you can enter a charge amount into this field.
• Scaling fee bracket: Shows if the amount calculation is set to scaling fee and lets you select the bracket type for a scaling  fee. The options are:
  • Current Principal Balance
  • Original Principal Amount
  • Next Due Amount
  • Payment Amount
• Percentage: Only available if percentage is selected for the amount calculation. This is the numeric percentage of the fee.
• Percentage base: This is the amount that the percentage is based on. The options are:
  • Amount Past Due
  • Current Principal Balance
  • Next Due Amount
  • Next Scheduled Payment Amount
  • Original Total Loan Amount
• Charge application type: Determines when the charge will come due. The options are:
  • Standard: The charge will come due on the day it is assessed on the account.
  • Payoff only: The charge will never come due on the loan, but must be paid in order to pay off the loan.
• Default loan setting: This option lets you choose whether this charge will be enabled or disabled by default on newly created loans.
• Loan type: This option lets you filter which loan types this recurring charge will appear on.
• Charge trigger: Here is where you will choose which rule will be used to determine if this charge should be assessed on a loan. Click ‘Empty’ to assign a rule.
• Interest bearing: This selection will determine whether interest will accrue on the charge.

The bottom section lets you set restrictions so that this recurring charge will only be implemented on specific accounts. Restrictions are entered as a Clojure rule. To do this, click the word ‘Empty’ beneath restrictions, and enter your rule in. 

Recurring fees for line of credit

To set up a recurring charge, navigate to Settings > Line of Credit > Charges. There, you'll see a table of all your existing recurring charges. Each entry shows a summary of the settings (which we'll describe below), a switch to activate or deactivate the charge, and options to edit or delete it. Clicking the ‘Add’ button in the top right corner lets you create a new one. This brings up a page divided into two sections: Configure Recurring Charge and Trigger.

Configure Recurring Charge

The top half of the page includes a list of settings about how the charge will apply to the account.

Here's a breakdown of each option:

• Title: Descriptive name for the charge.
• Charge info: Text memo with any additional information you want to include about why or how the charge was logged.
• Charge type: The custom label you apply to the charge.
• Amount calculation: You can choose between a fixed amount, or a dynamic amount determined by your own custom rules.
  • Amount: You'll see either fixed or dynamic based on your Amount Calculation choice.
  • Fixed: This is a static flat fee, like $25.
• Dynamic: You can input a custom rule using Clojure and variables that will be pulled from each account. 
• Charge is interest bearing?: This determines whether the charge accrues interest.
• Enrolled programs: List of all the programs you've created. If you check a program's box, all the accounts from it will be enrolled in the charge, and the charge will be added to their balance each billing cycle if they meet the criteria in your trigger. You can also manage this setting when you edit the programs themselves.

Trigger

You will also need to set the trigger settings, which determine when an account qualifies for the recurring charge. There are two options.

• Daily qualifying: Enter a Clojure rule as a trigger. During daily maintenance, the system will evaluate that rule on all the accounts whose program is enrolled in the charge. Whenever that rule evaluates as true, the charge will be added to the account.
• Event: Choose from three events to trigger the charge. Next, enter a Clojure rule in the ‘Restrictions’ field. By adding a rule, the fee will only be added to the account when that rule is true.
  • Account Activation:  The charge will be assessed when the Account Activated switch is turned on in the Account Setup page.
  • Payment Reversed: The charge will be assessed when you reverse a payment.
  • Swipe Created: The charge will be assessed whenever a swipe is logged, whether through the API, UI, or through a card.

Once you've configured all the settings, just click ‘Save Changes’ in the top right corner.