ISR Payment is a swiss-specific payment scheme where your clients pay their invoices with a unique reference number. This allows the reconciliation of those payments in a fast and automated way. The merchant banks provides reconciliation file that allow the automatic reconciliation of open invoices. We are able to process the following file formats:
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ISO 20022 (camt.053.001.04) including Detail Records
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ISO 20022 (camt.054.001.04)
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V11
In terms of ESR products you are able to process the following ESR types with the application
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(B)ESR
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(B)ESR+ (without amount)
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ESR EUR
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ESR+ EUR (without amount)
If you have a banking account at a bank seated in Switzerland they offer ISR payments for you. You have to get in touch with your account manager to apply for the ISR Participant Number and additional details.
You have to distinguish between ESR with PostFinance and BESR with any other bank.
For ESR payments with PostFinance you can sign up for a participant number in your account directly with your account manager at PostFinance. When you sign up for the participant number and the ESR scheme make sure that you select the ISO 20022 (camt.053.001.04) including Details as statement format.
Additionally you have the option to receive the payment statements via PostFinance’s File Delivery Service (FDS). If you sign up for this you find more information about the configuration below. This allows us to receive the payments automatically and reconcile them directly. In case you want to have them delivered to your e-banking this is also possible, in this case you will have to upload them manually periodically.
You can also process ISR payments through your bank. In this case the scheme is called BESR. BESR uses different payment templates. In the BESR scheme you have to provide the Payment For information where you provide information about your bank. Additionally you receive the Participant Number from your bank.
Differing from the ESR scheme the reference number has to be structured differently as the first 6 digits of the ESR prefix identify the merchant’s bank account. The remaining 20 digits can then be filled by the merchant. The checksum is automatically generated by us.
Before you can start with the configuration of the ISR Processor you have to make sure that the Feature ISR Processor is activated on your in your space. You can do so in the feature menu.
Once the merchant is signed up for ESR we can start to configure the processor and the connector. First of all you have to create a connector under Space > Payment > Configuration > Processors. Search here for the ISR Processor.
In the configuration of the ISR Processor there are a multitude of settings. The most important settings are the following:
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Print Base Slip Template: This setting controls whether the ESR Slip is printed on the PDF. In case you are using pre-printed slips from you should set this setting to off.
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Participant Number: Once you are signed up for ISR with your payment institute you receive the participant number that you fill in here. It should have the format XX-XXXXXX-X.
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Bank Account Number / Prefix: This field is optional and should only be filled in case you are processing the ISR payments via a Bank and not PostFinance or if you specifically want to have a prefix in your ESR numbers.
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Deposit For: The deposit for is printed to the ISR slip. In case the payment is routed via a bank than this has to be the bank name. In case the payment is directly paid to a merchants PostFinance account the merchants address and company name needs to be provided.
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Beneficiary: Only fill this field in case you are routing the payments through a bank (BESR).
In case you are printing the payment slips and send them to your customer you should make sure that the OCR information on the slip is within the acceptance range otherwise it could happen that you will be charged additional costs if your clients use the slips to pay at the counter. As the printing is very specific to your operating system and your printer this might have to be adjusted. For this you can set the X and Y-Offset to position the ISR slips horizontally and vertically.
Once the processor is created, you can go ahead and configure the connector. There are two different connector you can choose from.
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ISR Bank Transfer: The ISR Bank Transfer is used for pre-payment scenarios where you create an invoice document but your client has to pay first using the ISR slip. Once the money has arrived and could be reconciled the transaction will switch in to the
Fulfillstate for further processing. -
* ISR Invoice:* The ISR Invoice is the standard process where you send your customer the invoice that has to be paid in a specified payment term.
In the connector you are able to configure additional settings. You find more information and documentation in the configuration directly. This is why only the very important settings are further explained in detail here:
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Enable Dunning: You have the option to enable the dunning feature of the application. In this case the system will create a dunning case once your client did not pay the invoice during the payment term. In order to use the dunning system you will have to setup the dunning flows and levels. More information can be found in the Dunning Documentation.
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ISR Printing: You have the option to print the ISR automatically when a transaction is created via a cloud printer. You do have the option to print the page containing the ISR payment slip on a different printer as those are normally printed on a different printer tray. More details can be found in the printer documentation.
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Payment Term: The payment term defines when the invoice has to be paid before it switches into the dunning or
failedstate. -
Allowed Difference: This setting defines the maximal difference between the paid amount by the customer and the captured amount on the invoice. As long as the amount is within this limit then the system marks the invoice still as fully paid even though there might be a little difference to the captured amount.
Once the settings on the connector are stored you are able to offer the ISR payments to your clients. The next section covers everything about the processing if the payment statements that are generated by your bank.
Once the processor is set up you can configure everything about the statements and the processing under Space > Payment > ISR Processing.
ISR Statements can be uploaded manually under Statements.
You are able to upload v11 and ISO 20022 (camt.053.001.04) files. Once the upload is finished the statements will be scheduled for processing. This can take some time.
After the files are processed you find a list of processed records under Transaction Records
As soon as the invoice could be matched the transaction will be marked as paid and the system automatically creates a payment receipt.
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Note
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For some PostFinance accounts we allow that the files are automatically fetched via the File Delivery Service More Information about the setup can be found below. |
In case you do want to download the original statements again you can do that by opening a statement the Statement List. The download button will give you access to the original file.
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Note
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This can now be used to upload in any other systems in case you are migrating form another system and you do still need to upload payments during the migration period. |
Most of the payments can be processed automatically. However, there are cases where the customer paid too much (exceeding amount) or where the customer used the wrong ISR number to pay the invoice. Those cases are recognized by the system and those manual tasks have to be handled by you. More information can be found in our ISR Records Manual Resolving FAQ entry.