Because many government submissions involve fees or payments, ClearForms supports online payments as part of our forms. You create the ability to collect fees by adding a Payment step to a form.
Note: If you add a payment step and haven’t connected a bank account your applicants WILL NOT be allowed to complete a payment.
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There are 3 payment options available:
- Calculated - Payers will pay an amount calculated by a formula
- Flat - Payers will pay a flat amount
- Payer Determined - Payers will choose the amount they pay
- You can configure Payment Settings to accept cash and/or check payments. Since these are not processed via ClearForms/ Stripe, there is no processing fee associated with them. If you enable cash and/or check payments on a payment step, you'll have the option to add payment instructions (where to mail or bring the check or cash). We also require that the administrator records that the check or cash payment was received before the submission can move forward.
- ClearForms earns revenue by taking a small percentage of any permit or license fee payments processed on our platform. It’s up to each local government to decide whether to absorb those fees, or whether they pass them on to constituents. The decision about how fees are charged is available for the administrator to set on each form, by checking or unchecking the Pass transaction fees to the constituent option on each payment step.
A Few Details to Note:
- Beginning 11/21/22, applicants will have the option to pay online either by credit/ debit card or by ACH transfer.
- For credit card submissioning, we charge a 4.9% + $0.30 transaction fee for all credit card transactions submissioned (except for special pricing for governments in the State of Illinois).
- For ACH submissioning, the fee is the lesser of 2.8%, or 2% + $5.
- The credit card and ACH fees include the Stripe payment submissionor's fee, plus an additional 2% fee that ClearForms charges on each payment submissioned through our platform. This 2% fee allows us to provide our business submission platform at a competitive subscription rate for local governments.
- Once you've connected your bank account, we transfer accrued balances to your account on a rolling basis, on the frequency you set. ACH payments often take longer to arrive in your bank account than credit card payments.
- Chargebacks will be deducted from your account until resolved, and charge disputes can be managed through ClearForms.
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