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Ohio State University Extension

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NELNET - Online Payment (Credit Card) Processor

March 16, 2022

Extension Operations worked with the Treasurer’s Office in September 2020 to roll out the new NelNet Commerce Manager payment platform for all county offices to accept credit card payments. This Commerce Manager is basic but flexible, and can handle payments for goods and services. Payments may include soil test kits, program books, registrations and 4-H Camp payments to name a few. We should not take payments from other OSU departments, payments for donations or payments for grants/contracts.
Anyone with a smartphone or personal computer may use NelNet to pay your office with a credit card. Sales tax tracking will apply for non-exempt goods purchases. All overhead costs for the system are covered by Ohio State. Our only cost will be the transaction fee charged by the credit card companies, typically averaging 2.5% of the transaction amount.

Each county has been set up with a Bank of America merchant account by the Treasurer's Office through which the payments are processed. These accounts are tied to the unique payment gateway website and deposits to the general ledger happen automatically to the default Worktags: Fund: FD111  - Revenue spend category: RC1163, Ledger Account: 42000: Sales and Services, Source: Ad Hoc Bank Transaction, in your County Cost Center and Balancing Unit. The revenue will go to the county’s miscellaneous fund, and then counties can spend directly from that fund, and/or transfer net revenue to a program value within that fund. Generaly this revenue should not be moved to another fund.

Receipts will be emailed directly to the payee upon payment completion. One person from each office (typically the office associate) is also set up to receive an email copy of receipts for incoming payments. The Office Associate also has access to a NelNet Reporting Portal where transactions details can be viewed and downloaded Refunds (partial or whole) can also be processed through this portal.

NelNet may also be used in conjunction with Qualtrics for more complex registrations, or can be linked to make payments from Webforms on our county websites.
A Custom URL builder is available upon request from Jesse Buxton, which allows you to create a commerce manager site that is pre-filled with specific information, such as amount due or items/services description. This is a great way to help consistently track payments for specific items or events.
QR Codes are available for the primary county NelNet sites upon request from Jesse Buxton. Custom URLs can be shortened with a "go" link (https://go.osu.edu) and a QR code can be downloaded directly when creating the shortened URL.

Available training materials: NelNet Job Aid, PPt Slides- Introduction to NelNet Commerce Manager - on the NelNet section of the Extension Job Aids page.

All county NelNet Commer Manager pages have been set up with the same format. https://go.osu.edu/countyextensionpayment - replace the word county with your county's name.

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