Contents

• Overview
• What is Initiating a Disbursement Payment?
• ⚠️Important Notes
• Step-By-Step Instructions
  • Initiate One Payment
  • Initiate Multiple Payments (Bulk Initiate)
• What Happens After Initiating a Payment
• Awardee Experience
• Troubleshooting
  • Why is Initiate Payment grayed out?
• Related Articles

Overview

This article shows Program Admins how to initiate payments for disbursements in Next when your organization has Payments enabled, and what happens after you initiate them.

What is Initiating a Disbursement Payment?

A disbursement is a scheduled payment to an awardee. If your organization has Payments set up with a third-party payment processor, initiating sends the payment to that processor, which handles sending the funds. The disbursement shows “Payment Processing” until the processor confirms the payment, then changes to “Paid.”

• Who can initiate payments:
  • Organization Owners
  • Client Admins
  • Program Owners
  • Program Managers

⚠️Important Notes

• Disbursement approvals: If your cycle uses approvals, each disbursement must be approved before you can initiate a payment for it. On the Disbursements page, look for a “Pending Approval” status or a Request Approval option in the Actions menu. For help requesting an approval, see ➡️ Requesting Disbursement Approvals.
   
• Disbursement statuses that can be initiated: You can initiate a payment only when the disbursement has one of these statuses:
   
  • Cycles without disbursement approvals:
    • “Reports Approved”: All the progress reports it depends on are approved.
    • “Scheduled”: It doesn’t depend on any progress reports.
  • Cycles with disbursement approvals:
    • “Approved”: The disbursement has been approved.

Step-By-Step Instructions

Initiate One Payment

1. In the award cycle, click Disbursements under Financials in the left-hand menu.

2. Find the disbursement you want to pay. To find it faster, enter the awardee’s name in the search bar, or filter the Status column to “Approved” or “Reports Approved.”
   
   
    
3. Click Actions on the far right of the disbursement, then select Initiate Payment.
   
   

4. In the Initiate Payment pop-up, complete the following:

• If you see a Fund field, select the fund the payment should draw from. This field is required and appears only when your cycle uses Funding Source Tracking.
• Click Initiate in the bottom-right corner of the pop-up.
  
  
   
  • A confirmation message appears (“Payment processing for Disbursement successfully started”). The disbursement changes to “Payment Processing.”

Initiate Multiple Payments (Bulk Initiate)

1. In the award cycle, click Disbursements under Financials in the left-hand menu.
   
   
    
2. Select the checkbox next to each disbursement you want to pay.
   
   
    
3. Click Actions in the upper-right corner of the screen, then select Initiate Payment.
   
   

4. In the Initiate Payment? pop-up, review the selected disbursements, then click Initiate. 
   (To remove a disbursement from the list, click the trash can icon next to it.)
   
   
    
   • A confirmation message appears (“Payment processing for Disbursement successfully started”). The disbursements change to “Payment Processing.”

What Happens After Initiating a Payment

• Disbursement status:
  • “Payment Processing”: Your payment processor is processing the payment.
  • “Paid”: Your payment processor confirmed the payment. This is the final status.
  • “Refused”: Your payment processor didn’t accept the payment. To try again, update the disbursement’s details if needed, request approval again (if your cycle uses approvals), then initiate the payment again. Or, void the disbursement.
• Activity history: An entry is added to the disbursement’s history. Click the clock icon next to its status on the Disbursements page to see the full history.
   
• Fund balance (if your cycle uses Funding Source Tracking): The disbursement amount counts as spent (“Debited”) on its fund once the disbursement is “Paid.”
  • You can track this in the award’s Funds Log (Cycle Settings > Financials > Award Setup, then click Funds Log on the award).
• Award balance (if your cycle uses Award Balance Enforcement): The disbursement amount counts as spent (“Debited”) on the award once the disbursement is “Paid.”
  • You can track this in the awardee’s Award Ledger (Open the cycle, click Awardees in the left-hand menu, click the awardee’s name, then select the Award Ledger tab).

Awardee Experience

• Awardees aren’t emailed when you initiate a payment, and there is no communication trigger available for it at this time.
   
• They can see the updated status by opening their award (Your Awards > View Award), then selecting Financials > Disbursements. 
  
  

Troubleshooting

Why is Initiate Payment grayed out?

Possible causes:

• The disbursement isn’t ready yet: Its status must be “Reports Approved,” “Scheduled,” or “Approved,” depending on whether your cycle uses disbursement approvals. See Important Notes for more info. 
   
• The disbursement needs approval: If you see Request Approval in the Actions menu, then your cycle uses disbursement approvals, and you must request approval first. See ➡️ Requesting Disbursement Approvals.
   
• You're initiating in bulk, and your cycle uses Funding Source Tracking without approvals: Each disbursement needs its own fund, so you must initiate them one at a time. See Initiate One Payment.

Related Articles

➡️ Add Disbursements After Award Acceptance (Bulk Disbursement)
➡️ How to Request Approvals for Awarding, Disbursements & Reimbursements
➡️ How to Set Up Approvals for Awarding, Disbursements & Reimbursements
➡️ Add Attachments (Supporting Documents) to a Disbursement
➡️ How to Export Disbursement Data



 

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