This article explains why dollar amounts have 5 digits after decimal on the following Payrix reports:
- Main > Online Payments > Payrix Online Payments
- Main > Online Payments > Payrix Disbursements
Payrix uses such precision to avoid rounding errors when calculating Payrix processing fees and disbursing money to your district’s bank account.
Let’s take a look at an example to illustrate. A parent makes payment of $50 to a student’s lunch account, and the school charges a flat fee of $1.40 per transaction. The total transaction is $51.40.
On Payrix Online Payments report, the Payrix Txn fee is calculated as follows:
($51.40 x 2.9%) + $0.30 = $1.83686
The Net to district is calculated as follows:
$51.40 - $1.83686 = $49.56314
On Payrix Disbursement report you can see the values above; however, Payrix will disburse money down to the cent ($49.56) and will carry the remainder forward to the next disbursement. In the report, we call this value “Not Paid Out” and it is equal to $0.00314 from the example above. The next disbursement report will include that value in the amount disbursed to the district.
This method is beneficial to districts, because if numbers were rounded, the district would have been at a loss of $0.00314 for this transaction. This small amount grows rapidly when considering the large volume of transactions parents generate for the district each year. As a result, we think the 5 digit after decimal method of calculating fees and net districts is the right choice for districts.