🙅♂️ 🙅♀️ Understanding Pending and Rejected Payment Statuses
How Pending and Rejected statuses affect net payment balances and student portal access.
The Issue
Pending and Rejected payments both appear in the Payment Activity section alongside completed payments. Neither status counts toward a student's balance, but without careful filtering, rules and automations may treat them as valid payments, leading to incorrect balance calculations and access decisions.
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Key Rule Only a Received status (or equivalent) should be treated as a completed payment. Pending and Rejected must be excluded from any logic that calculates whether a student has paid. |
Status Reference
|
Status |
Counts Toward Balance? |
What It Means |
|
Pending |
No |
Payment initiated but not yet processed. Common with ACH/checking account payments. |
|
Rejected |
No |
Payment failed during processing. Student must retry via a new payment link. |
|
Received |
Yes |
Payment successfully completed. This is the only status that should be treated as paid. |
Impact on Net Payment Balance
Pending
A Pending payment is in progress — typically an ACH/checking account transfer that has not yet cleared. It should not be counted as payment received.
• ACH payments typically resolve within 5 business days (excluding weekends and bank holidays)
• If still pending after 7 business days, submit a support ticket under the Slate Payments category
• Any rule or query evaluating payment status should exclude Pending from balance calculations
Rejected
A Rejected payment failed during processing and is completely invalid. It has no value and does not reduce a student's outstanding balance.
• Any rule or query evaluating payment status should exclude Rejected from balance calculations
• Additional rejection detail (for ACH) is available in the Transaction Details > Outcome section
Impact on Portal Access
When a payment is Rejected, the student is not automatically returned to a payment-ready state. They lose access to the payment portal with no path to retry on their own.
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Staff Action Required The system does not re-initiate payment after a rejection. A staff member must manually provide the student with a new payment link before they can retry. |
Steps When a Payment Is Rejected
1. Confirm the rejection in Payment Activity
2. Check Transaction Details > Outcome for the rejection reason (Slate Payments / ACH only)
3. Verify the student still has an outstanding balance
4. Manually send the student a new payment link
Updating Rules and Automations
Any rule, query, or automation that evaluates whether a student has paid should be audited to ensure the following:
• Pending and Rejected statuses are excluded from payment calculations
• Only Received (or equivalent) is treated as a completed payment
• Checklist updates, access changes, and other downstream actions should only trigger on confirmed payment
Knowledge Base References
The official Slate documentation does not currently address how Pending or Rejected statuses affect net balance calculations or automation logic. These articles provide useful general context:
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