Troubleshooting Payment Issues in VisualZen 

This article outlines the most common issues that may occur when students attempt to make a payment in VisualZen and provides guidance on how to identify and resolve each situation.

💡 Tip: Payment issues may look similar at first, but the cause often depends on when the issue occurs (before, during, or after payment) and which payment processor is used.

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1. Session Capacity Reached Before Payment

What Happens:
When a student clicks Pay Now, they receive an error message that the selected orientation session is no longer available.

Why It Happens:
The session reached full capacity after the student selected it but before they completed payment.

How to Resolve:

• The student must go back and select a new available session.

• Once a new session is selected, they can make payment and submit successfully.

⚠️ This is not a payment error—it’s a session availability issue.

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2. Payment Fails When Using a Third-Party Processor

What Happens:
The student clicks Pay Now and is redirected to a third-party payment processor (such as Touchnet, Flywire, or Nelnet). After completing the payment, the student’s record in VZ still shows Pending Submission.

Why It Happens:
When using a third-party processor, VZ does not receive detailed transaction data. The processor sends back only one of two possible codes:

• Success – marks the student as Submission Received in VZ.

• Not Success – leaves the student in Pending Submission status.

How to Resolve:

• If the payment did not go through, contact your payment processor for details (VZ does not receive transaction failure reasons).

• If the payment was successful but still shows as pending, see Scenario 3 below.

💡 VZ cannot provide payment failure details for third-party processors. Only your payment provider can identify the cause.

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3. Payment Successful but Not Logged in VZ

What Happens:
You confirm payment was successful in your processor’s system, but the student’s record in VZ still appears as unpaid or Pending Submission.

Why It Happens:
This can happen rarely due to a delay or timeout during the redirect from the payment processor back to VZ.

How to Resolve:
If you’ve verified the payment as successful through your payment processor:

1. Log into VZ and use Admin Sign-In as Student.

2. Click Pay Now.

3. Choose Credit Card (Manual) as the payment type.

4. Enter the transaction details from your payment processor.

5. Submit to finalize the payment in VZ.

⚠️ Only complete this step if you’ve confirmed that payment was successfully received by your processor.

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4. Student Clicks Pay Now, but Nothing Happens

What Happens:
The student clicks Pay Now, but the redirect to the payment processor does not occur.

Why It Happens:
This may indicate a configuration issue with the payment processor or a temporary connection problem between VZ and the processor.

How to Resolve:

• Confirm your payment processor configuration (gateway URLs, keys, and environment settings).

• If the issue continues, contact the VZ Technical Team for assistance.

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5. Using VZ as the Payment Processor

What Happens:
Your institution uses VZ’s internal payment processing setup (Authorize.Net), and students report failed or unrecorded payments.

How to Resolve:

• Contact the VZ Support Team and provide the student name, transaction ID, and approximate payment time.

• The VZ team can review the transaction logs and work directly with Authorize.Net to identify the issue.

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Quick Reference Table

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Best Practices

• Encourage students to complete payment immediately after selecting their session to avoid capacity issues.

• Test your payment processor setup in Preproduction before go-live.

• Maintain access to your payment processor’s transaction logs to confirm successful payments.

• Only manually enter payments after confirming that payment was actually received.