FAQs on Pay UniSA

For immediate payments, Pay UniSA accepts a variety of debit and credit cards, including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, JCB and China UnionPay.

Some types of fees in the later phases of implementation will allow payments via bank transfer using BPAY or accept a wider variety of payment methods online and in-person at Post Offices via the Post Billpay service.

All transactions in Pay UniSA are secure.  However, for greater security and to enable the simplest and quickest method of making payments, users with a registered Pay UniSA account (including all students and members of staff) are able to securely store one or more payments cards in their Pay UniSA online wallet. 

Please note: card details are not stored in Pay UniSA; instead, at the time the card is registered, the card details are substituted with a unique digital token provided by the bank making all payments even more secure.

A refund (or partial refund) may be available for payments made through Pay UniSA.  The Academic Unit or central administrative unit that receives the revenue from the payment is also responsible for determining if a refund will be provided.

Invoices issued from Pay UniSA instruct the payer to contact Campus Central for any enquiries or refunds.  Campus Central will refer the enquiry to the relevant Academic Unit or central administrative unit.

For approved refunds, the University will either refund back to the original payment card or make a payment via bank transfer, as follows:

1. The University will refund back to the original payment card when:

• the initial payment was made in Pay UniSA using a debit or credit card within the last 12 months,
• the original payment card is still valid, and
• the original payment card is NOT China UnionPay.

Refunds to payment cards are initiated by the Academic Unit or central administrative unit using the Refund Request FS04 form.

2. All other refunds (including payments received via China UnionPay) will be processed as a bank transfer via Accounts Payable.  In these circumstances, it may take up to 10 working days for the refund to be received.

Refunds via bank transfer are initiated by the Academic Unit or central administrative unit using the Payment Request – No Invoice FS03 form.  The unit will need to obtain bank details from the payer.

The Academic Unit or central administrative unit is responsible for determining the correct refund method and selecting the appropriate form.

The refund process is available here.

Pay UniSA is a highly intuitive and industry leading e-commerce solution.  Training is generally not required to make most payments.  Training videos are available for nominated members of staff that are provided with access to the underlying desktop application for the purpose of viewing or processing transactions.

Training videos are available for specialised purchases that are initiated from the student portal, including:

• Print quota top-up
• Library fees
• Purchase of a replacement Student ID card
• Purchase of a transcript, parchment, Australian Higher Education Graduation Statement (AHEGS) or overseas registration.

The majority of staff will not require access to the desktop application, which is generally limited to system administrators and members of staff involved in the processing of refunds.

Depending on the type of access required there are usually three requirements before being given access:

• Contact the Finance Systems team to request access
• Arrange to have the desktop application and Crystal Reports installed on your device
• Review the training materials.

Once your access has been approved and you have completed all of these requirements, you will be provided with access to the desktop application.

Contact the Finance Systems team at Finance.Systems@unisa.edu.au.

Complete the New Pay UniSA Line Item Request Form (FS29) to request a new line item in Pay UniSA.

The form must be reviewed and approved by the Cost Centre Manager and assessed by the Tax Manager before it can be processed by the Finance Systems team.

The new line item creation process is available here.

Contact the Finance Systems team at Finance.Systems@unisa.edu.au

Links to Pay UniSA transactions should NOT be included in University e-mails.

As Pay UniSA is an online store, it is very easy to copy the web address for a specific item and to be tempted to include this in e-mails to help customers quickly navigate to that item in the store.  However, including links in e-mails – particularly to a payment site – increases the risk that the University’s customers could be subjected to phishing and online shopping scams.

Please note, there will be occasions when the University uses this functionality in the form of a ‘Pay Now’ button.  However, this will always be hosted within a trusted UniSA website or system that the recipient has navigated to themselves, rather than being sent to them in an e-mail.

The online store (or shopfront) in Pay UniSA is comprised of a hierarchical structure of nodes and sub-nodes.  The structure has been designed to offer a consistent and logical hierarchy that can be easily-navigated by untrained users and that can accommodate expansion as future use cases are added to the store.

The online store includes items that are either:​

• visible – available to all users e.g. members of the public, trade debtors and donors​
• restricted – available only to authenticated users e.g. staff and/or students​
• hidden items – accessible only through via a ‘Pay Now’ integration from a UniSA system or web page​

The hierarchy is a hybrid approach of user groups and use cases:​

• Students – secure area specifically for enrolled students​
• Staff – secure area specifically for active staff members​
• Short courses​
• Events​
• Facilities​
• General merchandise​
• Trade debtors

Within the user-specific areas, the nodes drill-down by User Group > Organisation Area > Use Case e.g.

Student

UniSA Allied Health & Human Performance

                                Course Supplies

                                                Course supply 1

                                                Course supply 2

                                Field Trip

                                                Field trip 1

                                                Field trip 2

To ensure a high quality user experience, all items listed in Pay UniSA must comply with an established naming convention that is consistent with those already listed.  Examples include:

Please note, the name of your proposed item may be adjusted to ensure consistency with these standards.

Other UniSA payment systems – such as those used by Advancement Services, UniSA International and UniSA Sport – are not included in the scope of the implementation plan and will be reviewed when they become due for renewal or earlier, if required.