Managing Sponsor Linked Accounts

This article was developed to describe how to manage Sponsor Linked Accounts in the FORTH CRM. It is organized into the following sections:

Adding the Main Applicant

Adding the Sponsor Account

Linking a Program Sponsor

Removing a Sponsor Link

The Sponsor Linked Account feature allows you to establish a contact to be a “sponsor” for another contact in the system. This means that you can have one contact effectively serve as the one paying for another contact’s program.

For example, if your customer has a large amount of credit card debt and cannot pay, the customer’s parent may now sign up to make payments on their child’s behalf. The parent does not want to be added as a co-applicant into the program, they just want to serve as a sponsor and make financial contributions.

Adding the Main Applicant

This process begins with creating a new Forth Pay contact (i.e., the main applicant), either using an Intake Form or using the method (Contacts Tab --> Add a Contact) spelled out in our help center article, Managing Contact Records.

Adding the Sponsor Account

Next, create the sponsor. A sponsor is a contact that you establish to serve another contact in the system, often to serve as the person making payments for another contact’s debt settlement program.

This process begins with creating a new Forth Pay contact (i.e., the sponsor), again using either an Intake Form or using the method (Contacts Tab --> Add a Contact) spelled out in our help center article, Managing Contact Records. Be sure to add the required fields listed below:

• First/Last Name
• Email
• SSN
• DOB
• Full Address
• Banking information (see image below)

When creating the new contact, note the Customer ID that is created.

IMPORTANT: Sponsor functionality is exclusive to Forth Pay, which is why it needs to be selected as the Gateway. The Main Applicant must have Forth Pay as their Gateway if they have multiple gateways, and have an Enrollment Plan saved.

Linking a Program Sponsor

To link a program sponsor, return to the Client Dashboard for that new main applicant contact. Click the Bank Account subtab and make sure the Linked Sponsor radio button near the top of the window is selected, as shown below.

In the Program Sponsor field, you may now search for a Sponsor Account by name or you can enter the Customer ID.

Once a valid Customer ID has been found, click Use as Program Sponsor which should now be active (see image above). If you need to undo this status in the future, return to this page, and click Remove Sponsor Account.

You will then receive a confirmation notice, like the one shown below.

Click OK, and the page will revert to the ‘History’ subtab on the client dashboard. There, you will see a record of the linkage you just established.

Next, go to the Docs subtab and click Generate Document button on the resulting page.

This begins the Document Generation process via Clixsign, spelled out in the Forth Help Center article “Sending and Completing a Clixsign Request”. Specifically, go to the article's "Send via Email" section.

Once you see the Clixsign page (see above), you will notice that the signer type “Sponsor” is now an available signer type that you may select via a dropdown menu for a particular signer.

In addition, the system automatically pre-populates sponsor information, specifically, the name and email, retrieved from the program sponsor contact record field when selected from the dropdown menu.

Document Tags (including {FORTHPAY_SPONSOR_AUTH} allow establishing a contact-to-contact relationship and pulling information from the CRM and auto-populating the authorization form. The authorization form must be filled out and sent to Clixsign so the Sponsor can sign the form.

IMPORTANT: All data must exist in the system for the document to populate so that the sponsor can not input any information when they receive the electronically signed document.

As a result, Clixsign documents are now visible on both the original contact and the sponsor's contact dashboards. However, the sponsor document should only be sent through the main applicant’s file.

NOTE: This modification applies to Forth Pay clients only and does not impact any other gateways.

Removing a Sponsor Link

To unlink a program sponsor, go to the Bank Account nested tab from the Applicant’s client dashboard, and click Remove Sponsor Account at the bottom of the page (see the image below). Once this occurs, the account goes into a hold review, and the description for the hold is listed in the History nested tab as Gateway hold: Sponsor Account Account Review Sponsor Unlinked.

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