# Step 10 — Remote Payments — Implementation Report

**Status:** COMPLETED  
**Verified:** 12 August 2026

## What was implemented

- Remote payment evidence can be submitted by branch staff for an active loan.
- Customers can submit payment evidence through a limited public form using the active loan number plus the registered customer phone for verification.
- The public submission flow does not expose customer identity, loan balance, schedule, or account information.
- Public submission is rate-limited and accepts the required amount, payment channel, transaction reference, screenshot/receipt, and notes.
- Supported channel identifiers are M-Pesa, Airtel Money, Mixx by Yas, Bank, and Other.
- Every submission receives a permanent system-generated number in the format `RMP-{BRANCH}-{YEAR}-000001`.
- New submissions remain `Pending Verification` and do not change financial accounts, loan balances, schedules, statements, daily collections, accounting entries, or payment history.
- Proof files are stored privately through the existing `SecureFileService`; only authorized branch verifiers can download them.
- A branch-scoped verification queue supports search and status filtering.
- Dedicated permissions separate remote-payment submission from remote-payment verification.
- Authorized verifiers can approve or reject a pending submission.
- Rejection requires a reason, preserves the submitted evidence and decision history, and never changes financial balances.
- Approval requires an active receiving financial account in the same branch and a payment date.
- Approved remote payments reuse the existing Step 9 `LoanPaymentService`; no parallel repayment engine was created.
- Approval therefore atomically updates the receiving account, loan balances, repayment schedule, principal/interest/fees/penalty allocation, customer statement, accounting ledger, daily collections, and permanent receipt using the same fixed-precision rules as office payments.
- M-Pesa, Airtel Money, and Mixx by Yas approvals map to the existing `mobile_money` payment method; Bank maps to `bank`; Other maps to `other`.
- The original external transaction reference is preserved on the posted loan payment.
- Duplicate approval is blocked by row locking, pending-status validation, and a unique one-to-one link from the remote submission to the posted `loan_payment`.
- Duplicate external transaction references are blocked per payment channel at both service and database levels.
- Submission amounts use fixed-precision `MoneyMath` validation and cannot exceed the current loan outstanding amount at submission time.
- A payment-provider abstraction has been prepared for future API integration. The current provider truthfully reports `Manual Review Required`; provider inspection never bypasses the required human approve/reject workflow.
- Audit events cover customer/staff submission, proof access, approval, and rejection.
- No remote-payment delete route is exposed; evidence and verification history remain permanent.
- Step 11 reminder/notification scheduling was intentionally not implemented.

## Database changes

Created `remote_payment_submissions` containing:

- submission number
- loan, customer, and branch
- amount
- payment channel
- transaction reference
- private proof metadata/path
- notes
- submission source and submitting employee when applicable
- pending/approved/rejected status
- provider inspection metadata
- verifier, verification date, and verification notes
- receiving financial account and effective payment date after approval
- unique link to the final `loan_payments` record after approval

Important database protections:

- Unique submission number.
- Unique `(payment_channel, transaction_reference)` pair.
- Unique `loan_payment_id` link preventing one posted payment from being attached more than once.
- Foreign-key protection for permanent financial/source relationships.
- Branch/status and loan/status indexes for the verification queue.

## Main files created or modified

- `database/migrations/2026_08_12_110000_create_remote_payment_workflow.php`
- `app/Models/RemotePaymentSubmission.php`
- `app/Services/RemotePaymentService.php`
- `app/Services/RemotePayments/RemotePaymentProvider.php`
- `app/Services/RemotePayments/ManualReviewPaymentProvider.php`
- `app/Services/RemotePayments/PaymentProviderRegistry.php`
- `app/Http/Controllers/PublicRemotePaymentController.php`
- `app/Http/Controllers/RemotePaymentController.php`
- `database/seeders/RolePermissionSeeder.php`
- `routes/accounting.php`
- `resources/views/remote-payments/public-submit.blade.php`
- `resources/views/remote-payments/create.blade.php`
- `resources/views/remote-payments/index.blade.php`
- `resources/views/remote-payments/show.blade.php`
- `resources/views/layouts/partials/sidebar.blade.php`
- `tests/Feature/RemotePaymentWorkflowTest.php`

## Routes/endpoints added

Public customer submission:

- `GET /remote-payments/submit`
- `POST /remote-payments/submit` — rate-limited

Authenticated staff:

- `GET /remote-payments` — branch-scoped queue
- `GET /remote-payments/create`
- `POST /remote-payments`
- `GET /remote-payments/{submission}`
- `GET /remote-payments/{submission}/proof`
- `POST /remote-payments/{submission}/approve`
- `POST /remote-payments/{submission}/reject`

## Permissions added

- `payments.remote.submit`
- `payments.remote.verify`

Operational role grants were added for the roles that submit and/or verify remote payment evidence while preserving backend branch isolation.

## Automated coverage

Step 10 tests verify:

- Customer evidence submission remains pending and causes zero financial changes.
- Private proof storage and permanent generated submission numbers.
- Manual-provider inspection metadata.
- Approval reuses the Step 9 payment engine and produces the expected principal/interest/fees allocation.
- Approved payment updates account, loan outstanding, customer statement, and daily collections exactly once.
- Duplicate approval cannot create a second payment or second account increase.
- Rejected submissions never post money and cannot later be approved.
- Customer loan-number/registered-phone verification.
- Duplicate channel/transaction-reference prevention.
- Staff submission source tracking.
- Separate submit/verify permission enforcement.
- Secure proof access.
- Cross-branch verification and cross-branch staff submission protection.
- Standardized compact form/queue/review UI rendering.

## Test result at implementation verification

- **84 tests passed**
- **676 assertions passed**
- Fresh migrations and seeders passed.
- All Step 1–9 tests remained green.

## Remaining for Step 10

None. External provider APIs are intentionally represented by the prepared provider abstraction until real provider credentials/integration requirements are supplied. Automated reminders and multi-channel notifications remain Step 11.
