Student Billing State-of-Mind: Need Help Generating Transactions?

You've followed the steps to generate transactions automatically but you're not getting the results you hoped for . Perhaps fees are generating for students with no bill code or all scheduled charges are generating. We've found several causes of automatic generation issues which include:

• Students do not match generation criteria
• Fees does not exist in Configuration
• The do not allow charges to be created for this fee checkbox is marked
• Fee schedules have already been created
• Advance deposits are not fully funded
• Bill Codes are not specified on the Billing Item in Configuration
• The billing item is marked inactive
• The date range is incorrect

The first thing you need to do if you've already generated incorrect transactions is either manually delete the transactions (BB276920) or restore to a backup (BB52243) from before the transactions were generated. This allows you to start the process again from scratch.

Next, ensure you have completed the End-of-Year Procedures for Student Billing (BB221777).

• Verify the correct options are selected for the generation process
  • On the General tab, confirm:
    • The Generate option is for the correct charges and credits
    • The date range is correct and the transactions to be generated fall within the selected date range
    • All Records is selected in the For automatic billing items without a bill code, generate billing schedules for field, if generating transactions for billing items without a bill code
    • The TRP transactions to be generated fall within the selected TRP date range if generating TRP charges
    • The for grade based billing date falls in the correct academic year. If Registrar's Office is not installed, mark the For grade-based billing, use student's next grade checkbox.
    • The Include payers on credit hold checkbox is marked
  • On the Filters tab, confirm:
    • All Records or the appropriate query is selected
• Verify the fee configuration
  • In Configuration, Product and Billing Items, open each fee to generate and confirm:
    • The status is active. If it is marked as inactive, verify it is the correct fee and change the status to active.
    • The correct bill code is selected. If a bill code is not assigned, define one on the item or select All Records in the For automatic billing items without a bill code, generate billing schedules for field when generating transactions.
    • All applicable grades are defined if the item amount varies by grade
    • The distribution is for the correct period and is included in the date range of the generation process
    • The billing item is an automatic billing item. If not, remove the billing item from records, delete the billing item in Configuration, recreate it as automatic, and add the new billing item to records.
    • The option Do not allow schedule to be overridden is marked. This way regardless of the default schedule on records, the system will always use the billing item's schedule for generation.
• Verify the student record information
  • On the Bio 2 tab, confirm:
    • The bill code is defined
    • The student is enrolled in the grade for which the fee applies, if Registrar's Office is not installed
  • On the Activity tab, confirm:
    • The advance deposit is fully funded
    • The billing item schedule is for the correct period and is included in the date range of the generation process. If the schedule is incorrect, adjust the fee schedule (BB269006).
    • The billing item specifies an amount for the student's grade at the time of the specified date
  • Confirm the student has a Student Progression Entry (BB136344) for the year you are generating transactions

Do you have any helpful tips for generating transactions?  Let us know by leaving a comment.

Talk to you soon!