The Book Bag : 7.77

Tips from a Troubleshooter: Advance Deposits

Sean Long — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:29:00 GMT

Hi everyone! I know some of you might be familiar with me already; I'm Sean, a Customer Support Analyst who handles our Education Solutions products (Registrar's Office, Student Billing, Admissions Office, NetClassroom, and Faculty Access for the Web). I talk to a lot of you regularly, and I wanted to write a quick post about one of the most common subjects I talk about on a daily basis, especially this time of year

Advance Deposits.

Advance Deposits are a type of Billing Item used to record money received at one time but realized in a different time. For instance, a student pays $100 to hold a seat in your school next year. What do you do? You have to accept that money, but how do you track it in the system without it crediting your Accounts Receivable general ledger account? You may not want to record the money as actual revenue just yet, so you'll have to hold it until next year, because the new fiscal isn't starting until 07/01/09.

Although I've talked to customers who handle this in other ways, an elegant solution to that problem is the Advance Deposit!

Let's dissect the Advance Deposit. Like any Veterinarian will tell you, a creature is the sum of its parts. Our Advance Deposit is the sum of its tabs. The Advance Deposit has tabs that describe the amount, the generation date, and the GL Distribution (maybe eventually I'll post about those other tabs, like Notes).

Open up Configuration, and click Products and Billing Items. Now open up an Advance Deposit billing item. The Generate On date (at the bottom right of the tab) and GL Distribution tab are the only things I'll discuss here, as those are special when you talk about Advance Deposits.

The Generate On date is the date you need the money realized on your books (Crediting the Accounts Receivable account) and available to pay down a student's charges (their balance). For example, if the money is supposed to pay part of the first tuition payment of the year, and your school year starts on 07/01/09, you would set the Generate On date to 07/01/09.

The GL Distribution tells the system the account to credit when the advance deposit has a payment applied to it. This would generally be a Liability account of some sort, like a Deferred Revenue account. The money would debit out of this account and credit your Account Receivable account on the Generate On date.

Make sense? Here's how you use it in practice:

I send you a $100 check. You add this in as a Payment, and in 7.77, you select the Advance Deposit you want to create at the bottom of the screen. You will also enter the amount, and select whose account you want to credit during your Generate On date. When you then save and close out of that payment, two things are created on the student's Activity tab: An Advance Deposit line, and a Payment line.

These two lines will be $100, and the student's balance will show that there was no net gain or loss. That's because the Advance Deposit acts as a charge, so that it eats up (sorry to keep the Veterinarian reference going!) the payment and holds it in Liability until your Generate On date.

When you Generate the Transactions Automatically, you will then see a third line on that activity tab: A Credit of $100. This is going to be what you use to pay my tuition, or whatever other fees I sent you my $100 for.

Cool, right? I hope that clears up some questions about Advance Deposits! Do you use them a different way or use Advance Deposits to do something really creative? Let me know by commenting below!

Recruiter Calculations

Katie Infinger — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:49:00 GMT

Matching the right recruiter with the right applicant is invaluable to any school. In Admissions Office 7.77, you can set up recruiter calculations to automatically match recruiters and applicants.

In Configuration, click Recruiter Calculations.
Click New Recruiter Calculation on the action bar.
Enter the calculation name, such as Greenville County, and select a faculty member as the recruiter.
Select Schools Applied, Statuses, or Geographic regions that must be on the applicant record for the recruiter to be assigned.
Click Save and Close. The recruiter will be assigned to any new applicants that meet the defined criteria.

You can break down the Applicant Summary and the Applicant Status History Summary reports by current recruiter to see the number of applicants assigned to each recruiter.

Happy to Help – Attention FAWeb & NC Users on Windows Server 2008

Lindsey Robbins — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:06:00 GMT

Are you on Windows Server 2008?

If yes, and you are about to update your Faculty Access for the Web or NetClassroom to version 7.77 or install these programs for the first time, you need to hit pause before going forward. When you upgraded to Windows Server 2008, Internet Information Services 7 (IIS7) components were not installed by default. You must install II7 for use with Faculty Access for the Web and NetClassroom.

Before you install Faculty Access for the Web or NetClassroom, you must install the IIS7 roles first.

For more information about how to install IIS7, see Knowledgebase Solution BB521642.

Also, we recommend you review the following two guides on the Education Edge User Guides page.

Administration Guide for Faculty Access for the Web
Administration Guide for NetClassroom

I especially recommend you review the Installation and Security Considerations section before you complete your install or update.

Query Housekeeping

Katie Infinger — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:01:00 GMT

I decorate cakes as a hobby, and I seem to accumulate a new icing color, cake pan, or icing tip with each new cake project. That little storage shelf in the cabinet has turned into an entire cabinet devoted to holding cake supplies. I have to take a few deep breaths before opening that cabinet. Your query screen, like my cake decorating supply cabinet, might look overwhelming and out of control. You may have to scroll through dozens of scheduling scenario output queries, attendance queries, and Barb's reporting queries just to get to your query of seniors. It's time to clean those queries out!

You can clean up your queries a few different ways. One is to simply delete them. The fastest way to do this is by selecting Tools, Delete Multiple Queries from the menu bar, marking the checkboxes beside the queries to delete, and then clicking Delete Now.

What's that, you say? You're never gonna give your queries up and you'd like to group them so they can be together forever? If you don't want to delete your queries, you can use the new query organization tools in version 7.77 to create categories and get you query screen under control.

To create new categories, click Organize Categories on the Query screen and then click New Category. Enter the name of the category and voila! You have a new grouping. Think of the category possibilities: output queries, attendance queries, class year queries, and even a category for Barb! To add a query to one of the new categories, right-click on the query and select Change Category. Select the new category and click OK.

You'll have those queries cleaned up in no time!

Happy to Help – A new Bio 2 tab checkbox for Applicant and Student Records

Lindsey Robbins — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:37:00 GMT

After a brief absence I’m back and more than happy to help. It’s been a busy fall especially with 7.77 releasing a couple weeks ago. Not to start back on such a downer but an important feature was added to 7.77 for student and applicant records. If a student or applicant passes away, you can now mark the Deceased? checkbox. The Age field disappears and the applicant/student no longer appears in your mailings. Not only does this help in your processing but you can show sensitivity to the relations of the applicant /student and not send letters or mailings when they are already going through such a difficult time.

On the Applicant and Student records, the Deceased? checkbox appears on the Bio 2 tab.

For more information, see the Records Guide for Registrar's Office or Records Guide for Admissions Office on The Education Edge User Guides page.

Faculty Access for the Web 7.77 Shiny New Features!

Katie Infinger — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:30:00 GMT

A picture is worth 1,000 words (or a few new features):

By your request, rows in the Gradebook and Attendance grids have alternating colors. You also might have noticed another new feature in the screenshot; teachers can select the name format for their students. The available formats are First Name Last Name, Nickname Last Name, First Name Last Name, Grade Level, and Nickname Last Name, Grade Level.

If you have other suggestions on how to make Faculty Access for the Web even better, be sure to add them on the Faculty Access for the Web Idea Bank.

Student Billing State-of-Mind: Unapply and Restore Distributions

Jennifer Maroney — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:10:00 GMT

If you track Payment or Credit applications I have some great news for you. Currently, if you apply a payment to a charge, the GL distribution of the payment is updated based on the charge. If you then unapply the payment, the GL distribution of the payment does not revert back to the default.

Now for the good news...beginning in version 7.77, due out later this year, when the payment or credit is unapplied, the default GL distribution will be restored.

For example, a parent sends you a $1000 payment and you apply $200 to a tuition charge and $300 to bookstore charges. The payment’s GL distribution would be:

Tuition	Accounts Receivable – Main Student Billing	$200
Bookstore	Accounts Receivable – Bookstore	$300
	Unapplied Payment Account	$500

If the charge for Tuition is un-applied, the system will add the un-applied tuition amount to the Unapplied GL distribution. The payment’s GL distribution is now:

Bookstore	Accounts Receivable – Bookstore	$300
	Unapplied Payment Account	$700

If the entire payment was applied, the system will look at the default Unapplied Payment Account in Configuration and add a distribution row for the Unapplied Payment Account.

Talk to you soon!

7.77 Sneak Peek Part 2

Jennifer Maroney — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:40:00 GMT

There are a few new posts on The Ledger blog highlighting some cool new features with the release of version 7.77 due out in Quarter 4. Check them out:

Looking for more Student Billing crossover stuff? Click the Student Billing tag in The Ledger blog.

Talk to you soon!

7.77 Sneak Peek

Jennifer Maroney — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:30:00 GMT

There are a few posts on The Ledger blog highlighting some cool new features with the release of version 7.77 due out in Quarter 4. Check them out:

Looking for other Student Billing stuff? Click the Student Billing tag in The Ledger blog.

Talk to you soon!

Happy to Help - 7.77 Feature Preview #2

Lindsey Robbins — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:39:00 GMT

Sneak Preview #2 – Transcript Enhancement

For transcripts, we added the option to print outside school information in one of three different ways:
#1. You can print the outside school information with the current school information.
#2. You can print the outside school information in a separate section above.
#3. You can print the outside school information in a separate section below.

You now have even more control over your transcripts' format. This small enhancement can mean a big change for your transcripts and potentially happier students and colleges who receive copies of your transcripts. Your students' future schools may need to see your school information separate from other schools the student attended. Also, visually it may be easier to determine if a student has met the requirements for graduation based on separating the content out. And if you prefer to keep the records mixed, you are certainly more than welcome to do that.

For more information about Transcripts, please see the Mail Guide, Transcripts chapter.

Happy to Help - 7.77 Feature Preview #1

Lindsey Robbins — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:19:00 GMT

Wow, where has the summer gone? I know on the EE team, we’ve been feverishly working to produce our next great release – The Education Edge 7.77. Triple 7's, Lucky 7's, or whatever awesome name you want to call it has some fantastic features I’m excited to share with you. Over the coming weeks I’ll be giving you a sneak preview of our new features and enhancements.

Sneak Preview #1 – Admissions Office Academic Performance History

When you add an education record for an applicant, have you ever wanted a place to store information about an applicant’s history at a previous school?

With the academic performance history, accessed on the education record, you can enter previous academic information such as GPA, Class Rank, Diploma, and more. You can then use this performance history information in your recruiting and marketing process as well as your financial aid decision-making if the applicant enrolls.

For example, to aid in your admissions process, you could use this information to rank your candidates.

Also, when you are evaluating your admissions process success, you could review your recently graduated students and compare the success in your school to their academic performance history. Are your most successful students applicants that came in with a high GPA or high class rank? Perhaps you are successful enrolling students from a particular geographic area with a high percentile (class rank out of class size).

I'm sure you can come up with even more excellent ideas for how to use this feature in your organization. If you'd like to share your ideas with other EE users, add a comment below!

Check back soon for more sneak previews…