The Book Bag : Applications

Student Billing Reconciliation Redux

Charles Soderlund — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:43:00 GMT

Greetings faithful blog readers!

We recently held a customer round table regarding the fabulous topic of reconciling Student Billing to General Ledger. This was the first of many sessions we hope to hold discussing popular topics in Student Billing. Our support team is working hard to develop these sessions for all products, and to that end, I thought it would be a great idea to gather some feedback on what we developed for the Student Billing session I conducted. Below are links to our FAQ page with the Powerpoint slideshow and the recorded discussion with video screen capture directly from our live session. Check these out!

Student Billing FAQ and Reconciliation Roundtable

I will be adding more reconciliation tips and tricks to future blogs. Tell me what you think about what we have now for Student Billing and keep your ear to the ground on our forums to sign up for future sessions, they have been filling up quickly!

Cheers!

Charles

Integration Insight: New Features Part 2

Allison Davis — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:37:00 GMT

Linking records through Integration can be a time-consuming task. It can be difficult to determine if matches are correct in the linking grid because sometimes students and parents happen to have the same names (i.e., Jr. and Sr.). Without opening their respective records, it is difficult to know which record is which. You may even see Multiple EE matches or Multiple RE matches in the Matching Records field because records have similar names.

In version 7.78, you can open and even edit records from the linking grid. In the linking grid in The Raiser's Edge, right-click on a match and open The Education Edge or The Raiser's Edge record.

Here's the open record lowdown:

Once you open the record, you can also edit information on the records such as addresses, relationships, biographical information, applications, enrollments, and history of changes.
If a particular row has multiple matches, the Open option displays the Multiple Matches so you can select the record to open.
You can only open Education Edge records from the linking grid in The Education Edge. We're working on adding functionality to open both Education Edge and Raiser's Edge records from The Education Edge linking grid in a future version.

Tips from a Troubleshooter: Applications

Sean Long — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:49:00 GMT

Student Billing relies on Applications to link charges, credits, and payments. I've had conversations with customers about automatically applying a payment to charges, creating advance deposits, or troubleshooting a reconciliation, and the underlying issue is usually an application.

Let's say you enter a $40.50 charge on my record's Activity tab to cover thirty broken test tubes from Science class (how was I to know I wasn't supposed to bring a dog to class!). When I begrudgingly send in a check for that amount, you'll enter that as a Payment on my record because you're a student-centric environment. The system sees a balance of $0, because there's a charge for $40.50 and a payment for $40.50.

Without applying that payment to that charge, the database doesn't know what the payment was really for. Was my check a donation, a tuition payment, for the broken test tubes, or did I finally pay off the damage that robot caused? Until we apply this payment, I'll still have the charge showing on Statements, the balance will affect how I appear on the Aged Accounts Receivable Report, and if you're in a multiple A/R summary account system, that money will sit in your Unapplied Payment Account.

We've built a lot of ways to make applications seamless, whether you're automatically or manually applying them:

Automatic Applications -In Configuration, Business Rules, Automatic Applications, you can set up the system to automatically apply to the most recent transaction, in our case, the test tubes, or the oldest transaction, the robot havoc charge. You can even define whether the system will handle Charges different than Payments in this regard.
Apply Available Balance Automatically - In a Charge, select the Payments/Credits tab, or in a Payment select the Student Billing Detail tab. Click the Apply Available Balance Automatically button to automatically apply this transaction based on your business rule setting, i.e., oldest or most recent.
Add/Edit Applications - In a Payment or Change transaction, click the Add/Edit Applications button to select the charges/credits this transaction is applied to.

By applying my $40.50 check I sent in to the $40.50 test tube charge, you've told the system what my check was for. You'll no longer see that charge on statements for me, you'll no longer see that charge in the Open Item report, and when you are reconciling, my name won't appear in the Aged Accounts Receivable Report (for that charge, at least).

Have any tricks to understanding applications? Want to see more pictures of the dog or robot? Leave a comment!

Student Billing State-of-Mind: Invoices or Charges Missing When Entering Payments?

Jennifer Maroney — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:09:00 GMT

Let me set the stage. You've entered 665 payments and your last payment will not automatically apply. You've been reading Student Billing Statement , so you know how to manually apply it; however, the Student Billing Detail tab is blank. Now what? First off, dismiss any superstitions about the payment, most likely the payment owner is just not responsible for the charge. It's an easy fix, just follow these steps:

Open the Payment and select the Student Billing Detail tab.
Click Add/Edit Applications.
Click Select Additional Charges or Invoices.
Search for charge and click Open.
Mark the Apply? checkbox.
Click Save Applications and then Save and Close.

If the invoice or charge still does not appear in Select Additional Charges or Invoices, try running the SB Correct Balances utility.

Talk to you soon!

Student Billing State-of-Mind: Control Generated Credit Applications

Jennifer Maroney — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:13:00 GMT

How would you like to ensure credits generated from Financial Aid schedules can only apply to tuition or specific charges? Beginning in version 7.75, you can set application restrictions to control the application of advance deposit credits and financial aid credits.

Follow these steps to restrict applications when generating financial aid credits or advance deposit credits:

In Configuration, click Products and Billing Items.
Open the Financial Aid or Advance Deposit item.
Select the Restrictions tab.
In the Use the restrictions from field, select Specific settings below and define the appropriate filters or Configuration and select the appropriate application restriction.
Click Save and Close.

Talk to you soon!