The Book Bag : Business Rules

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

Tips from a Troubleshooter: Generate Transactions Automatically

Sean Long — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:55:00 GMT

In Customer Support, I've learned once June rolls around, we start seeing more questions around one specific process - Generating Transactions Automatically. Here's a break down of the Generate Transactions Automatically screen:

This screen is divided into two main sections: The criteria and the Billing Schedule section. The criteria establish when you are generating transactions and what sort of transactions you are generating. In the Generate drop-down, there are several choices: Automatic Billing Schedules and Scheduled Charges/Credits, Automatic Billing Schedules Only, and Scheduled Charges/Credits Only. It's important to understand them.

Automatic Billing Schedules are sets of transactions that will appear on the Activity tab during the next year. A good example of this schedule type is a Tuition Payment Plan, when a parent might want to spread out payments over a long period of time. Scheduled Charges/Credits Only tells the system to read from the established Billing Schedules.

The bottom section is only available when you create Automatic Billing Schedules, as it simply defines what the Billing Schedule item, including the schedule's Transaction Date, and whether or not items without bill codes should be included.

Here are some troubleshooting tips:

Filters, they're your friends - Generate Transactions Automatically is a massive process. Whether you are generating transactions for the entire year in July or month-to-month, filter them into manageable groups. Use grade levels (if you're student-centric) or portions of the alphabet. This keeps the processing time short, and you'll be able to catch mistakes easier because you're not looking at large groups of records.
Pre-Generate first -It's very tempting to skip this if you're confident, but personally, I'd take a few extra minutes reviewing a Pre-Generation report rather than spend hours correcting records.
Know your options - If you're running Generate Transactions Automatically at the beginning of the fiscal year for all records and transactions, include Automatic Billing Schedules. If these schedules are already on the records, why make the system work harder (and longer) than it needs to? Run it for Scheduled Charges/Credits only and you'll save some processing time!
Save parameters - Once you invest the time in setting up the perfect monthly Generate Transactions Automatically parameter, save it! You can't select it again in Student Billing Processing, but you can select it any other way (for instance, through Administration > Generate Transactions Automatically).
Receive an exception? Check Knowledgebase - If you get an exception or other message you don't understand while running this process, search Knowledgebase. There are numerous solutions, including How To Troubleshoot Generate Transactions Automatically, so check it out!

I hope these tips help! Have any tips to share regarding this? Leave a comment or post on our Forums!

Giving You the Business (Button and Rule)

Katie Infinger — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:30:00 GMT

In version 7.78, we've added a Business button on the Bio 1 tab of Individual records so you can easily view the individual's primary business information without selecting the record's Relationships tab. When you click the Business button, you can view everyone who shares the business address and enter non-shared phone numbers specific to the individual, such as direct office extensions.

Another new feature is the organization business rule that allows you to copy and share (or not share) organization address information with any new relationships. This business rule may come in handy if you have individuals who work at office branches or at home and do not have the same address as the organization.

This set of new features was brought to you by The Education Edge 7.78 Update Guide.