The Book Bag : End-of-Year

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

Student Billing State-of-Mind: Movin' on Up

Jennifer Maroney — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:18:00 GMT

Your students have worked hard this year and deserve to move to the next grade or graduate. The process of promoting students varies based on whether or not Registrar’s Office is installed. If you use RO, students are promoted using the End of Year Processing Wizard in RO Administration. If you do not have RO installed, students are promoted though SB Administration. Here's how:

In Administration, select Promote students.
On the General tab, select a Billing status to use for returning students.
On the General tab, mark the Update graduating students box to update the records of students who will graduate. In the fields below, select a billing status, enrollment status, graduation date, date enrolled to date, and reason left for the graduating students. To update the Grade left field to the grade of the student before graduating, mark Update grade left.
Mark the checkboxes to Create an exception query, an output query, and a control report if desired.
On the Filters tab and select any appropriate filters to filter the records included in the processing.
Note: Bill codes selected must apply to the current date to be included.
Select the Attributes tab.

In the Action column, you can select to add, update, or delete attributes for students when you promote them.
In the Attribute Type column, select an attribute type.
In the Description column, enter or select a description for the attribute type. If you selected a table type attribute that uses short descriptions, you select the attribute description in the Short Description column.
In the Date column, enter the date you add the attribute or another date relevant to the attribute.
If the attribute is required, the checkbox is marked in the Required column.
In the Comments column, enter any additional information about the attribute.

On the Preview tab, verify that the students listed are correct and unmark the box for records that should not be included.
Click Preprocessing Report to review the changes in a report format before processing.
If the information is correct, click Process Now.
Note: If the Preprocessing Report is not correct, open the Promotion Schedule in Configuration and make sure it is set up correctly.
Click Close to close the Promote Students Complete form and the control report appears

Happy promoting. Talk to you soon!

Student Billing State-of-Mind: Be Prepared for the End

Jennifer Maroney — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 10:12:00 GMT

OK, I am not talking about the end of the world for you glass half empty people out there; I'm talking about the end of the school year. Before you know it, April will be over and following closely behind will be the end of your billing year. This means time for advance deposits, promoting students, enrolling students, and running statements. Makes me tired just thinking about it . This may not be the way you would choose to spend a Saturday night, but it's a process that needs to be done.

To help you out and make the process as painless as possible, we've created some great resources. Check out the special edition of Student Billing Statement: Student Billing 7 End-of-Year Process for an outline of common tasks including billing preparation, reporting, records management, and statements. You can also take a look at the Student Billing section of The Financial Edge End-of-Year User Guide and the Student Billing End-of-Year FAQs. Let me know if there is anything we can add to help make the process even easier and our documentation better.

Have some words of wisdom for your fellow SBers? Share it by leaving a comment. Talk to you later!

Merlin the Wizard: Ready to Create Your Student Progression Entries

Nate Hall — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:34:00 GMT

Everyone knows the good wizard Merlin portrayed in the classic Disney movie The Sword in the Stone. He was a jovial little guy willing to help young Arthur claim his throne by protecting him from all manner of ills, from hawks to larger fish. Well, one ill that many of you may be experiencing this time of year is getting your students ready for scheduling next year, and probably the most important process is creating the student progression entries for each student. Sure, these can be entered in one at a time, or you could import them all at once. But those options take a lot of time and time is money.

Well, this is where Merlin comes in. Merlin has many different jobs in Blackbaud’s school software, but one of his more useful - even if it’s only used once or twice a year - is to create the student progression entries. To do this, Merlin takes the form of the Mark for Reenrollment Wizard and this particular spell, if you will, is located in a couple of different places: it’s on the Student page in Records, in the Tools menu from the Students page, and under Status Wizards on the Administration page in Registrar’s Office. Once you locate the wizard and open it up, you’ll quickly see that this is a pretty straight-forward process, but if you need instructions for harnessing Merlin’s vast powers I’d recommend checking out Knowledgebase solution BB184652. And just one other trick, you can save the instructions easily by clicking the link for the printer friendly version and then creating a bookmark in your web browser.

Hope you are all enjoying the new Book Bag blog so far! If you’ve got any suggestions for blog topics or question/comments about the posts then post back and tell me about it! In the meantime, it’s beautiful outside and Merlin wants to go hang out in the sun.

Student Billing State-of-Mind: Add and Copy Bill Codes

Jennifer Maroney — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:56:00 GMT

As you prepare for the next school year, part of the process is to add or copy bill codes to records. If you are new to SB 7, bill codes link billing fees with records. When transactions are automatically generated, the bill code is matched to the bill code defined on the billing item to determine which records receive the charges. When you use bill codes, only the bill code needs to be added to the record.

The first thing you want to do before globally changing or adding records is to make sure you have a valid backup of your database. This is strongly recommended because the only way to reverse a global process is to either manually correct each record or restore to a backup.

Once you have your backup, you're ready to get started. In Administration, click Add, Copy, or Delete bill codes. In the Action field, select Add Bill Codes or Copy Bill Codes. You will notice the screen will change based on the action selected.

Select the appropriate options and click Preprocessing Report. This report lists the records that the bill codes will be added or copied to. Review the report to ensure the correct records and bill codes are listed. If the report is correct, click Add Now or Copy Now.

For step by step instructions, take a look at Knowledgebase solutions BB246842 (How to add bill codes) and BB230264 (How to copy bill codes).

Happy billing. Talk to you soon!

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

Jennifer Maroney — Wed, 21 May 2008 10:50:00 GMT

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

So now that you've seen some of the common causes, let's figure out why transactions are not generating successfully for you.

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).

Now it is time to get into the nitty gritty of the troubleshooting process.

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!

Student Billing State-of-Mind: Automatically Generate Transactions

Jennifer Maroney — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:00:00 GMT

We've been getting a lot of calls to support about generating transactions automatically so I thought this would be a good process to cover. If your organization is preparing for the next school year, take a look at the end-of-year special edition of Student Billing Statement which outlines the process from billing preparation to record management to statements.

When generating transactions, you have five options:

Automatic Billing Schedules and Scheduled Charges/Credits to create both billing schedules and generate charges and credits including advance deposits and financial aid.
Automatic Billing Schedules Only to create only billing schedules. This will not generate TRP schedules.
Scheduled Charges/Credits Only to generate charges/credits for existing schedules only including advance deposits, financial aid, and TRP.
TRP Schedules and Charges to create TRP billing schedules and charges. This calculates TRP charges based on billing schedules that would be created using bill codes. To not include billing schedules that have not been created yet, select None in the Bill Codes row on the Filters tab.
Determination Table and Reversal Schedule Transactions to create student invoices line items, credits, and adjustments based on settings from the determination table, data from student and course records, and entries in reversal schedules.

Ok, let's get started.

In Student Billing Processing, click Generate Transactions Automatically, and select the appropriate generate option. Depending on the generate option selected, you will have different fields to define on the General tab. Select the records or groups of records to include on the Filters tab. The Transaction Defaults tab allows you to define the due date, post date, and post status of the transactions.

Now we're ready to preview the transactions by clicking Pre-Generation Report. I would strongly recommend you always create a backup of your database and preview the pre-generation report before generating transactions. This way you are prepared in case you find an error after creating the transactions. Once the transactions have been created, the only way to undo the generation process is to restore to a backup losing all data entered into FE and EE since the backup was created or manually delete all transactions created. Given these two choices, I would make a point to take a few extra minutes to review the pre-generation report closely.

Once you've determined the information is correct, and you have a backup, click Generate Now. This process could take a few minutes depending on the number of transactions that need to be created. Once the process is complete, you will receive a confirmation message.

For step-by-step instructions, take a look at the Student Billing Administration section under Administration in the Administration Guide or Knowledgebase solution BB203516.

Talk to you soon!

Student Billing State-of-Mind Time Saver: Add Advance Deposits and Payments Together

Jennifer Maroney — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:47:00 GMT

Hey Blog readers!! If you enter advance deposits and payments separately, you're gonna love this tip. You can add advance deposits at the same time as payments!! This will not only save you time during advance deposit season (we'll make this a joyous event ) but will streamline the process.

The first thing you need to do is make sure your Advance Deposit Business Rules are set to allow the creation of advance deposits from payments. Once this option is marked, you're ready to go advance deposit payment crazy!

Start with adding the payment using your normal process either through the deposit record or Records, Payments. After you enter the required info, go back to the Payment tab. Take a look at the options on the bottom of the tab; this is where you add the advance deposit.

The Advance Deposit IDs available in the drop-down are based on the payment date. If the payment date is outside the valid date range for the advance deposit it will not be available. Once you select the advance deposit ID, enter the amount and select the record to add the advance deposit, click Create Advance Deposit. This will open the Advance Deposit record. Enter any remaining appropriate info, save and close the advance deposit, and then click Save and New to move on to the next payment. It's that easy!!

If you would like to see step-by-step instructions, take a look at Knowledgebase solution BB230156. To read more about advance deposits check out the Records Guide for Student Billing.

Happy Advance Deposit season . Talk to you soon!

Student Billing State-of-Mind: The End is Near

Jennifer Maroney — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:41:00 GMT

Hey blog readers! April is almost over and so is the billing year for many of you. This means time for advance deposits, promoting students, enrolling students, and running statements. Makes me tired just thinking about it . This may not be the way you would choose to spend a Saturday night, but it's a process that needs to be done. To help you, check out the special edition of Student Billing Statement: Student Billing 7 End-of-Year Process. It outlines common tasks for all organizations to assist with billing preparation, reporting, records management, and statements.

As you review and use the process list, let me know your thoughts. Do you find it helpful?

Talk to you later!