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About Bill Batch
The billing batch interface uses a sortable grid to view outstanding billing items that have not yet been posted. These transactions may come from the automatic billing rules batch process, uploading of financial aid, online registration, or manual entry.
Understanding Bill Batch
Bill batch is reached by navigating to Student Financials > Bill Batch
There are multiple ways to show outstanding transactions:
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Filter on member function: allows the isolation of a single member for viewing or posting. Once a member is selected, click the Filter/Refresh Bill Batch button to refresh results.
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About bill batch
When you bill students, the charges don’t immediately appear on the student’s ledgers or bills or your general ledger. Instead, they go to bill batch. From there you can review the individual charges, make adjustments if necessary, and choose which date to record the charges. Besides allowing you an opportunity to review the charges before you update your financials, this process allows separation of duties wherein one person collects initiates billing while another verifies the charges and posts them to your institution’s general ledger.
Charges can enter the bill batch through group billing, manual billing entries, financial aid or online class registration.
Prerequisites
Configure transaction codes related to charges. For example, a transaction code associated with tuition charges.
Create organizations if using sponsor billing.
Required permissions
Module | Number | Description |
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Student Financials | 51, 56 | Use bill batch |
Navigate bill batch
Find a batch by member (name)
Because charges are created through various processes, Campus Cafe creates batches to track them. Each batch is part of a member (name).
Go to Financials > Bill Batch.
In Filter on Member select a batch or select ALL to see all transactions for all batches.
Click Filter/Refresh Bill Batch Grid.
Find a batch by semester
Because charges are created through various processes, Campus Cafe creates batches to track them.
You can filter charges to just those associated with a specific semester regardless of how they were created, who created them or what batch they are in.
This could be helpful if a batch contains charges from multiple semesters and some charges need to be posted using one date and other charges a different date. For example, charges associated with your fall semester must be posted with a December 31 date for IRS reporting (e.g. 1098T), but the spring
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semester charges must be posted with a January date.
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By separating the charges you can then post them in two groups using the appropriate date for each.
Go to Financials > Bill Batch.
In or Semester select a batch or select ALL to see all transactions for all batches.
Click Filter/Refresh Bill Batch
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Outstanding individual transactions appear as a table below.
Clicking the edit symbol will allow you to modify an existing billing batch item.
Clicking the delete symbol will allow you to delete the billing batch item.
Clicking the Launch Person will allow you to drill down into the person’s record. From there, all sub-menu items are available. Additional billing batch items can then be added for the person selected.
Other functions of the screen
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The rename member function: Allows saving a batch of transactions for later review and/or posting. This is useful if you need to start another batch or wish to have someone else review a batch at a later time.
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The merge member function allows merging two members to post in a single batch.
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Grid.
Rename batch
You may wish to rename a batch to match your institution’s naming convention or record-keeping requirements. Don’t do this if you want to move the transactions in one batch to another existing batch. Instead, use Merge Member.
Go to Financials > Bill Batch.
In Rename Member enter the batch name you want to change.
In To Member enter the batch’s new name.
Click Rename Bill Batch.
Merge batches
You may wish to post transactions spread across multiple batches in one go. For example, you may have charges from group billing and manual charges you wish to consolidate and post as one batch.
The batch you’re merging into must exist as a batch. This process won’t create a new batch.
Go to Financials > Bill Batch.
In Merge Member enter the batch name you wish to consolidate into another batch.
In To Member enter the batch name that will receive the batch.
Click Merge Bill Batch.
EFT batches
EFT (electronic funds transfer) batches are special batches created through the student refund process.
Go to Financials > Bill Batch.
Click EFT Batches to display a history of individual batches.
Sponsor billing
Sponsors are organizations or other entities billed for enrollments. The accounts receivables for sponsor billing is at the sponsor level and not the student, even though the billing transactions might be on behalf of an individual student. Sponsor billing should not be confused with third party billing. In the third-party billing scenario, the receivable is on the student and simply billed to a third party
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EFT Batches: indicates the total amount of student refunds marked as EFT through the student refund process. Clicking EFT Batches displays a history of individual batches.
Run Bill Batch
Navigate to Student Financials > Bill Batch
In the Batch Operation Member box enter the name of the member
Click Post Bill Batch
A new screen appears
User Assigned Batch Number: Optional. If left blank, the system will automatically assign a batch number that can be used to identify a specific batch.
Default Batch Semester: This is used to designate the semester to be added to the transaction records when posted. This field should not be confused with the semester filtering function. All accounts receivable transaction records must have a semester/term associated with each record. For automatic billing rules billing, this is never a problem since each transaction already has the proper semester. The value entered here will fill in any records where the semester is left blank. For example, if you are entering a manual billing batch, you can leave the semester empty on each record to save keystrokes. The semester entered here will override all such blank semesters. If this prompt is left blank, then the semester default in the A/R control file will be used as a default. To summarize, the semester will be filled in using the following hierarchy:Individual record entry.
Posting prompt entered on this posting page.
Default value in the A/R control file.
It is important to remember that individual records that have a semester entered into them will never be overridden by the posting semester or the A/R control file default.
The batch posting date determines the actual transaction date in each A/R record. While the date will default to today, it can be overridden to any other valid date desired. Any valid date will be accepted as long as it is not prior to the last G/L posting date. The system will not allow you to post transactions into the subsidiary ledger if the general ledger is closed for that period. If this situation occurs, it is an easy matter to “un-post” the period on the general ledger side temporarily to get a batch posted with a prior date.
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Click Post Bill Batch
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While Campus Cafe will automatically bill sponsors based on billing rules or course configurations, you can manually add charges on this screen.
Go to Financials > Bill Batch.
Click within the Sponsor to Add Lookup box to search for the sponsor.
Select the organization.
Click Add Sponsor Bill Batch.
In Transaction Code select the code associated with the charge. For example, a code to indicate the charge is for tuition.
In Billing Amount enter the monetary charge. Don’t enter a dollar sign or comma.
In Billing Semester select the term to apply the charge.
In Billing Description optionally enter a note about the charge.
Campus Cafe automatically fills the Batch Member with your username. This charge will be placed in this batch for posting. To place the charge in an alternative batch, enter the batch name. This is uncommon but you may decide to do this if you post different types of charges by batch.
In ID# to Add enter the ID number of the student. Or click Lookup Person to search for the student and select them.
Click Save & Back.
View or edit a charge before posting
You may wish to review details of charges before posting them to your financials. Or perhaps you need to make an adjustment because the charge is wrong or missing information. You can edit both student charges and sponsor billing charges.
Go to Financials > Bill Batch.
In Filter on Member select a batch or choose ALL to see all transactions and click Filter/Refresh Bill Batch.
Click the pencil.
Details about the charge appear. Make adjustments and click Save & Back to return to the batch.
Print a bill batch before posting
You can export a PDF of a batch’s transactions prior to posting for your records.
Go to Financials > Bill Batch.
In Operation Member select the batch to export.
Click Print Bill Batch.
Post a bill batch
When you’re ready to apply the charges to student or organization ledgers and your general ledger, you must post the batch.
Go to Financials > Bill Batch.
In Operation Member select the batch to post.
Click Post Bill Batch. A new screen appears.
In User Assigned Batch Number optionally enter a number associated with this posting. If you don’t Campus Cafe assigns a number.
In Default Batch Semester select a semester to associate with charges not already associated with a billing semester. If a charge doesn’t have a semester associated with it and you don’t select a semester here, Campus Cafe uses the semester on AR Control. Put another way, Campus Cafe determines the semester by looking at the
Individual charge record entry. If not found then…
Semester selected during bill batch posting. If not found then…
Billing semester on AR Control.
In Batch Posting Date select the date that the charges will be recorded on the student’s or organization’s ledger and in your general ledger. This date must be after your general ledger last post date. To see or set the date go to Accounting > GL Control.
Click Submit. Campus Cafe generates PDF with details of the transactions posted. You may wish to save this PDF for your records.
Delete a bill batch
Deleting a bill batch removes all the pending charges before they are posted to student ledgers or your general ledger. Deleting a bill batch isn’t the same as reversing a previously posted batch.
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If you delete a bill batch, you must re-run the processes that created these charges or re-enter them manually. |
Go to Financials > Bill Batch.
In Operation Member select the batch to delete.
Click Delete Bill Batch.