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About Cash Batch
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About cash batch
When you collect payments from students, they don’t immediately apply to a student’s bill or your general ledger. Instead, they go to cash batch. From there you can review the individual payments, make adjustments if necessary, and choose which date to record the payments. Besides allowing you an opportunity to review the payments before you update your financials, this process allows separation of duties wherein one person collects payments while another verifies and posts them to your institution’s general ledger.
Payments enter cash batch through online payments made by students, fast cash entries, manual cash entries, payment plan uploads, automatic donation feed donations from the alumni/development module, miscellaneous cash (non-student account) , and other sources.
Understanding Cash Batch
Cash batch is reached by navigating to Student Financials > Cash Batch
Member: The filter on member function allows the isolation of a single member for viewing or posting. The member filtering function allows for flexibility in segregating different batches. There can be many sources of cash receipts in Campus Café. Some transactions will appear is specialized batch for automatic credit card entries or gift receipts. These will have specific system generated member names. Example WB20150210 might contain credit card receipts for February 10. AL20150210 might contain gift receipts for that day. Generally, any items that you manually enter will have your username as the member/batch name. The member/batch can be displayed, totaled, and batched separately, or all members/batches can be displayed at once. Click the Refresh/Filter View button to see the results
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.
The merge member function allows merging two members to post in a single batch.
The sponsor lookup/add function allows adding of cash transactions for sponsors. Sponsors can be organizations or other entities who must be billed for enrollments. This function will allow manual cash adjustments to sponsor billing accounts. The receivables for sponsor accounts is at the sponsor level and not the student, even though the cash and billing transactions might be on behalf of an individual student. Sponsor accounts should not be confused with third-party accounts. In the third-party account scenario, the receivable is on the student and simply billed to a third party.
Outstanding individual transactions appear as a table below.
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Clicking the pencil will allow the individual editing of a transaction
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Clicking the red X will delete the cash batch item.
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The transaction code is used to designate the type of transaction (e.g. cash, check, credit card).
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The description is used to annotate the transaction and will default to the description in the transaction code table if left blank.
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Prerequisites
Configure transaction codes related to payments. For example, a transaction code associated with tuition payments.
To accept credit card payments, configure a third-party payment processor (Authorize.net or PayPal).
Configure payment plans.
For miscellaneous payments, for Campus Cafe to automatically offset the payment, the transaction code must have Activate Cash Preset Distribution AutoFill selected and Preset Distributions selected.
Required permissions
Module | Number | Description |
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Student Financials | 52, 57 | Use cash batch |
Navigate cash batch
Find a batch
Because payments enter Campus Cafe from various sources, Campus Cafe creates batches to track them.
Payments you enter in Campus Cafe appear in a batch named your username unless you overrode this when posting the payment.
Student payments received through online payments appear in a batch named WB followed by the date of the payment. For example, WB20240210 would include payments received on February 10, 2024.
Gift (donation) payments received appear in a batch named AL followed by the date of the gift. For example, WB20241009 would include payments received on October 9, 2024.
Go to Financials > Cash Batch.
In Filter on Member select a batch or select ALL to see all transactions for all batches.
Click Refresh/Filter View.
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 > Cash Batch.
In Rename Member enter the batch name you want to change.
In To Member enter the batch’s new name.
Click Rename Cash Batch.
Merge batches
You may wish to post transactions spread across multiple batches in one go. For example, you may have online payments from the weekend that you wish to consolidate and post as one batch on Monday.
The batch you’re merging into must exist as a batch. This process won’t create a new batch.
Go to Financials > Cash 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 Cash Batch.
View or edit payment before posting
You may wish to review details of payments before posting them to your financials. Or perhaps you need to make an adjustment because the payment was recorded wrong or is missing information.
Go to Financials > Cash Batch.
In Filter on Member select a batch or choose ALL to see all transactions and click Refresh/Filter View.
Individual payment transactions appear at the bottom of the screen in a table. To drill into a transaction click the pencil.
Details about the payment appear.
Transaction code designates the type of transaction and how it appears on your general ledger.
Description auto populates with the transaction code description but you may override.
Semester is optional here, but must ultimately exist for all cash transaction records. It isn’t necessary to enter a semester on each individual transaction on this page especially if all the transactions are for the same semester
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. The semester can be specified at the cash batch posting stage for the entire batch. Campus Cafe looks for a semester in the following order:
Individual payment record entry. If not found then…
Semester selected during cash batch
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posting. If not found then…
Billing semester on AR Control.
PayPlan Award Code is the student payment plan the payment applies to.
Cash Received Amount is the monetary value of the payment entered as a positive number.
A/R Credit Amount must offset the cash
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received amount. For example, if you received a $100 tuition payment, you’d enter 100 in Cash Received Amount and -100 in this box.
Batch Member is the name of the batch this transaction belongs to.
PET# is optionally the project expense tracking number associated with the payment. This is generally used for tracking fundraising campaigns. For example, a payment that’s a donation to your new Center for Advising.
Check Number/CC is the check or credit card number of the payment.
Cash CC-GL-Fund represents the general ledger account the payment posts to.If you don’t select a fund, Campus Cafe applies the payment to the account associated with the transaction code.
Sponsored By is the organization that is making the payment for the student. A sponsor is an entity that you attribute the accounts receivable for even though the billing transaction is on the individual student. Sponsor billing shouldn’t be confused with third-party billing. In the third-party billing, the receivable is on the student and simply billed to a third party.
Usually a single payment is booked to one general ledger account. However, you may wish to split the payment among multiple ledger accounts. To do so under Distributions under CC-GL-Fund select a general ledger account and enter the amount of the payment to attribute to that fund. Click Save Distribution then New Distribution to attribute the next portion of the payment.
For example, the cash amount might be $1,000.
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The A/R credit is $700.
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This amount will display on the student account as a credit for $700
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. The remaining $300
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is put in a housing deposit escrow account. This amount will not display on the student account, but be recorded with the student
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Post Cash Batch
Running the cash batch post process will apply the cash to the student ledgers.
ID in the escrow account for later identification, retrieval, or reversal.
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Payplan Balances column shows any Payment Plans with an outstanding balance and the semester in which that payment plan is assigned.
In the Batch Operation Member enter the Member to postClick Save & Back to return to cash batch.
Post a cash batch
When you’re ready to apply the payments to student ledgers and your general ledger, you must post the batch.
Go to Financials > Cash Batch.
In Batch Operation Member enter the batch name.
Click Post Cash 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.
Click Post Cash Batch
After posting, a pop up will appear with a PDF summarizing all transactions posted
Use Fast Cash Interface
Click on the Fast Cash button to add to records to a cash receipt batch from a roster for simple student account transactions.
Use the Bios Person to Add Lookup lookup a student ID number or enter a student ID number in the Bios ID# to Add box
In the Cash Received Box enter the amount of cash received
In the Transaction Code drop down choose the transaction code
In the Description optionally enter a description to override the transaction code's default description
In the Additional Desc box optionally enter an additional description
In the Cash Receipt# box optionally enter the receipt number
In the Check Number optionally enter the check number
In the Semester drop down choose the semester associated with the cash. If the semester is left blank, the semester entered when the batch is posted will be the default. If the semester prompt is left blank when the batch is posted, then the semester will default to the A/R control file default semester.
In the PayPlan Award Code optionally choose the payment plan
Click Add Fast Cash
The transaction is added to the cash batch to be posted
Repeat the process for further cash, note that the transaction code
Use Miscellaneous Cash Interface
This screen is used entering cash that is not related to a student account. This is essentially cash that is a journal entry in the cash subsidiary ledger.
From the Cash Batch screen click the Add Misc Cash Batch
The transaction code is used to designate the type of transaction. Some examples would be cash, check, credit card.
The description is used to describe the transaction and will default to the description from the transaction code table if left blank.
The semester is optional for miscellaneous transactions.
The cash received amount is the total cash received for the transaction. It must equal the total of offsetting distributions to be a valid transaction. An error message will appear if a transaction is out of balance.
The distribution section is used to enter one or more offsetting entries for the cash amount entered. These distributions can be entered manually using this interface, or they can come from a pre-set distribution that was set up in the transaction code table. For example, a particular transaction code might have a percentage distribution set up to create three separate offsets for 25%, 25%, and 50%. Clicking the Opt Auto-Fill Unsaved button will automatically create the appropriate distribution on the page. It will remain unsaved until the save button is clicked with a successful update. The offsets and cash amounts must balance to 0 for a valid updateable transaction.
A cash batch may have both student account transactions and miscellaneous transactions in the same batch so as to total the amount of a cash deposit for a given day or period.In Batch Number optionally enter a number associated with this posting. If you don’t Campus Cafe assigns a number.
In Batch Semester select a semester for which the payments will be associated if a payment doesn’t already have a semester associated with it. If a payment 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 theIndividual payment record entry. If not found then…
Semester selected during cash batch posting. If not found then…
Billing semester on AR Control.
In Batch Date select the date that the payment will be recorded on the student’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 Post Cash Batch. Campus Cafe generates PDF with details of the transactions posted. You may wish to save this PDF for your records.
Fast cash
You may collect many student payments throughout the day and students don’t need receipts generated by Campus Cafe. You can quickly enter these payments using fast cash. If you need to generate a receipt, use Manual Payment instead.
Go to Financials > Cash Batch.
Click To Fast Cash.
In Bios ID# to Add enter the Campus Cafe ID number of the student. Or you can click Bios lookup to search for and select a student.
In Cash Received enter the amount of the payment.
In Transaction Code select the transaction code associated with the payment. For example, a code to indicate the payment is for tuition.
Optionally in Description enter a note about the payment. If you leave this blank, Campus Cafe uses the transaction code description.
In Cash Receipt# optionally enter the receipt number if you issued the student a receipt.
In Check Number optionally enter the check number.
In Semester select the semester associated with the payment. If you’re entering lots of payments all for the same semester, you can leave this blank. When you post the cash batch, you’ll have the option to select a semester to apply to all payments in the batch that don’t have a semester attached to them.
In PayPlan Award Code optionally select the payment plan the payment applies to.
Optionally enter a Student Sponsored Id#. Click Lookup Sponsor to locate the ID number if needed. Sponsors can be organizations or other entities and the receivable is at the sponsor level and not on the student, even though the billing transactions is on the individual student. Sponsor billing shouldn’t be confused with third-party billing. In the third-party billing, the receivable is on the student and simply billed to a third party.
Click Add Fast Cash.
Repeat the process for additional payments. When done recording payments, click Exit Fast Cash.
Transactions appear on student ledgers once you post the batch.
Miscellaneous cash
You may wish to record payments not associated with a student. For example, you may have a visitor pay $5 in cash for parking in your visitor lot. You want to record this payment on your general ledger.
Go to Financials > Cash Batch.
Click Add Misc Cash Batch.
In Transaction Code select the transaction code associated with the payment. For example, a code to indicate the payment is for parking.
In Cash Received Amount enter the amount of the payment.
Campus Cafe automatically fills the Batch Member with your username. This payment will be placed in this batch for posting. To place the payment in an alternative batch, enter the batch name. This is uncommon but you may decide to do this if you post different types of payments by batch.
PET# is optionally the project expense tracking number associated with the payment. This is generally used for tracking fundraising campaigns. For example, perhaps the payment for parking is related to your ongoing project to repave your parking lots.
Optionally tell Campus Cafe to apply the payment to a specific general ledger account by selecting a Cash CC-GL-Fund. If you don’t select a fund, Campus Cafe applies the payment to the account associated with the transaction code.
You need to tell Campus Cafe where to offset this payment. If the transaction code has been configured with Activate Cash Preset Distribution AutoFill selected and Preset Distributions you can click Opt.Auto-Fill Unsaved. Otherwise, under Distributions under CC-GL-Fund select a general ledger account and enter as a negative number the amount of the payment to attribute to that fund. Click Save Distribution.
Click Save & Back to return to cash batch.
Transactions appear on your general ledger once you post the batch.