About the student A/R ledger 

A student’s A/R (accounts receivable) ledger shows financial transactions associated with a student. You’ll see transactions for items like tuition, housing, payments, financial aid and refunds.

You can also see transactions associated with the student that don’t appear as an accounts receivable for the student. For example, a credit card convenience fee that’s collected from the student but isn’t credited to the student’s account.

Prerequisites

• Transaction codes created.

Required permissions

View ledger

1. Go to the student’s profile.

2. Go to person selected > A/R-Ledger Card.

3. Select a view.

   1. Show A/R Only: Campus Cafe selects this by default to show all transactions related to the student that impact the student’s accounts receivable balance and appear on the student statement.

   2. Show Non-A/R Only: Select this to show only transactions that don’t impact the student's accounts receivable. For example, an application fee or credit card convenience fee. Campus Cafe displays both sides of the transaction. If a payment includes both an AR transaction and Non-AR transaction, the amount shown as Non-AR is the portion of the payment not applied to AR. For example in the case of a credit card payment with a the convenience fee, the payment itself would show as AR and the convenience fee as Non-AR.

Ledger actions

You can quickly bill, add payments or write off student accounts directly from the ledger. You can also jump to other parts of Campus Cafe to complete additional actions.

The actions appear at the top of the page.

Open

Unposted Bill Batch Total: Shows the total amount billed to the student not yet posted through bill batch. These charges won’t appear on the ledger or student statement until you run bill batch. Clicking the number shown brings you to the bill batch function so you can post the transactions. In the example above the student has $75 in charges to be posted.

Add Bill Batch: Click to add a charge for the student. The charge enters bill batch for posting.

Unposted Cash Batch Total: Shows the total payments collected from the student not yet posted through cash batch. These charges won’t appear on the ledger or student statement until you run cash batch. Clicking the number shown brings you to the cash batch function so you can post the transactions. In the example above the student has $25 in payments to be posted.

Add Cash Batch: Click to add a payment from the student. The payment enters cash batch for posting.

Old Account Code and Date Acct Became Old: Campus Cafe provides two ways to record noncollectable debt. If you’re using the old account code notation, select the old account code and select the date the debt was written off. Click Update Code to apply the code. This doesn’t create a ledger entry. If you need a ledger entry, use an offset transaction instead.

Balance Forward Date: Campus Cafe shows only transactions dated after this date and updates the running balance to include only transactions from this date forward. After selecting a date, click Update Balance Forward Date. The default date is set using AR Control.

Go to Fin/Aid Page: Click to see the student's financial aid transactions such as Title IV awards and scholarships.

Export Ledger Table: As with all grids in Campus Cafe, the option to Copy (copy csv grid to the clipboard), Export to Excel, Export to PDF, and Print (generate a printer-friendly version of the page) is included. For the Ledger table grid, the PDF and Print versions include the student’s name and ID number at the top of the first page; and the default file name for Excel, PDF, and Print include the student’s name and ID Number.

Ledger details

The ledger includes a table of individual transactions associated with the student. For accounting purposes, Campus Cafe creates two entries for each transaction, however, only one is visible when Show A/R Only is selected. If a transaction is changed, its partner transaction is automatically updated.

Row Color: Transactions in orange are payments. Transactions in blue are non A/R transactions.

Transaction Date: The date associated with the transaction that appears on the student's billing statement.

A/R Code: A code that identifies the accounts receivable transaction type. May not be changed. See below for detail.

Transaction Source: A code that indicates how the transaction was generated.

• 1 = Group billing charge

• blank = manual billing transaction

• F = financial aid module

• R = cash receipt

Invoice#: A Campus Cafe-generated number distinct to the specific transaction. May not be changed. 

Transaction Code: Identifies the type of transaction and indicates the general ledger account associated with the transaction. See transaction code documentation. 

Description: Text that details the transaction, by default the text that describes the transaction code.

Amount: The amount of the specific transaction.

Running Balance: The sum of all prior transactions and the current transaction.

Semester: The academic period associated with the transaction.

Sub-Sem: Not in use.

Course: The specific course associated with the transaction (e.g. the course associated with the course fee).

Check Number/CC: A check number associated with the transaction. For institutions using the Campus Cafe accounting module to generate student refund (credit balance) checks, the check number will automatically populate.

PET#: The project expense tracking number to associate the entry with a specific initiative.

Sponsored: The organization associated with the entry. For example, the organization that plans to pay the billing charge or the organization that made the payment.

Additional Description: Text that further details the transaction.

Award Year: For financial aid transactions, the aid year.

Award Code: For financial aid transactions, the code associated with the financial aid transaction. See create award codes.

Award Disb. Seq#: For financial aid transactions, a number to identify the specific disbursement.

System Batch #: The number generated by Campus Cafe when the transaction was posted through bill batch.

A/R codes

The A/R codes shown are delivered by Campus Cafe and can’t be changed.

Change transaction

If a transaction needs to be changed, reversing the transaction and then creating a new transaction is typically the recommended accounting method to preserve your financial history and audit ability.

However, you can change certain non-monetary elements of a transaction. For example, you can change the semester associated with a payment but not the amount of the payment. This restriction helps prevent fraud and reconciliation errors.

Date limitation

• Transactions posted after July 1, 2021 can’t have their dates changed to a date prior to July 1, 2021.

• Transactions posted prior to July 1, 2021 can’t have their dates changed to a date after July 1, 2021.

1. Go to the student’s profile.

2. Go to person selected > A/R-Ledger Card.

3. Next to the transaction to change, click the pencil.

   Open

   

4. Make your changes and click Save.

Reverse transaction

If a transaction was posted in error, you can reverse it. This preserves the history of the transaction while offsetting the monetary amount. the For example, if a posted check is later returned for insufficient funds.

1. Go to the student’s profile.

2. Go to person selected > A/R-Ledger Card.

3. Click Add Bill Batch.

4. Select a Transaction Code. This may be the same transaction code as the original payment or a different transaction code.

5. In Billing Amount enter a negative amount. (e.g. -100 for a $100 transaction)

6. Optionally enter a Billing Description. (e.g. Payment reversed for insufficient funds)

7. Click Save.

8. The transaction is transferred to bill batch for posting.

Delete transaction

If the transaction was posted in error, reversing the transaction and then creating a new transaction is typically the recommended accounting method to preserve your financial history and audit ability. Deleting a transaction removes it entirely from Campus Cafe and can make future reconciliation difficult.

To delete a transaction, the transaction date must be after the general ledger Last Post Date. (Accounting > GL Control).

1. Go to the student’s profile.

2. Go to person selected > A/R-Ledger Card.

3. Next to the transaction to delete, click the X.