Accounts Receivable (AR) Overview

Overview

The purpose of this article is to provide both background and detailed processing instructions associated with the Accounts Receivable and Billing module incorporated in the Veracross Accounting System. Learn how to perform the tasks associated with

• maintaining the student and household accounts,
• manipulating invoices,
• processing cash receipts,
• processing journal entries, and
• running various reports, including printed invoices and student/household statements.

What you see on your screen may differ from the screenshots in this documentation for one of two reasons:

1. Veracross may be customized for your school.
2. Your user account does not have a sufficient security role, so you may not have access to certain menus, reports, and data fields.

Contact your Veracross Accounting Manager with any questions.

The Invoice Cycle

The Invoice Cycle simply defines the sequence of steps required to fully process an invoice so that fees are appropriately and accurately assigned to students, hard-copy invoices are printed and presented to the entity responsible for paying, journal entries are recorded in the General Ledger, and the invoices become eligible for payment.

1. Perform necessary maintenance on data elements associated with student invoices. The Price Catalog should be modified as necessary so that it contains all “goods and services” that are offered by the school.  The catalog should be verified to ensure correct billing rates, general ledger accounts and other parameters are accurately recorded for each catalog item. Student and household billing information (e.g. mailing address, payment terms) should be reviewed and modified as necessary so that invoices will be delivered in a timely and accurate manner. All general ledger accounts that might be assigned to an invoice item should also exist in the chart of account before entering the invoices.

2. Assign charge items to students. Charge items are specific items from the price catalog that are assigned to students and constitute the base elements used when generating invoices. These items are assigned specific dates, quantities and unit prices. A user can override various data elements from the price catalog (e.g. unit price) to allow for accurate billing when special accommodations are made for certain students.

3. Perform special charge item processing steps. For instance, many students will not pay their full year’s tuition with one payment; rather they will pay via a pre-arranged installment plan. A special charge item process is utilized to split individual charges into two or more installment items, each with its own due date and charge amount. Another special process designates charge items as “ready to be invoiced”.

4. Enter/edit data for accounts receivable invoices. An invoice consists of two basic components: a single invoice header, and one or more invoice items. The header contains information that applies to each item (e.g., the student, household, invoice date and due date). The items contain information for each item being billed including quantity, unit price, total amount, general ledger account and description.  For the most part, invoice items are automatically created from pre-existing charge items. If charge items are thoroughly created, the creation of invoice items is  routine. Users do, however, have the ability to create new AR invoice items directly from the price catalog without having to first create charge items.

5. Run an unposted AR invoice report to aid in data validation and reconciliation prior to posting. Check invoices for accuracy to ensure that appropriate students are invoiced appropriates amounts and that appropriate general ledger numbers are assigned to each invoice item if any errors are observed, make appropriate changes and re-run the invoice report to perform final verification.

6. Post invoices when all the invoice information is entered correctly. Posting the invoices will result in journal entries that debit the Accounts Receivable account and credit the various revenue or unearned income accounts specified for the invoice items. When posting is complete, numerous data fields on the posted invoices will be disabled to prevent further update.  If subsequent changes are determined to be necessary, they may only be achieved by making invoice adjustments. All invoices posted together will have the same posting date (which the user is allowed to specify). It is only after an invoice is posted that cash receipts and prior deposits can be applied.

7. Run an AR invoice header and/or item queries to verify that the posting of invoices generated desired results. These reports should include a posted invoice report (with selection criteria designed to include only those invoices included in the current invoice cycle), and an AR Invoice Journal report.

8. Print hard-copy invoices as needed.

Invoice Payment Cycle

The Payment Cycle simply defines the sequence of steps required to process cash receipts and prior cash deposits so that they are correctly applied to invoices, generate journal entries in the General Ledger, and reduce the unpaid number of invoices appropriately.

1. Run an AR Invoice Aging report or the Unpaid AR Invoice report to assess unpaid invoices.

2. Tentatively apply cash receipts and deposits to unpaid invoices and/or invoice items. Payment amounts can be for either the entire or partial amounts due.

3. Generate an Unposted AR Cash Receipts report. Check report for accuracy to verify that all appropriate cash receipts and/or deposits are included, and that the amounts to be applied are correct.

4. If there are any errors on the report, make appropriate changes by re-applying receipts and deposits as necessary. Generate a new Unposted AR Cash Receipts report for verification.

5. Post cash receipts. Posting receipts will enter deposits in the check register, make journal entries into the General Ledger, and reduce the unpaid amount on invoice items included in the payment cycle.

6. Print AR reports to verify that the posting of payments generated desired/expected results. These reports should include a Cash Receipt Header listing and an AR Payment Journal report.