The Accounts Receivable Invoice Cycle

Overview

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 or emailed and presented to the entity responsible for paying; journal entries are recorded in the General Ledger, and the invoices become eligible for payment.  Please follow the steps below:

Step 1: Create Student Charges (Batch)

Step 2: Create AR Invoices (Batch)

Step 3: Split Student Charges (Batch)

Step 4: Mark Charges Ready to Invoice (Batch)

Step 5: Add Student Charges to AR Invoices (Batch)

Step 6: Post AR Invoices

Step-by-Step

Step 1

1. On the Accounts Receivable or Student Billing homepage, click on the Create Charge Items link under the Charge/AR Processing section.
2. Select Option Code 1: Create Charge Items
3. Specify an Item Date.  This represents the date that charges will be assessed to the students.
4. Specify School Year.  This represents the school year to which the charges apply.
5. Select Catalog Item.  This represents the actual nature of the charge.   The amount and description of the charges created will be derived from this catalog item.
6. Specify any additional criteria that will uniquely identify the students for whom charges should be created.
7. Toggle No Duplicate Charges? flag to “Yes” if you want to prevent the automatic creation of charges for students who already have a charge for the same designated catalog item and date.
8. Click Add Create Charge Items.

To confirm/validate that the new charges were successfully created for the correct people,  run the Unposted Student Charges report.   Note:  you’ll likely need to specify criteria that will limit the report results to only those transactions you just created (e.g.  Input Date and/or Input User as criteria).

Step 2

1. Once Student Charges have been created, AR Invoices can be generated. Note: It’s not necessary to repeat this step if AR Invoices already exist for the School Year, Invoice Type and Households/Students represented by the newly created Student Charges.
2. On the Accounts Receivable or Student Billing homepage, click on the Create New Invoices link under the Charge/AR Processing section.
3. Select Option Code 1 or 2 depending on whether your school invoices at the Student or Household level.
4. Specify the School Year to be assigned to the invoices
5. Specify the Invoice Type to be assigned to the invoices
6. Enter the Invoice Date.
7. Enter the Invoice Due Date.
8. Toggle “Existing Charges Only?” to Yes if you only want invoices created for students with un-invoiced charges.  Not toggling this option will result in a new invoice for all Students or Households.
9. Click Add New Invoices.  The system will only create AR invoices for student charges matching the School Year and Invoice Type specified in the criteria above.
10. Run the AR Invoice Header Listing on the Accounts Receivable homepage to view the invoices just created.   Note:  you’ll likely need to specify criteria that will limit the report results to only those transactions you just created (e.g.  Input Date and/or Input User as criteria).

Step 3

1. On the Student Billing homepage, run the Charges Awaiting Split report and review the results.
2. If all looks good, click on the Process Existing Charges link under the Charge/AR Processing section on the Student Billing homepage.
3. Select Option Code 2, Split Installment Items.
4. Specify a School Year
5. Specify an Invoice Type
6. Click Add Process Existing Charges.
7. Run the Unposted Student Charge report to verify the charges have been split.  Note:  you’ll likely need to specify criteria that will limit the report results to only those transactions you just created (e.g.  Input Date and/or Input User as criteria).   You should notice that all charges initially presented in the report from step #1 above have been replaced with two or more installments, but with grand total amounts that are equal.

Step 4

1. On the Accounts Receivable or Student Billing homepage, click on the Unposted Student Charge Report under the Reports section.
2. Click on the Process Existing Charges link under the Charge/AR Processing section.
3. Select Option Code 4, Mark Ready for Invoice.
4. Specify a School Year.
5. Specify an Invoice Type.
6. Specify any other criteria that will allow the system to precisely identify and mark the charges to be invoiced.
7. Click Add Process Existing Charges.
8. Run the Charges Ready to Invoice query to view charges marked as ready for invoicing.

Step 5

1. On the Accounts Receivable or Student Billing homepage, click on the Charges Ready to Invoice Report under the Reports section.
2. Review the results to confirm completeness and correctness of the information presented.
3. Click on the Invoice Charges link under the Charge/AR Processing section.
4. Select Option Code 5, Add PCI’s to Entity Invoices.
5. Specify a School Year.
6. Specify an Invoice Type.
7. Click Add Invoice Charges to move all charges marked as “ready to invoice” onto invoices matching the School Year and Invoice Type specified.
8. To review the new unposted AR Invoice Items, run the Unposted Invoice Items report on the Accounts Receivable homepage.  Note:  you’ll likely need to specify criteria that will limit the report results to only those transactions you just created (e.g.  Input Date and/or Input User as criteria).
9. If all looks good in the report resulting from step #8 above, re-run the report from step #1 above.  Make certain that there are no items remaining on that report that match the criteria specified in steps #4 and #5.  If there are some that linger, some troubleshooting may be required.  Does an AR invoice for that student/household/school year/invoice type exist?  Are the charges designated to be billed to a special billing entity (e.g. a non-resident parent, a billing organization)?   These are the typical causes for lingering items.

Step 6

1. On the Accounts Receivable homepage, click on the Unposted Invoice Items Report under the Reports section.
2. Click on Post AR Invoices under the Processing Section.
3. Enter a Posting Date.  This is the date that will be assigned to the Journal Entry resulting from this posting operation.
4. Enter a Begin and End Item Date.  The system will only select AR items within this date range, and will post them all to the Posting Date specified.
5. Click Add Post AR Invoices.
6. Click on the “Results” tab to confirm the Amount Posted.  In addition, you should note that the Journal Entry created as a result of this process is presented on the display.  Click directly on the JE Ref # to drill-into the journal entry itself.  Review the Journal Entry items and the associated GL Detail for completeness and accuracy.