From: Bailey, Karen (ksbailey@ku.edu)
Date: Thu Mar 21 2002 - 08:42:35 EST
Several schools have asked that I summarize the results of my findings:
All the schools that responded are for the most part happy with the lockbox
process. Some of the pros are:
- able to reduce staff
- payments are received and processed quicker at the bank
- bank returns any questionable payments or correspondence
- bank sends a file of the payments daily and it's uploaded to the
University system
- bills are bar coded to the bank's specs and there are very few problems
- The biggest advantages are the availability of funds and that you just
don't have to mess with the data entry and balancing involved when you
receive the payments directly.
- Lockbox processing frees-up staff to deal with students and parents, etc.
Cons:
- cost of the service
- For one school - The only down side is "for us is there seems to be a
greater lag time for a payment sent to the Lockbox versus on sent directly
to our office."
- The downside is that the client service in resolving problems and errors
is often slow and time consuming.
One school only uses the lockbox for tuition payments so this causes
additional problems if other types of payments are received by the lockbox.
Also other items are mailed to the lockbox.
One school mentioned that - The most critical factor in lockbox processing
is reconciliation. Timely access( next day) to the documentation used to
process the payments and the deposit amount is imperative. The deposit
information should be reconciled to what was applied to your A/R via an
overnight transmission from the lockbox processor of the payment file.
As I indicated at the beginning most schools seem to be happy and satisfied
with the lockbox processing. Some mentioned that they don't know what they
would do without it. No one indicated that this is NOT a direction to go.
Thanks to everyone that responded,
Karen Bailey
University of Kansas
785-864-5929
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