From: cathy foland (cfoland@siue.edu)
Date: Wed May 14 2003 - 16:33:57 EDT
Answers below from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville are in
bold:
1) How many staff make up your collections department? three
(How many clerical? none How many administrative? one is a
supervisor who also does some collection efforts)
Does your collections staff perform any other activities other than
collections? (At Hofstra, the Collections Office also processes federal
Perkins and two institutional loan programs - this includes billing to
all
debtors as well as delinquencies) backup provided to billing area
responding to student inquiries.
2) At what point do you begin the collection process? For example:
when
do you send collection notices? We send collection letters out three
times a year April (for unpaid Spring term balances), July (for unpaid
Summer term balances) and November (for unpaid Fall term balances). How
long after the term/semester is
completed do you designate an account as "in-arrears"? holds are placed
automatically on account as soon as account has a past due balance (miss
a payment deadline)
3) Do you send letters from your collections office first(in-house),
before sending the account to a letter writing service or collection
agency? Inhouse we send a letter and call the student three times. If
these attempts fail to yield payments or payment arrangement, then we
send to agency.
4) Do you use a Letter Writing Service? NO
Which one(s)?
How long has your school used the service?
Are you satisfied with the job that they do for your
school?
5) How many Collection Agencies does your school use? Three
Which ones? GRC, NRI, CCI (local firm)
How long has your school used the agency(ies)? NRI for last
three years, GRC and CCI for more than ten years.
Are you satisfies with the job that they do for your
school? Yes
Do you forward tuition/housing arrears as second placements?yes
Do you report tuition/housing arrears to credit bureaus?yes, our
agencies do the reporting
6) What is the process in regard to flagging your current system to
identifies students that collection activity is in process? We have a
collection agency code that identifies which inhouse collector it is
assigned to or which agency it is assigned to and whether it is a first
or second placement. Notes from phone calls are on our imaging system.
We image collection letters, promissory notes, etc and place notations
from collectors on the status of inhouse collection efforts. Do you
write
off the funds outstanding or do you maintain the debits in the A/R
account
on the General Ledger and in the subsidiary ledger? We generally
write-off accounts after they've had five years of inactivity.
Write-off removes the account from our aging reports and results in a
journal entry on our general ledger, but the student's account on the
subsidiary AR system remains intact along with all holds on transcripts,
registration and diploma. The account is coded so that we know it is
written-off in order to properly post any payments subsequently received
(have to go into the recovery of bad debt).
-- Cathy Foland Associate Bursar Office of the Bursar Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Phone: (618) 650-3131 Fax: (618) 650-2971 Email: cfoland@siue.edu
attached mail follows:
Here at Hofstra University, we are looking to find out how other
colleges/universities handle collections.
I am extremely interested in hearing about how your school has its
Collections Department structured and the collections process itself.
Some questions:
1) How many staff make up your collections department?
(How many clerical? How many administrative?)
Does your collections staff perform any other activities other than
collections? (At Hofstra, the Collections Office also processes federal
Perkins and two institutional loan programs - this includes billing to all
debtors as well as delinquencies)
2) At what point do you begin the collection process? For example: when
do you send collection notices? How long after the term/semester is
completed do you designate an account as "in-arrears"?
3) Do you send letters from your collections office first(in-house),
before sending the account to a letter writing service or collection agency?
4) Do you use a Letter Writing Service?
Which one(s)?
How long has your school used the service?
Are you satisfied with the job that they do for your school?
5) How many Collection Agencies does your school use?
Which ones?
How long has your school used the agency(ies)?
Are you satisfies with the job that they do for your school?
Do you forward tuition/housing arrears as second placements?
Do you report tuition/housing arrears to credit bureaus?
6) What is the process in regard to flagging your current system to
identifies students that collection activity is in process? Do you write
off the funds outstanding or do you maintain the debits in the A/R account
on the General Ledger and in the subsidiary ledger?
Any other additional information that you could share would be most
appreciated.
Thank you.
Brian Kaspar
**********************************************
Brian T. Kaspar
Associate Director of Student Accounts
205D Memorial Hall
126 Hofstra University
Hempstead, New York 11549-1260
Phone: (516)-463-6828
Fax: (516)-463-4847
E-Mail: Brian.T.Kaspar@Hofstra.Edu
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