Re: Payment plan/Collections

Hello Roxanne,

We have had a payment plan for at least 11 years, so I can't tell you what
the transition was like, as I wasn't here. We use Tuition Management
Systems (TMS) and are very happy with their services. It does not take any
additional employees, as we have an automatic upload of the payments from
TMS to our administrative software (CARS/Jenzabar). A few years back we ran
into some difficulties with TMS and invited AMS (Academic Management
Systems) to offer their payment plan to our families, as well. For two
years we ran both plans along side each other. It was less of a hassle than
you might think. However, we decided to go back to an exclusive contract
with TMS about 4 years ago and have been very happy with their product,
their flexibility and their service. We hear almost no complaints from
families (which was not always the case) and they are more than happy to
create a program that fits our needs. I would recommend them, highly.
=============================================================
Eileen Walker
Associate Vice President & Controller
Ohio Wesleyan University
Voice (740) 368-3363
Fax (740) 368-3009

At 08:25 PM 2/2/2005 -0800, Roxanne Finney wrote:
>Hello to all out there in Bursar Land and hope this finds your spring term
>going well.
>
>We are a 2 year Community College of 4,000 + students. We have been
>mandated by our Administration to implement a payment plan by Fall of
>2005. We are also in the works of going live with our new student system,
>Datatel by March 2005. I currently have a full-time cashier, a temporary
>person, half of a 3/4 time person and myself managing the student account
>side of the Business Office. Any information would be very much
>appreciated. We currently have due dates for payment and cancel
>registration for those that don't pay. I am afraid our bad debt will rise
>considerably with the installation or even farming out for a payment plan.
>
>I am wondering how many of you do your own in house payment plan or use an
>outside agency?
>
>If you do it in house, how many staff do you have maintaining the payment
>plan?
>
>If you use an outside agency who do you use and how do you like their
>service and how much staffing is needed to manage it?
>
>Do you use a collection Agency as well? If so who do you use and how well
>do you like their service.
>
>Has your bad debt rose since implementing a payment plan?
>
>Is there any service (probably not) that would buy our Tuition Receivable
>and then they collect from the student? Or the student takes out sort of
>loan with a payment plan with an agency and we get our money up front?
>
>You may e-mail me directly, if you want.
>
>Thank you for your time,
>
>
>
>Roxanne Finney, Bursar
>North Idaho College
>1000 West Garden Ave
>Coeur d'Alene, ID 83814
><mailto:rmfinney@nic.edu>rmfinney@nic.edu
>208-666-8003
Received on Thu Feb 3 11:14:38 2005