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Student Billing

Overview

The student billing process within Jenzabar SONIS is a set of functions and utilities that allow institutions to create processes that support their practices and needs. In this overview, pages that are commonly used in creating and distributing bills are linked, as well as pages that directly contribute to and/or support the student billing process. Due to the complex and institution-specific nature of student billing, this page should not be considered inclusive of every area that may impact student billing processes.

Common Student Billing Pages in SONIS

Student billing relies on data from many areas within SONIS and institutional configuration choices within the system setup. Therefore, the common student billing pages have been grouped by menu.

Financials

  • Aged Trial Balance - The Aged Trial Balance Report displays unpaid student balances. The report is located under the Financials menu.

  • Billing - This billing page allows a student, alumnus or applicant access to various financial functions.

  • Finance Charges - Finance Charges allows administrators to search for users with a balance owed, review the balance and interest amount, modify the interest amount, and post transaction codes (T-Codes) in batch.

  • Financial Holds - The Holds utility allows administrators to place restrictions on students which prevent them from participating in certain activities such as registering for classes.

  • Post to Accounting - The Post to Accounting utility allows administrators to export transactions performed in SONIS to their accounting software for record-keeping and further processing.

  • Post to Billing and Pre-Billing - The Post to Billing utility is used to finalize transactions and post them to student accounts.

  • Post Transactions - The Post Transactions utility allows administrators to create a record of financial transactions. These transactions can be charges or payments and can be posted to an individual user account or in bulk.

  • Post Transactions by List - The Post Transactions by List utility allows administrators to create a record of financial transactions for individuals on a chosen list.

  • Receivables - The Financials menu item Report: Receivables is used to produce a list or an Excel export of receivables.

  • Reverse Tuition - Reverse Tuition is a process used to reverse transactions for students who have withdrawn from courses.

Systems

  • System Variables- The System Variables page is a utility that allows users to set core school information and toggle several key options.

  • Web Options - Web Options allows institutions to customize how they use SONIS in ways both big and small. Many utilities and features are turned on and off or modified from the Web Options page.

  • Additional Fees Filter - The Additional Fees utility allows institutions to charge repeating fees to students that are not part of the school's standard tuition.

  • Affiliation - The Affiliation page allows schools to tag students with custom demographic labels that will display on the student's Biographic page and in other records. These tags are often used to determine tuition, fees, and other charges.

  • Flat Fees - Flat fees or fixed charges are an alternative to credit-hour fees.

  • Housing Transactions - Allows association of housing types and fees with specific housing criteria, such as dormitory, school year, semester, or student to either post housing transactions or post room charges.

  • Import Transactions - The purpose is to allow the import of financial transactions into SONIS from a spreadsheet.

  • Payment Plans - The Payment Plans function, located under the Systems menu but interacting with many other parts of the SONIS system, allows customers to set up payment plans for students and monitor those students' progress through those plans.

  • Program Type - The Program Type utility provides an easy way for SONIS users to assign monetary fees to programs.

  • Refund Settings - Refund Settings is a SONIS utility that allows schools to control the amount of money students can get back when withdrawing from courses.

  • Standard Fees - Standard fees are fees for student services that are charged to every active student regardless of their module status, affiliation, etc. They are created yearly and apply to every student who takes a course during that school year.

  • Transaction Codes - Transaction codes are created and edited using the Transaction Codes utility.

Courses

  • Course Add/Edit - The Course Add/Edit page is a record of the course master. It is where the courses offered at the school are defined.

  • Course Fees Add/Edit - Allows institutions to add an additional cost to a course using the Course Fees Add/Edit page.

  • Section Add/Edit - Allows administrators to create and edit course sections, assign faculty, assign fees, assign textbooks, etc. To access the page, select a course using the Course Search utility.

  • Section Fees Add/Edit - Allows institutions to add additional costs to a course section using the Section Fees Add/Edit page.

Names

  • Payment Plans - This page is used for setting up and managing a payment plan for a single student.

  • Student Billing History - To view a user's billing history, select that individual through the Names utility and navigate to Billing History.

Reports

  • Billing Summary Report - The Billing Summary Report page, available on the Financials menu, provides the ability to produce a summary of an individual's billing activities.

  • Charges/Credits - The Charges/Credits report displays the total charges and credits that the institution has processed sorted by Transaction Code.

  • Payables - The Financials menu item Report: Payables is used to produce a list or an Excel export of payables.