Summary
One of the features of the Fees Management System is the ability to prorate assigned fees. With just a few clicks, you can create a calendar guiding the system how to discount fees of students who enroll later in a school year.
Configuration
You can access the fees proration page from the left side menu, under the Billing > SIS fees proration. To add a proration to a fee, you only need three pieces of information: Product tag, Effective date and the Fee rate.
Product tag – This value is acting as a filter telling the system which fees (or products) can be prorated. Only the SIS assigned fees that have the matching tag will be prorated.
Effective date – A date when the prorated fee amount, as opposed to the full fee amount, should be applied. Students who enroll after this date will be charged the prorated fee amount.
Fee rate – A portion of the original fee, specified as the percentage, to charge after the Effective date.
For example, if you wished to bill students 70% of the original registration fee after the October 1st, you might enter this information:
- Product tag: 2021_reg_fee
- Effective date: 10/01/2020
- Fee rate: 70
It’s normal to have multiple dates with the same product tag, for example a tri-semester or even a four-semester proration schedule. This way each consecutive date establishes a new fee rate for students who enroll late. Pay close attention to the following: the later a student enrolls with the school, the lower the fee rate should apply, for example:
Above reads that students who enroll before 11/01/2019 will be billed 100% of the original fee. Students who enroll after 11/01/2019 but before 01/07/2020 will be billed 80% of the original fee. Students who enroll between 01/07/2020 and 03/01/2020 will be billed 60% of the original fee. Finally, students who enroll after the 03/01/2020 until the end of the school year will be billed only 40% of the original fee.
Other considerations
From above you have deduced that the Fee rate – being the percentage of the whole – cannot be greater than 100 and smaller than 1. In practice, you will likely not require even that much granularity. Most schools prorate only a handful of times per school year.
Students who qualified for a Reduced status may receive both the coupon-discount and the proration-discount. If a “Reduced fees” student normally pays a fraction of the registration fee, the same student would receive a combined discount from the coupon and the proration, if enrolled late.
It’s not sufficient to add the proration schedule to products alone. The Fees Management System must also know when any given student enrolled with the school to determine the proration rate to apply. The enrollment date can come in either the student demographic file (users.csv) or in the programs enrollment file (enrolled_programs.csv), whichever is easier. Once the system has both pieces of the information – i.e. the student enrollment date and the product proration schedule – it will automatically apply the correct charges.
If you have questions or need assistance configuring the prorated fees, we encourage you to reach out to our team. We are happy to walk you through the initial setup to get you off the ground quickly.