... Or is it giving you headaches?
Have you noticed that the typical bursar's office cashiering environment leaves a few things to be desired?
As part of an overall student system, it was created as a compromise to handle the diverse needs of a variety of university departments. One size fits all. As a result, the focus on bursar priorities is less than it could be. How long does it take a cashier to point-and-click their way through a student transaction? At least twice as long as it should. Streamlining and automating the process results in an accelerated pace of transactions while reducing time, effort, errors, and costs. Further productivity is lost in the bursar's office when cashiers are required to perform additional tasks which should be handled automatically. For example, checking for NSF and other restrictions before accepting payment, releasing holds after payment, calculating change, or navigating an external credit card machine - just to name a few. Above all else is the need for consistency and keeping all financial systems in balance. Cashiers are required to interact with numerous external systems, such as credit card, campus card and perhaps even parking systems -- this is in addition to your student accounts receivable system. This hodgepodge of systems increases complexity, invites distractions, is time consuming, and makes it easier for errors, inconsistencies and neglected steps to impact your transactions -- as well as your audits. A better approach is to integrate these external systems -- so they are updated automatically, integrating all necessary steps into the workflow, thereby eliminating errors and omissions. Once integrated, all systems remain in lock-step with your cash drawer and your accounting systems. And how secure is your credit card data? If you're storing it locally, even if encrypted, this is a very real concern. The list goes on. But the Payment Pro approach should be clear: Minimize cashier effort and maximize productivity -- automate and integrate as much as possible because it saves time, money, human capital, prevents errors, and improves customer service. This is the difference between an ordinary cashiering system and one that is exceptional. |