Billing Cycle: A schedule for dates that specify when charges and statements generate, and when the system applies late fees and prepayment discounts to member accounts, as appropriate. Typically, a semester schedule has four bills within the term, while a quarter consists of three bills within the term. The Chapter Operations team will work with the treasurer of the chapter to determine the most effective intervals for the billing cycle.
Billing Groups: Groups of members with like billing. Customized billing groups are unique to a chapter’s needs. Each member receives a billing group in accordance with his appropriate billing. Administrators may update billing groups within the Billing > Update Billing Roster > Update Billing Groups menu in Vault.
Prepayment Discount: Optional feature available to chapters whereby chapters offer a discount to members if they pay a semester or quarter’s eligible charges (the chapter identifies) in full by the due date of the first statement of a new term. Members receive notification of available prepayment discount on the term’s first statement, along with the amount to pay to receive the discount. Prepayment discounts are very effective in promoting early and on-time payment.
Late Fee: Organizations have two options regarding late fees: flat rate or percentage. The chapter can hold late fees for individual members at their discretion. Late fees will only be applied if the balance is greater than the balance threshold determined by the chapter. Any member who maintains a balance under the threshold will not incur a late fee nor will their debt age. The chapter can establish a late fee cap amount to control the late fee amount assessed per cycle.
Merchant Discount Fee: A fee that the merchant bank charges for processing a credit/debit card payment. The chapter pays the fee rather than the individual member.
Deposit Splits: Allow chapters to direct funds to multiple accounts by percentage or income. A Percentage Split allows a percentage of payments deposited to an alternate account (House Corporation, Savings, Payroll, Food) and an Income Split distributes payments to an alternate account according to the income accounts for the allocation of payments (Housing Fees, Parlor Fees, Utilities, Social, Chapter Dues).
Collection Rate: A measure of the financial health of a chapter based upon the proportion of credits to debits during a given period. For an overall collection rate, divide the total credits by the total debits (less debits posted in the last 20 days).