Sales & Billing

uBASE User Group

Notes from the meeting on 15thMay 2012

Attendees:

Robert Hebblethwaite (Chair)

Andrea Chambers (School of Maths)

Sharon Nixon (Faculty of Arts and Humanities Finance Hub)

Naomi Nathan-Thomas (Faculty of Arts and Humanities Finance Hub)

Helen Cutts (Education/Faculty of Social Sciences)

Christine Goacher (Town and Regional Planning)

Julie Fletcher (Library)

Claire Kennedy (Finance)

Alison Atkin (Finance)

Cherryl Eshelby (Finance)

Bethan Thomas (Research Finance)

Fran Agus (Finance)

Judy Hair (Finance)

Paul Thacker (CiCS)

Agenda Item 1 - Apologies

Lynda Hodge-Mannion (Faculty of Arts & Humanities Finance Hub)

Andy Bassett (Biological Services)

Lindsey Allport (Print Services)

Nikki Croft (Scharr)

Tracey Beety (CiCS)

Lisa Gardiner (Mechanical Engineering)

Liz Cunningham (ACS)

Andy Jamieson (Finance)

Jane Kelly (Finance)

Andrew Wood (Finance)

Sally Salter (Finance)

Alex Hanson (Finance)

Jamie O’Brien (Finance)

Agenda Item 2 – Notes from the Previous Meeting

  • No amendments to the Notes were proposed.

Agenda Item 3 – Matters arising/Action Points

  • Previous ACTION: Income Office/PACT to work with Sales Offices where most invoices < £50 are being raised to establish whether new business processes can be implemented. RH has loaded to uSpace the Taser report that shows the Sales Offices where most £50 invoices have been raised. Fran Agus reported that the use of On-Line store continues to grow and RH’s view is that the volume of small value invoices is not large enough to concern us. RH outlined that Scharr had raised a question of how to invoice for travel cost contributions from an external organization when there sums are under £50. Rather than signal to an external organization that we do not need to collect this level of sum, an alternative may be to set up an arrangement where we invoice for, say, £100 for a 1 year period and then report back or invoice for more when this sum has been used.
  • Information about Staff Leavers. RH receives a weekly report of staff leavers and shares this with Julie Fletcher and all relevant Dept of Finance staff. However, this is not a uBASE report accessible by end users and hence if anyone other than Julie Fletcher has reason why this information could help them in the recovery of staff personal debts to the University then they should contact RH directly.
  • In relation to Age Debt reporting by Sales Office, the Income Office does have access to such information and this is a uBASE report than can be run by Faculty and Professional Service Finance Managers as well. The quality of the output from the report is dependent upon the Sales Office information being present. Should end users need access to this information, they should contact their Faculty or Professional Service Finance Manager in the first instance although we will look into making this report available to all users with the relevant Sales and Billing profile. ACTION Clare Kennedy/Fran Agus to determine which profile this should be added to and then issue appropriate guidance notes.
  • Julie Fletcher confirmed that the Library Management System project is still ongoing and there will be an issue in relation to the cut-over (or lackof one) of fines debt data from the old system to the new.
  • The action points in relation to developing more guidance onraising Credit Notes and the key things that need to be in place for a Sales invoice to be prepared are now covered by Claire Kennedy’s work on the Sales and Billing workshops and the follow up developments identified.

Agenda Item4 –Current Queries/Questions from Users

  • Naomi asked a question about when the formal chasing of outstanding debts commences. She was receiving repeat enquiries from an academic about an invoice being paid and hence wanted to know when the Income Office processes would step in. The group agreed that, despite any requests from our academic colleagues, it was not the responsibility of Departmental staff to make any contact with debtors over their payment of a UoS Sales invoice. Fran confirmed that, if a debt was still in place 30 calendar days from the date of invoice, the Income Office would start chasing this by the initial issuing of a reminder letter. If the debt remains uncleared after 60 calendar days, the Income Office would ordinarily contact the University Dept to try to establish if there are any reasons for the non payment before issuing further reminders or contacting the customer themselves. Claire Kennedy also added that a uBASE project report can be modified and run to show whether any Sales invoices relating to income in that project account have actually been paid. ACTION Claire Kennedy to post instructions to uSpace on how to do this.

Agenda Item 5 –Income Office updates/issues

  • Fran Agus provided an update on the issue of debtor account cleansing and how to help users identify the correct debtor record to be used (if some have been closed or blocked). Jamie O’Brien is looking at the possible use of the customer look-up field to indicate if the account is due to be deleted or blocked. ACTION: Fran to update the next meeting on progress.

Agenda Item 6 – Sales & Billing workshops - update

  • Claire Kennedy outlined that she has been working with Income Office colleagues and has put on a series of workshops to update people’s skills and knowledge in Sales and Billing. These sessions were aimed as being interactive and were not covering the content from the basic Sales & Billing training course. However, general uBASE concepts and skills were included as it has become evident that some people have the profile to raise Sales invoices but had never been equipped with the basic financial concepts information such as why income can only be credited to project accounts and why the project type is very important. The aim was to exchange information about common issues and for users to be able to bring along real life examples of things they find difficult or would like to know more about.
  • Claire has collected feedback from each of the workshop sessions and they have been generally well received. Her conclusion was that this type of activity needs to form a rolling programme of communications and training about Sales and Billing. Claire also reported that, as well as overhauling training material and providing some new advice/guidance, it was important to create some new profiles so that her cross cutting team could build up a better picture of just what type of activity was being undertaken by each user. In this way, new training or communications could be actually targeted at those staff undertaking particular Sales and Billing related tasks.

Agenda Item 7 – Getting the most out of the User Groups

  • RH led this discussion by asking for user group members’ views on how we can continue to improve what we get out of having these meetings. The user group format has been in place for 4 years now and it should be a means by which news and information is cascaded outwards from the Finance Department and also a channel for views or development requests to be brought from users. I.e. a 2 way communication.
  • User group members are responsible for disseminating information they receive at the meetings to Faculty colleagues as well as pulling in others views. Whilst it is appreciated that this is not always easy, the user group meetings are always more rewarding and productive where members have gathered feedback from colleagues via their Finance Operations Groups or the like.
  • RH reminded user group members that they are free to hand over the task of representing a Faculty or a Professional Service area to another colleague at any stage. (just let me know of any changes to membership) The high level of apologies received for these meetings (despite the fact they are held only twice per year) could be a sign that new blood is required although it IS acknowledged where apologies were given simply due to other diary commitments.

Agenda Item 8 – Any other business

  • The group briefly discussed the issue of emailing Sales invoices to customers. There is an auto email function in uBASE however this would need to be activated for ALL invoices to a particular customer. In the meantime, changing the printer setting to PDF Factory will allow a Sales invoice to be prepared in this format for then attaching to an email without needing to take up space by saving it as a separate document.
  • The next meeting will be held in approx 6 months time. As usual, any Agenda items to be emailed to RH or posted via uSpace.
  • Post Meeting Update: - Jamie O’Brien announced that he will be leaving the University in the summer to take up a new post/challenge with KAUST. On behalf of the Sales and Billing uBASE User Group members I wish to record out thanks to Jamie for all his help and work in this area. We wish him good luck in his new role in the sun!