Finances
eBECAS/EDMISS Financials enable colleges to manage and monitor student course and service fee payments. This module also facilitates the scheduling of payments to accommodation providers, insurance companies, airport transfer services, and agents for their commission fees.
eBECAS/EDMISS provides comprehensive financial reporting capabilities, allowing for income calculations over specific periods. All reports can be exported to Excel for future reference or sharing with external service providers.
The financials provide:
Separation of offers and enrolments.
Details in the student account including invoices, receipts, credits, debits and transfers.
The option to calculate revenue by period, course, faculty, agent or country (for each student and fee) and store those calculations as of a day.
The option to schedule payments to agents, homestay providers, airport transfer provider and insurance providers.
Concepts and Terminology
Cash vs Accrual
Financial reports are available within eBECAS/EDMISS that allow colleges to measure financial performance on either a cash or accrual basis.
Cash accounting tracks actual money coming in and going out. For example, if you use cash accounting and send an invoice to a student or agent, you wouldn't record the income until the money is received.
Accrual accounting, on the other hand, records expenses and sales as soon as invoices are issued, recognizing events in financial statements regardless of when the cash transactions occur. This approach helps track what your college owes and what is owed to you, matching revenues to expenses when transactions are due, independent of payment status. Ultimately, accrual accounting provides a clearer view of the college's financial position.
Accrual accounting is generally regarded as the standard practice for organisations that earn fees over time and we suggests that accrual accounting is the most appropriate way to measure revenue.
Offers and Enrolments
In a finance context, an offer is a “maybe” and is completely flexible. An offer has no attached debtor account. An accepted offer, which generates an enrolment, is a “definite” and has financial consequences. An enrolment has invoices with fees for service and the student will be placed in a waiting list for class placement. The enrolment invoices are included in the debtors (accounts receivable) listings.
An offer does not impact financials (there are no actual invoices or have fees due); it is just a means of preparing and negotiating a potential contract, which does not become a contract for service until it is ‘accepted’. Within the system, offers are totally flexible. Any details within an offer can be changed, including fees, discounts, charges, courses, start date and length, until the offer is ‘accepted’.
In contrast, an enrolment is a contract for service. When an offer is accepted, one or multiple enrolments are generated (one per course in the offer), and the respective invoices are raised. Extra invoices can be added but once an invoice is generated, it cannot be deleted. The course date however, can be adjusted.
Every enrolment is a legal contract between the college and the student. All invoices are recorded within the students account and in the receivables ledger. Other financial transactions (payments, receipts, refunds) are also recorded. A complete history of financials are kept – including who, when, where and why. The original contract and transactions are accessible for the student, agent and users. There can be no short cuts when it comes to changes of course, length, agent, discounts, credits and debits of fees. All alterations must have an audit trail and eBECAS/EDMISS have all the features to do so.