Episode 306: SponsorPoint at Wichita State with Robyn Bongartz and Ryan Lohfink

In this episode, Heather speaks with Wichita State’s Robyn Bongartz, Director of Student & AR Fiscal Operations, and Ryan Lohfink, Student Account Specialist. They walk through how they use TouchNet’s solution SponsorPoint for third party payments and how it’s created efficiencies for students, staff and sponsors alike.

TouchNet SponsorPoint is an innovative software solution designed to connect contract sponsors to campus information systems using the latest web-based technology. Using SponsorPoint, colleges and universities slash the effort required to bill, process, and reconcile contract payments.

Wichita State University was an early adopter of SponsorPoint and has had continued success throughout the years. Robyn Bongartz, director of Student & AR Fiscal Operations, and Ryan Lohfink, student account specialist, explain how SponsorPoint helped alleviate some of their pain points with third party payments.

One large pain point for WSU was the ability to provide sponsors account information about individual students. The previous third-party software viewed a sponsor account as one large account, however sponsors wanted to view each student individually. With SponsorPoint’s user-friendly online portal, sponsors can review accounts collectively or by individual students. They can verify enrollment, view account activity and make payments. This functionality has increased sponsor satisfaction and significantly reduced the time spent by WSU staff to manually complete these requests.

Unfortunately, WSU has dealt with fraud on bank accounts previously, and Robyn describes it as a nightmare. SponsorPoint provides a secure payment solution, protecting both banking and student information.

With SponsorPoint’s secure online billing statements, the university has been able to reduce the number of statements being mailed out. That has saved the university both time and money. Now, it takes about 30 seconds to send out a million-dollar bill.

When everyone at the university went remote last year, IT assistance was in high demand. Typically, the department staff would need IT support to electronically change billing headers or tailor statements to each sponsor. However, SponsorPoint gives staff the ability to easily make those changes themselves. It has reduced the amount of IT support needed and has sped up the team’s response to sponsor requests.

Special Guests: Robyn Bongartz and Ryan Lohfink.