Episode 406: Streamlining Payments for Campuswide Compliance with College of Charleston

Streamlining Payments for Campuswide Compliance with College of Charleston

Institutions are always on the search for solutions to streamline payments and ease the processes of accounts receivable and reconciliation for student and administrative use. David Katz, treasurer of the College of Charleston, found the solution in consolidating all payment systems under one platform, TouchNet, which he shared on the latest episode of the FOCUS podcast. Discover key insights from Katz on the adoption of a platform approach, which resulted in more efficient processes, unified payments, and simplified PCI compliance.

Integrated Solutions Provide a Better Experience

The College of Charleston has long worked with TouchNet to provide solutions for various types of payments. To aid with international payments, the college uses TouchNet partner TransferMate to streamline reconciliation of payments made in foreign currencies. Before this integration, payments could be difficult to process because of language barriers and naming conventions. With TransferMate, payments automatically post into the general ledger with all the required information needed to apply payments to the correct student accounts.

Katz’s team also uses TouchNet’s PayPath, saving the college almost $1 million in merchant fees since 2010. With the money saved, the institution has been able to maintain lower tuition, helping students afford their education. PayPath also makes the online payment process easier for students—all they need to do is a single sign on, pay, then when the payment is posted they’re done for that billing cycle.

TouchNet’s payment solutions even made it easy for the College of Charleston to offer six different payment plan s with installments spread across the semester. . These plans allow for better customer service and lower wait times for students needing support, as now they have an entire semester to reach out. The addition of required autopayments has drastically reduced end of semester accounts receivable and write off accounts over the three-year period since implementation.

TouchNet’s solutions have greatly eased the pressures of the College of Charleston’s accounts receivable and reconciliation by creating more automated and seamless payment processes.

The Platform Approach Adoption Process

While the College of Charleston has seen great success with adopting a platform approach, the adoption process didn’t happen overnight and is constantly being improved. The success was dependent on adapting existing systems to work with TouchNet and vice versa; rather than deciding how they wanted each solution to work on its own. Additionally, Katz believes the key to campuswide adoption is listening to staff, which is why he takes time to reexamine solutions with different departments to see what works and what needs to be adjusted.

“It all comes down to solving the needs on campus [by] listening to what people need, listening to what the problems are, and trying to come up with solutions. And when you work with everybody on the campus and not just force something upon them, you really get a widespread adoption over a period of time,” said Katz.

Vetting solutions for functionality and in-depth training are integral in making the adoption process successful. They take a ‘train the trainer’ approach—. training a few people, who then train others and create a procedures and policies manual, which is updated yearly.

PCI Compliance

During TouchNet solution training, Katz makes sure to bring departments together for PCI compliance workshops. All higher education institutions must follow PCI standards, which help to keep online payments and account info secure.

At these workshops, faculty is trained on how to make compliance easier and how to provide good customer service. Consistently training and letting policies be known has changed the way PCI compliance is approached campus wide. A big part of simplifying PCI compliance is giving staff recognition and ownership in their training. Katz found that when his team reinforced the good being done by staff keeping up with training and new policies, staff took more pride in their training and protecting the college.

Final advice

Katz’s final advice to other institutions hoping to consolidate their payments under one platform is to continue training as many people as possible on new processes and PCI compliance. He also advises institutions to set their credit card close times as close to midnight as possible for reconciliation, because it’s much easier to work with a midnight-to-midnight schedule across different time zones. Finally, test and map out solutions through their entire processes to understand how every moving piece will affect the other.

Special Guest: David Katz.