General Information
Service and recharge centers should bill their users in a timely manner (generally monthly) based on actual usage. Centers that have significant revenue are recommended to bill more frequently. The billing process depends on whether the customer is an internal user or an external user.
Usage Logs
As center personnel provide service, they should track budget numbers or external customers charged, service performed or product sold, # of units sold, rate charged and total amount billed. This information is used to generate the billing and can be used to make usage estimates for future rate proposals. Click here for a sample usage log.
Internal Users
Service centers bill internal customers with an internal sales document (ISD). They can bill customers one of two ways:
- Using FASTRANS, which allows campus departments to upload information to the FIN system directly.
- With a paper form (UoW 1103) sent to Financial Services for input.
Using FASTRANS is strongly encouraged over the paper form because it decreases likelihood of errors and the revenue is deposited into the service or recharge center budget more quickly than the paper form.
General information on the electronic billing process can be found on the FASTRANS website.
MAA has developed a spreadsheet that can be used in conjunction with FASTRANS to bill internal customers electronically. This spreadsheet is especially helpful for new centers setting up their billing process or small and medium sized centers. Experienced users/large centers might want to develop a customized billing system for their center.
External Users
Service centers bill external users with an invoice through the Invoice Receivables office.
External users are charged institutional overhead and may be subject to sales tax and/or surcharges.
Additionally, the service center is subject to Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT) if the UBIT exemption criteria are not met.