Bursar to go paperless in the fall

When it's time for students to look at their fall bursar statements, they won't find them in their mailboxes. Instead, notifications will pop up in e-mail inboxes. \nEffective with July's bill, for students enrolled for fall 2005 semester, the Office of the Bursar will send tuition bills through QuikPAY, an electronic payment system. For the past two years, the system has offered an electronic statement history and printable bills, which can be saved for family records or sent with check payments to the processing center.\nSeven Big Ten schools use electronic billing for bursar statements. Kim Kercheval, associate bursar, said the Office of the Bursar has been thinking about moving to a paperless process for years. She said that when it comes to improving services at IU, electronic and self-service options are the most requested changes from parents and students.\n"E-billing provides more rapid access to billing statements," Kercheval said. "Students will have immediate notice of a new bill."\nParents or third parties can have access to a student's QuikPAY application. The system shows account activity, statement history, payment history and e-mail confirmations of accounts paid. With easy access to information, Kercheval thinks that students and parents will benefit, especially if they need to see or print past bursar statements.\n"No losing paper, no requesting a substitute from our office and being charged a fee for the duplicate," Kercheval said.\nThe Office of the Bursar expects to save money by eliminating paper for statements, mailing envelopes and postage.\n"We have a responsibility to the University to contain costs and be responsible stewards of the budget -- paperless billing is one means of meeting that responsibility," Kercheval said.\nEven though students can create online accounts for parents and print copies of the bills, some students prefer paper.\n"I'd rather have an actual bill in the mail," junior Amy Killingbeck said. "It'd make me feel more secure."\nSince QuikPAY requires authentication for each user, only those with approved log-ins can access the system. As long as a student doesn't share usernames or passwords, Kercheval doesn't think fraud will be a problem. However, Kercheval is prepared to deal with two online billing issues -- e-mail addresses and access to QuikPAY.\nIU policy states that e-mail is the official means of communication for students, but accounts have to be managed to make sure an inbox doesn't go over the space quota. If this happens, the e-mail bounces back to the sender, causing a student to miss important billing information.\nIf the e-mail account is managed, Kercheval said it's a simple process for a student to set up an account for an authorized payer. But, junior Melissa Middleton said she isn't so sure her mom could handle the new system.\n"I know I'd be fine with it," Middleton said. "But, I know my mom would ask me a lot of questions. I think she'd be a little confused by the system."\nKercheval said she doesn't want parents to be lost.\n"We are working to help students set up authorized payers and help those payers understand how to use the system," Kercheval said.\n-- Contact Staff Writer Jessica Levco at jlevco@indiana.edu.