Faster payment by students of Alfa-college via a payment link in the invoices

He prepared the invoices, printed them out, folded them in half, and then neatly placed them in an envelope: the accounts receivable manager at Alfa College in Groningen had, until recently, a unique job in the digital world we live in. No matter how well the man did his job; manually processing over 13,000 invoices is not only quite inefficient but also prone to errors and time-consuming. When Alfa College came into contact with Payt, they couldn’t help but be enthusiastic, says Jeroen van der Ster, Director of Operations at Alfa College.

Links in the Accounts Receivable Process

“Payt takes over the entire chain, from invoice to reminder. Since we started using the software, we not only have a reliable and structured accounts receivable process, but several links in the process have also been eliminated.

The ROC for secondary vocational education was still using a collection agency. This agency handled the so-called WIK letter (also known as a free reminder). After sending the WIK letter, the case was transferred to the bailiff.

“Thanks to Payt, we have been able to terminate that collaboration. This has resulted in significant cost savings within the organization,” Jeroen explains. “The effect of Payt is twofold. On one hand, we save time and money on the process, and on the other hand, Payt ensures better payment behavior from our customers.”

Better Payment Behavior

Especially the latter is a relief for the Director of Operations.

Our students did not always pay neatly and on time, but we largely had ourselves to blame for that. If you remind people in a timely manner and proactively offer them the option to pay the outstanding amount in installments, then you have solved a very large part of the ‘problem.’
Moreover, we are now better able to point out outstanding invoices to people because we are sure that we have followed the correct process ourselves. Previously, we sometimes felt embarrassed. For example, it turned out that the payment term of an invoice had already expired six months ago, and then we sent the first reminder. We received complaints about that, quite rightly. Students were absolutely right in finding this unprofessional.

Real-time status and iDEAL payments

How different it is now that students can log in online to the Payt customer portal and view the status of their invoices in real-time. “The cost of tuition is not insignificant. It almost always involves amounts higher than €1,000. Not everyone can just pay that easily. Yet, the threshold to pick up the phone and arrange a payment plan with our colleagues from the financial administration was too high. Now that we have switched to Payt, students or their parents can arrange this themselves via the online portal. Another important advantage is that students can now easily pay their tuition fees via iDEAL. Previously, they had to transfer it manually or fill out a payment slip. All actions that affected whether or not the tuition fees were paid on time.”

You read it; Alfa College swears by the solution that Payt offers them. And the gentleman from manual accounts receivable management? He has received a nice position in another department of Alfa College.