Quicker payment of tuition fees by Alfa-college students through a payment link in the invoices

He drew up the invoices, printed them out, folded them in half and then put them neatly in an envelope: until recently the debt management employee at Alfa-college had a special job in the digital world in which we live. Because no matter how well the man did his job; processing more than 13,000 invoices manually is not only quite inefficient, but also error-prone and time-consuming. “When the Alfa College came into contact with Payt, they could not help but be enthusiastic,” says Jeroen van der Ster, Director of Operations at the Alfa College.

Links from the debtor process

“Payt takes the entire chain off your hands, from invoices to reminders. Since we began using the software, we not only have a reliable and structured accounts receivable process, but also a number of links in the process have disappeared.”

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

“Thanks to Payt, we were able to discontinue that cooperation. That has resulted in considerable cost savings within the organization," explains Jeroen. “Payt has two distinct advantages. On the one hand we save time and money on the process and on the other hand Payt ensures better payment behavior of our customers.”

Better payment behavior

The latter in particular is a relief for the Director of Operations.

“Our students didn’t always pay neatly and on time, but for a large part we had ourselves to blame. If you remind people on time 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 can now confidently point people towards their outstanding invoices, because we know for sure that we have gone through the right process ourselves. We used to feel burdened. Then it turned out that the payment term for an invoice, for example, had already expired six months ago, and then we sent the first reminder. We received complaints about this, quite rightly. Students were quite correct that this was not professional."

Real time status and online payments

Now students can go online and with Payt’s customer portal view the status of their invoices in real time. A world of difference. “The costs of school fees are not tender. Almost always it concerns amounts higher than € 1,000. Not everyone can just pay for it. Nevertheless, the threshold for picking up the telephone and making a payment arrangement with our colleagues from the financial administration turned out to be too high. Now that we have switched to Payt, the 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 online. In the past they had to transfer this manually or fill in a giro collection form. All actions that influenced whether or not the tuition fees were paid on time.”

As you have gathered, the Alfa college swears by the solutions Payt provides. And the employee who performed the manual credit management process? He has been given a nice position in another department of the Alfa College.