Charging and Billing

Charging

The Copier Program charges users "in arrears".  That is, while the agreement to pay or account are set up in advance, we don't collect money until the end of our monthly billing cycles.

How we set devices up for charging depends on these customer agreements:

•  "Sole source" devices are charged to FOAPALs provided by the unit that requested to have the device placed.  Users can generally just walk up to the device and use it with no authentication; some units put a simple code on the device, and only tell their employees that code, to prevent people who are not employees from using the device.

• Pharos-enabled devices have Pharos Uniprint® controlling access to the device and allowing account management for the users.  All users must be set up in our Pharos system with a FOAPAL and/or a Student Business Services account.

• Monthly minimum charges are agreed-upon between the Copier Program and the unit that requested placement of the device.  The unit provides Copier Program with a FOAPAL to use in case a minimum makeup charge must be levied in any given month.  These charges are calculated automatically based on the monthly volume used on a device.

Billing

All FOAPALs are charged at the beginning of the month for the previous month's charges through BANNER/FIS; all SBS charges are submitted to Student Billing Services and charged monthly according to their schedule.

For FOAPAL charges, we aggregate all Pharos and non-Pharos (sole source, minimum makeup, etc.) charges and process them into BANNER so the FIS journals representing the charges each month show a charge date of the last calendar day of the month.  We have access to the raw data for reporting as well as the aggregate data.  Within 10 business days of the close of the billing cycle the Copier Program generates reports that are delivered by email to the business office, officer, or selected departmental/unit recipient as PDF files.  These reports show all charges for a given user on a particular device, whether in black and white or color, using a specific FOAPAL, as well as totals for FOAPALs and for the business unit as a whole.

For SBS charges we compress all charge data into one line per user, and submit that amount to SBS for charge on the date as determined by their calendar.  Students must pay these charges within 10 days, or they may be subject to a late fee from SBS.