About Central Accounts Receivable

Central AR provides local University units that sell services and/or goods with an online billing system with which to invoice, track, and collect on their receivables. The goal of Central AR is to meet the needs of local units by providing several options for invoice processing, providing printing and mailing services for invoices and statements, participating in collection of overdue accounts, and ensuring timely processing of all receivables transactions

Our personalized customer service area is well versed in dealing with the Harvard community and affiliated institutions (Dana Farber and Partners, for instance) and is practiced in the collection of delinquent accounts. Central AR and the AR Product Management team work together on an ongoing basis to evaluate the system for improvements and identify new functionality desired by our users. Our customer service area provides assistance to both local units and their customers. Central AR will also work on an individuall basis with local units to meet their billing and collection needs.

For users of the AR system, Central AR serves as the repository for receivables information, providing the University with accurate accounting of receivables activity. The centralized invoicing, collection, and receipt application reduces costs by eliminating the need for independent billing systems supported and funded by local units. Local units billing independently should consider using the services of Central AR for a number of reasons:

Benefits of Using Oracle Receivables and the Services of the Central AR Department

• Income is credited immediately to local billing units
• Invoices and monthly customer statements are printed and mailed by Central AR
• Central AR assumes printing and mailing costs
• All transactions including payments, cancellations, and invoices are posted to the General Ledger daily.
• Billing Units have on-line access to billing, receipt, and collection information
• AR maintains a database of over 11,000 customers from which to choose, with the flexibility of adding new customers
• Collection services are provided on aggregate customer balances over $1,000.00 that are 61 days old.
• Recording customer service and collection calls directly in the Oracle system for review by other collectors with access facilitates the on-line collaboration on collection activity with local units.
• Customers who are paid via the Harvard payroll can opt to have their charges deducted from their payroll checks.
• Oracle Receivables provides “real time” access to updated customer information.
• Local units have the ability to produce individual invoice copies locally to assist in the resolution of customer inquiries.
• Payments received are processed from our Lockbox eliminating the need to deposit funds using a credit voucher.