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Accounts Receivable and Billing (ARB)

Overview

Two M-Pathways modules, Accounts Receivable and Billing (ARB), allow the University to:

  • Bill (i.e., invoice) external sponsors for sponsored project awards or for external sales of U-M goods and services (i.e., general receivables)
  • Record invoices as receivable items and the payments on invoices as revenue, summarizing the financial data in the M-Pathways General Ledger
  • Track and report on receivable items, activity, and payments

Use of the ARB modules reduces invoicing time for external receivables and improves the University’s cash flow processes.

ARB Responsibilities

Financial Operations (Fin Ops) is responsible for entering and maintaining customer data, invoices, and payment data in the ARB modules. See External Billing & Receivables for Fin Ops ARB business process information.

Your unit is responsible for regularly monitoring your receivables via ARB reports if:

  • You have sponsored project/grants
  • You invoice external customers through the Fin Ops - General Accounts Receivable department

Monitoring Your Receivables

U-M credits the ChartFields for your unit or project/grant when an invoice (receivable) is entered in ARB. This transaction appears on your Statement of Activity report as a BI journal entry.

warning

The journal entry doesn’t mean the customer/sponsor has paid the invoice. You monitor the receivable to verify activity towards full payment or closure of the receivable. In the case of invoicing errors or non-payment by customers, your ChartFields will be debited by Fin Ops.

There are two ways you can monitor your receivables in M-Pathways:

  • Item Activity Summary in M-Pathways Financials
    Use to review outstanding invoices from a specific customer or to inquire about a particular invoice balance.
    Item activity summary allows you to review the item balance, days outstanding, status and list of activities for the item

  • ARB Reports
    There are three M-Pathways ARB reports:
    list of M-Pathways ARB reports
    • Aging Detail - shows the number of days outstanding for your open receivable items (i.e., billing invoices)
    • AR/Billing Detail - displays detailed invoice data related to the summarized billing journal posted to the General Ledger. This report is used in conjunction with Statement of Activity reconciliation.
    • Statement of Receivables - lists the activity (e.g., payments, credit memos) applied to your open receivable items.

Resources

The table below contains links to various Accounts Receivable & Billing resources by their location

Location Resource Description
Financial Operations External Billing & Receivables Provides business process information for billing (invoicing) sponsored project and general receivables.
My LINC Accounts Receivable & Billing Procedures
  • Describes the fields and data available on the ARB reports
  • Provides instructions to use the Item Activity Summary
"Run a report" procedures
Windows | Mac		 Provides instructions to run any M-Pathways report, including the ARB reports.

For My LINC Resources, click the link to go to the My LINC Activity page, then click the arrow to open the resource.

Within ITS, the Accounts Receivable and Billing (ARB) modules are supported by the AIS - Financials department.