I am Diana Pruss, the Cash Office Supervisor. Carleton University accepts electronic fund transfers (EFT) for incoming payments that need to be deposited to your FOAPAL. I’d like to share some information that will help ensure that you receive your EFTs in a timely manner.
What should you do if someone wants to pay you via direct deposit or wire transfer?
- Your customer will request Carleton’s EFT/banking details
- You should forward their request to receipt.accounting@carleton.ca. Make sure to include the FOAPAL to record the deposit (i.e. where you want the payment to show up).
- Receipt Accounting will provide requested EFT information and email it back to you
- You should forward this EFT information to your customer, and
- It is very important that you request that the customer email a remittance advice to receipt.accounting@carleton.ca for each deposit. A remittance advice provides Receipt Accounting with the necessary details to ensure a deposit can be identified and processed.
What happens if you do not follow steps 1-4 outlined above?
Answer: your deposit will end up in suspense ….
- When your customer initiates a direct deposit/ wire payment, the funds are credited directly to Carleton University’s bank account.
- A bank statement can show as little as “Credit Memo” in the payment description. With only this information it is impossible to determine to which department the payment belongs (e.g. image below shows what we see).
- Unidentified amounts are recorded into a holding account, also known as the Suspense account, and remain there until they are claimed by the department.
To conclude, the remittance advice (i.e. step 4) from your customer is the most crucial step to ensuring that your FOAPAL gets credited for the services or goods that you provided. Otherwise, your deposit will end up in suspense!