Billing Office Moves to Web-Based Term Bills

Overdue library books. Another new ID card. A Harvard parking ticket.

Until a week ago, students had to trek to the student billing office in the Holyoke Center to find out if such fees weighed down there term bills.

But now the trek is gone: students can access their term bills online.

The University made the decision to put bills online roughly a year ago.

"A fair number of other schools had done it already," said Susan Schnare, acting director of student financial services.

"We had two goals in mind: to utilize the Harvard University PIN and to make absolutely sure that the site was secure," she said.

According to Schnare, both these goals have been achieved. Her office has high hopes for the newly opened site.

To access term bill information, students should go to the site www.termbill.harvard.edu and enter their Harvard ID number and PIN.

Once past an initial screen, students can access an account summary that will include any anticipated financial aid. If a student pays their term bill via a payment plan, they will also be able to access a schedule to see when their next payment is due.

Students also have the option of viewing what Schnare called a "detail for the term" which is comparable to a monthly statement. They can access archived monthly statements that go back as far as the fall term of 1998.

Another added bonus of the site is that it allows students to view all the addresses that the University has on record for them so that they can verify that their term bills are being sent to the correct address.

"We hope people will be pleased with [the site]," said Schnare. "We hope it will help students answer the simpler questions, like 'Did I get credit from the library?' and 'Did that payment ever come in?'"

Human representatives will still be available for knottier questions, Schnare said.

But the website will allow office employees to spend less time answering questions that the students should be able to answer themselves.

Students yesterday said they appreciate the new convenience.

"My life is hectic enough. I don't have time to go to the student billing office, wherever that is," said Maryann Vellanikaran '04.

Others praised Harvard for taking advantage of new technologies.

"What's so great about it is that it's so convenient. I really appreciate how [Harvard] is trying so hard to use the Internet to make our lives a little easier," said Tracy A. Fong '04.

But many students said they had not yet heard of the new website, which the University has yet to widely publicize. According to Schnare, the Registrar's Office will soon be distributing information about the new website to the Houses so that an update can be placed in House newsletters.