Somehow, I knew today was going to SUCK!

[lupo pazzesco]

So...I wander into work this morning...

And I want to run right back out.

There is a STACK of paperwork, notes, invoices and post-its all over my desk about financial aid vouchers, transactions, and web order fulfillment.

*whimpers*

Here we go!!! More on the financial aid web order situation when I've a bit more time/longer lunch break to devote to it...

[Victory Sabre]

Poor Lupo. Hopefully your week will get better.

[lupo pazzesco]

Probably not, Victory. See, Financial Aid is going to run until... *checks calendar* Um...October 28th, as the absolute final day... *whimpers*

ANYWAYS, I get in this morning, and everything is uploading correctly, I'm updating the spreadsheet, running all the corrected numbers, and comparing invoices to totals, and everything is going as well as it can. Until I get to the bottom of a stack my boss left for me.

See, we're part of a corporation, as such we have stores all over the country. Now, HQ decided, in their infinite wisdom (OW! that hurt to type...) to compile all of our separate websites under one umbrella site, where you can then search for the store closest to the university you attend. Really, it's a good idea in theory, and after the first, oh, year or so of hiccups it's smoothed out. Mostly.

Well, can't have that!! So, last Spring before I came on board to this location, corporate decided all campus bookstores must allow financial aid charges as a payment method via the website. THAT is a headache and a half becuase the payment field for the CC number had to have code rewrittten, I believe, because it required the number of characters on a CC, as opposed to using the student ID number as a "payment" further, they couldn't allow a single designation of "Financial Aid" in its place, because each store has different term codes. I know, it's convoluted and can be streamlined, but that would be too EASY. Instead stores have to use different combinations of codes for their financial aid accounts, sometimes it depends on the school, sometimes not. We have to work around it, and keep the campus people happy.

Well, this causes headaches when placing web orders, because in the past, if we're below a certain quantity on a specific title (let's say 2) then the order will get kicked to a store in our chain that has more, and they'll fill it and process it. This requires running it as an AR charge, that in turn is submitted to the Student Business office here on campus, with the correct paperwork, etc, etc. This was maybe, 10-15% of the online orders, because if a person logs on and selects OUR University, they've been redirected to OUR homepage for books/supplies/merchandise, etc, with all of the possible orders we can fill coming to OUR computer system, and any titles we were low on getting booted to another store to fill. Well, over the summer, Corporate must have seen how smoothly that was going and decided to bung it up. Again.

Now, a company wide email went out: "We want EVERYONE to be able to fill weborders and get a share of the profits! From now on, we're going to split all weborders as evenly as possible! So if a studen orders 5 titles, well, if we can, we'll send fulfillment to 5 different stores!!"

I can tell you now, those of us in on campus stores that accepted financial aid shuddered and there may have been some tears. Because they've also changed HOW to process Financial Aid charges through the website. I've managed to streamline it down, to a science in 5 steps. However, whenever someone goes to process an order with us listed as the home store, and the student is paying with Financial Aid, they're going to get an error message and we in turn get an email for EVERY attempt to process the order telling us the charges failed.

So, say a store tried to run a transaction 6 times, over the course of a day, assuming the system was just slow or not working, etc. Well, that's 6 emails waiting for me...for the same damn order. I had a stack of papers on my desk this morning of failed transactions...

I ended up having to create a chart, listing order number, customer name and ID number, amount of the order, and sister store filling the order, just to keep it straight. Then after I compiled that list (took me about 45 minutes, by the way) I'm left with maybe 5-6 orders. That's IT. Everything else was duplicates.

Then I have to look up phone number and call the store, get ahold of their shipping/receiving agent, and walk them through how to process the order using 2 different screens/programs to do so, and require them to fax me a copy of the invoice, to submit for payment. If they dont' fax it to me, we don't get paid, and getting some of these other stores to cooperate isn't always easy. I had one asking why we needed it and when I explained, he told me that as I was the one walking him through it, that should be proof that the student had the financial aid.

Yup, this has been a FUN day, and I'm only about a third of the way through what I had intended to get done.

Extra bonus, as I sit here, typing this, a student came in and is demanding I break all the rules for him. I love it. NOW I get to post a sucky customer story, too, yay!!

[Victory Sabre]

And then it will, probably, continue after the date, because people can't be bothered to follow the cut-off date for FA. Just think of the suck then.

Sorry. Here's a

[jedimaster91]

Now, a company wide email went out: "We want EVERYONE to be able to fill weborders and get a share of the profits! From now on, we're going to split all weborders as evenly as possible! So if a studen orders 5 titles, well, if we can, we'll send fulfillment to 5 different stores!!"

WTF?! Please tell me this is for weborders being shipped to the student instead of ship to store. I know I'd be pissed if I had to trek to 5 different stores for 5 different books. I'd still be annoyed if they were all being shipped from different locations for no good reason. Especially if I had to pay individual shipping charges, financial aid or not.

[wolfie]

Now, a company wide email went out: "We want EVERYONE to be able to fill weborders and get a share of the profits! From now on, we're going to split all weborders as evenly as possible! So if a studen orders 5 titles, well, if we can, we'll send fulfillment to 5 different stores!!"

WTF? They're acting as if shipping costs were linear (i.e. shipping 5 packages of 1 book each cost the same as shipping 1 package of 5 books). I can understand 4+1 if the store nearest the student were out of (or critically low on) one title, but shipping individual books from all over the place instead of as many as possible in one package from the nearest store is going to cost money. Someone will have to pay for it - if it's billed to the student, and I were one of the students, I'd be raising hell. If the company pays (i.e. "free shipping"), then that's going to eat into the profits that they're trying to share around with the web orders.

[AccountingDrone]

I was thinking of going back to school, now I am not sure I want to risk buying books

[lupo pazzesco]

WTF? They're acting as if shipping costs were linear (i.e. shipping 5 packages of 1 book each cost the same as shipping 1 package of 5 books). I can understand 4+1 if the store nearest the student were out of (or critically low on) one title, but shipping individual books from all over the place instead of as many as possible in one package from the nearest store is going to cost money. Someone will have to pay for it - if it's billed to the student, and I were one of the students, I'd be raising hell. If the company pays (i.e. "free shipping"), then that's going to eat into the profits that they're trying to share around with the web orders.

No, they actually have an option for "Free Standard shipping" (USPS Media Mail). Anything above that, they're charged a set amount of shipping for UPS Ground, 2nd day, etc. The customer pays the shipping charges once, so if it's not enough to cover the rest of the shipping, we're the ones who cover it. But since the site advertises "Free shipping!" students usually select that option, and we're not out so much. But yeah, the whole shipping thing hasn't been thought through the entire way. Especially since we're filling orders for sister stores and vice versa, through the company website. We charge what WE pay out for shipping on the order, regardless, when we do inter store transfers

Example? Request for overnight shipping, customer is charged $24.95 for one book, but said book was almost 6 lbs, and it was halfway across the country. We ended up charging $70 to our UPS account. As a result, the transfer to the store read book cost: $100 + tax, shipping cost, $70, total = around $185. Customer's total on their order number? $130. That gets reported to the people who run the website so they can "adjust the protocol and procedures as needed"

Ask how many times it's actually been changed...

I was thinking of going back to school, now I am not sure I want to risk buying books

Don't be scared! If you do go back to school, PM me. I'll let you in on all the little tips and tricks that can save you bunches, so you don't have to go through the hassle that corporations seem to like to cause. Plus, all the legalities that bookstores like to try and dodge. It'll be ok. Don't let my hassles scare you off, please?

[AccountingDrone]

Don't be scared! If you do go back to school, PM me. I'll let you in on all the little tips and tricks that can save you bunches, so you don't have to go through the hassle that corporations seem to like to cause. Plus, all the legalities that bookstores like to try and dodge. It'll be ok. Don't let my hassles scare you off, please?

I have a good relationship with UCONN bookstores, they are where I got my paralegal certification.

My main issue is using Navy as my finance organization for school. *sigh* They can screw up a wet dream

[lupo pazzesco]

I have a good relationship with UCONN bookstores, they are where I got my paralegal certification.

My main issue is using Navy as my finance organization for school. *sigh* They can screw up a wet dream

Yeah, we have a lot of students that are Air Force or Army, so I know all about the headache that can cause. Especially when it comes to paying for books/tuition. that's a rant in and of itself... And then there's the students who get all or some of their school paid by VA, having to sit down and figure all of that out is always....fun. yes, fun. We'll go with that...

[dalesys]

... the students who get all or some of their school paid by VA...

Which should be, but isn't, combat pay.