For both disbursement processes, create a disbursement roster in Expanded format, selecting either Comma Separated or Fixed Format type. Do not select Right-Justified.
The Disbursements and Adjustments process imports disbursement data from PowerFAIDS creating transactions to update a student's receivable account and their Financial Aid Student Award record. The process can be automated or can be run interactively.
The Disbursements and Adjustments process begins in PowerFAIDS. Student records are tracked in PowerFAIDS; and when the student's required documentation has been received and any required verification process satisfied, they are generally eligible to have their financial aid funds released to them. Additionally, enrollment status should also be confirmed. Releasing funds to students requires three basic steps:
1. Execute
Disbursement from the Data Integration Module in PowerFAIDS.
OR
If you are disbursing Direct Loan funds, Execute Direct Loan Disbursement
Authorization also from the Data Integration Module in PowerFAIDS.
|
For both disbursement processes, create a disbursement roster in Expanded format, selecting either Comma Separated or Fixed Format type. Do not select Right-Justified. |
2. Execute Disbursements and Adjustments in J1 processing disbursement roster generated in Step 1.
3. In J1 Accounts Receivable, post financial aid disbursement transactions created in Step 2.
Each disbursement roster record is required to meet the following validation checks:
· SSN must match a single SSN in the Biograph Master table.
· The matched Biograph Master record must have an ID_NUM link to the Student Master table.
· The fund ledger number must match a J1 fund code.
· The matched J1 fund code must not be flagged as a No Transfer fund.
· A valid subsidiary code must be set.
· The POE ID must match a POE ID in the POE Definition table.
· The POE ID must be cross-referenced once to a year and term for the AR module in the POE Cross Reference table.
· Additional checks are done if you are using Open Items processing for Accounts Receivable or In-House Loan processing.
Disbursements and Adjustments to Student Accounts Update is a process that can be automated under the licensed Financial Aid Manager module only. To automate Disbursements and Adjustments requires that it be scheduled as a recurring job. The cycle frequency can be set in minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months to meet each institution's needs. Automating Disbursements and Adjustments will allow actual aid transactions to be sent over to the Business Office and the Financial Aid Awards window on a regular basis without the user executing it. Schools electing to automate this process must be prepared for the following to occur:
· Have multiple disbursement rosters processed
· Have only successful transactions from each roster be included in their assigned group number
It is highly recommended that you run Disbursements and Adjustments interactively for a short period of time and then automate Disbursements and Adjustments when you are comfortable with the process. You have the ability to schedule Disbursements and Adjustments to run only for the disbursement rosters stored in a specific folder, which will enable you to monitor different processing groups, such as undergraduate vs. graduate aid, or to process certain rosters interactively.
Notifications regarding a scheduled jobs completion can be scheduled as well and is highly recommended. These notifications will allow you to review any error and/or audit reports and will inform you if the process fails to run for any reason. You should review these notifications regularly.
Disbursements and Adjustments may be best implemented as an automated task that will run weekly at a specific day and time. This allows for the Financial Aid and Business Offices to review these transactions and correct those that may fail in a timely manner. However, any automation should consider how frequently you disburse funds now and be set up accordingly. Setting this up should involve coordination with the Business Office.
The Disbursements and Adjustments process checks for all possible error conditions and sends them to the error/audit report, which is not customizable. The process also creates rows for each error in the Disbursements Error table. Successful transactions are allowed to proceed for processing. Transactions failing validation are retained for re-processing once the error condition is resolved. The Disbursements Not Processed window is used to assist you with troubleshooting disbursements that failed validation and did not process successfully to the Business Office. This maintenance window allows you to view specific disbursement transactions and their associated error conditions. It also allows manual update of several key data elements. This task assists you in quickly resolving issues so a disbursement can successfully be processed. The Disbursements and Adjustments process does not handle PowerFAIDS simulated disbursement rosters to produce estimated aid (preliminary) transactions; however, the Anticipated Aid process is available to generate preliminary transactions.
The Disbursements and Adjustments process also populates data in the Disbursement Transaction History table. The Disbursement Transaction History table is a permanent record of the financial aid disbursement transaction at the time it was sent to Business Office. It is used to support the Collect Direct Loan Monthly Reconciliation Data and the Direct Loan Monthly Reconciliation Data Report. These records can be viewed from the Disbursement Transaction History window.
The setup needs of Disbursements and Adjustments are shared by most of the Disbursement Processing task group.
Setup for Disbursement Processing Task Suite
Working with Disbursements and Adjustments
Disbursement-Adjustment Error/Audit Report
Disbursements and Adjustments Warnings, Errors, and Messages
Working with the Disbursements not Processed
J1 Client Application Services
Automating Disbursement Processing