Disbursements and Adjustments Window

The Disbursements and Adjustments window is used to import disbursement information regarding financial aid awards and update the student records in the Financial Aid Manager module. Financial aid users apply financial aid disbursements to the Financial Aid Student Awards table and to create actual award disbursement transactions for the Business Office to review and post to student accounts. A Disbursements-Adjustment Error/Audit Report can be printed listing any errors that may prevent a successful transfer and listing all successful transactions.

Disbursements are monies awarded to the student that may be applied to the student's receivable account as actual disbursement transactions from a real disbursement roster.

Adjustments are monies that represent either increases or decreases in the monies awarded to the student after their original award has been processed as an Actual Disbursement. Decrease adjustments are required to be real disbursed and processed as actual disbursement transactions.

Columns

This is the recommended first step in processing disbursements and adjustments.

Check this radio button to run the process without updating award amounts in the Student Awards table or creating transactions in the AR and GL modules. This allows you to see any errors and correct them before you actually run the disbursement in Actual Update mode.

After completing a Trial Run, check this radio button to process the actual disbursements and adjustments update. Award amounts are updated in the Student Awards table and transactions are created in the Business Office.

This column displays the transaction date for the transactions generated in the student accounts receivable in Business Office. The default is today's date. This date may be changed during an actual update; however, it is strongly recommended that you do not change this date or change it only to coincide with the disbursement date of the roster if different from today.

This column is applicable only if you are licensed for In-House Loan.

To define the number of months until loans are due for the disbursements included in the disbursement roster being processed, click the up arrow to increase or the down arrow to decrease the number.

If you select this radio button, the File Name column is available for you to edit. The following message displays on the window: "Previously Unprocessed Disbursements will be processed with this file."

If you select this radio button, only the Folder column is available for you to edit. The following message displays on the window: "Previously Unprocessed Disbursements will be processed with this option, even if disbursement rosters are not found in the selected folder." All disbursement rosters in the folder will be processed individually by date, starting with the earliest date.

If you select this radio button, neither the File Name nor the Folder column is available for you to edit. The following message displays on the window: "Only previously Unprocessed Disbursements will be processed with this option."

This column indicates the name of the disbursement file that will be imported into the Financial Aid Manager module.

Click the file icon to the right of this column to open the Choose a file window where you can navigate to the directory in which the file will be stored.

Files with the following extensions can be selected: .csv, .pf, .pf.ffr, or .ffr.

This column displays the entire path to the File Name. You will need proper permission.

The Folder prompt defaults to the location designated in the Financial Aid Configuration window. When the All Files in This Folder radio button is selected, you can update the folder by clicking the file icon to the right of this column. The Choose a folder window opens and allows you to specify the directory in which the file will be stored.

Files with the following extensions show up in the directory: .csv, .pf, .pf.ffr, or .ffr.

If you are using JFA, only .csv file extensions are used.

Buttons

Click the Process button to launch an interactive run.

If you have appropriate permissions and if you have the J1 Client Application Services installed on your machine, the Schedule button is available for you to use to schedule this process to run automatically.

How To

Prior to importing Disbursements and Adjustments into the system:

1. All funds being awarded to students must have values defined in the Fund Master table. If you have the Business Office application, you need to define debit and credit account numbers as well as subsidiary codes for the funds.

2. If you are using Jenzabar Financial Aid (JFA):

The Fund code value must be assigned to the external code on the Awards table in JFA Administration.

If you are using PowerFAIDS:

Fund Code value from Fund Master must be assigned to the fund's ledger number in PowerFAIDS.

3. All POEs in which funds are being transferred must be:

a. Defined in the Financial Aid Manager module.

b. Assigned a financial aid period (FAP) code to link to billing periods.

c. Cross-referenced to an AR module year and term for 1098-T processing.

4. Student records must be in the system, specifically in the Student Master table, and contain proper identification information.

5. You must have exported disbursements from PowerFAIDS or JFA (using the Batch Billing Export) and be able to identify and access the disbursement roster file and its location.

6. Prior to disbursing students in PowerFAIDS, it is highly recommended that you establish several disbursement eligibility reports. These reports should check for the following:

a. A value exists in Alternate ID. Having a value in Alternate ID indicates that the PowerFAIDS student also exists in J1. Alternate ID is populated with the J1 ID number from the data produced by the Create Student Update task. It is also sent as a result of completing matches identified during the Match Students process.

b. An appropriate value exists in the Credits column on the POEs view. Having an appropriate Credits value determines that the student is registered for the J1 Term mapped to the PowerFAIDS POE to be disbursed. The Credits column is populated with the J1 enrolled hours from the data produced by the Create Student Update task when POEs to Export are selected. Create Student update sends the enrolled hours calculated by Credit Hours Update and stored in the Financial Aid Master table.

7. Prior to disbursing students in PowerFAIDS, we highly recommend that you generate a simulated disbursement roster to review the disbursements to occur. This may take several iterations to confirm that you have the correct population to disburse. Run the final simulation roster through Disbursements and Adjustments in Trial Run mode. This may reveal additional issues to address prior to real disbursing and in PowerFAIDS.

You will not need to do this in JFA.

Use this procedure to process direct loans, in-house loans, and grants.

Be sure you prepare for importing Disbursements and Adjustments prior to running this process.

1. Open the Disbursements and Adjustments window.

2. Select the Trial Run radio button to view the information on your screen without updating award amounts or creating transactions.

Running the report as a trial run before the actual run allows you to see any errors and correct them before running the actual update. No award amounts are updated in the Student Awards table and no transactions are sent to the AR or GL modules in a trial run.

The Transaction Date column defaults to today's date.

Jenzabar highly recommends that Disbursements and Adjustments be executed interactively during a trial run.

3. If you are licensed for In-House Loan processing, select the number of months until loans are due if such funds are expected to be processed.

4. Determine what types of disbursement records are to be processed. Choices include Single File, All Files in This Folder, and Unprocessed Disbursements Only.

The Folder prompt defaults to the PowerFAIDS Disbursement Authorization Roster Location parameter in the Financial Aid Configuration window.

· To update the File Name column, select the Single File radio button.

a. Click the file icon to the right of the File Name column to locate the file. The Choose a file window opens.

b. Navigate to the file and double-click on it to display it in both the File Name and Folder columns, or type in the File Name of the PowerFAIDS (.csv, .pf, .pf.ffr, or .ffr) file that you want to transfer.

Previously unprocessed disbursements will be processed if Single File is selected when you run the process.

· To update the Folder column, select the All Files in This Folder radio button.

a. Click the file icon to the right of the Folder prompt to locate the desired folder. The Choose a folder window opens.

b. Navigate to the folder.

Previously unprocessed disbursements will be processed individually by date, starting with the earliest date (even if disbursement rosters are not found in the selected folder) if All Files in This Folder is selected when you run the process.

· If you select the Unprocessed Disbursements Only radio button, neither the File Name nor the Folder column is available for you to edit.

Only previously unprocessed disbursements will be processed if Unprocessed Disbursements Only is selected when you run the process.

5. Click Process to being the disbursement and adjustments trial run process immediately in interactive mode. Jenzabar recommends this method.

OR

Click Schedule to schedule the disbursements and adjustments trial run process to occur at a later time. Jenzabar recommends that you never schedule a trial run process as a recurring process.

The Schedule button is only available if you have J1 Client Application Services installed on your machine and you have been assigned the proper permissions.

The Disbursement-Adjustment Error/Audit Report is automatically generated. Print the report by clicking the Print icon or by choosing File > Print. If this is an interactive process run, the error report is stored in the location you specify. If this is a scheduled task run, this error report is stored in the Attachment table.

6. Review the error report, and make corrections to your data as necessary.

Refer to the Disbursements and Adjustments Warnings, Errors, and Messages help topic for information on specific error messages.

You can repeat this process until the report is error-free.

7. When you are ready to send this file to Accounts Receivable (AR), run this process again, selecting the Actual Update radio button. The file will go to AR as an FA transaction group.

8. The Student Loans window, the Financial Aid tab of the View Student Information window, and the Financial Aid tab of the Financial Aid Inquiry window display loan information that was successfully uploaded from the PowerFAIDS Disbursement Authorization roster.