PeopleSoft Financial Aid 9.0 PeopleBook

Setting Up Disbursement Rules

This chapter provides an overview of disbursement rules and discusses how to:

Define user edit messages.
Set up disbursement proration rules.
Define global disbursement rules.
Define item type disbursement rules.
Set up authorization and disbursement calendars.

Understanding Disbursement Rules

This section provides a list of prerequisites and an overview of:

Disbursement rules.
Disbursement proration rules.
Global disbursement rules.
Item type disbursement rules.
Authorization and disbursement calendars.
Disbursement ID Table (DISBURSE_ID_TABLE) review.

Prerequisites

Before setting up disbursement rules, you must:

Set up your institution's financial aid item types and packaging disbursement plans and IDs for the aid year for which you are processing disbursements. These tasks are part of your setup for awarding students.
Define the FA-BUDGET item grouping in PeopleSoft Student Financials.
Understand how service impacts and checklists affect your financial aid processes.
Define the specific eligibility criteria necessary to authorize the disbursement of your financial aid funds to students.

See Also

Managing Checklists

Setting Up Item Types and Item Type Groups

Disbursement Rules

Authorization and disbursement are the two parts of delivering financial aid funds to students:

The authorization process applies user-defined global and financial aid item type specific disbursement rules to determine whether awards are eligible for disbursement and determines the amount eligible for disbursement.
When the awards are successfully authorized, disbursement is the actual delivery of financial aid funds to the student's account in Student Financials.

Warning! To ensure that the Financial Aid Authorization and Disbursement processes function correctly, implement Student Financials first. Implementing Financial Aid without Student Financials requires the creation of modified interfaces to update the Financial Aid loan system with confirmation that student loan funds have been applied to the student's account.

You define authorization process rules by aid year, career, and award (financial aid item type). These rules allow or prevent the disbursement of awards for students in a particular career or for a particular award. A Validation process during awarding or packaging checks on a variety of rules and limits, but student information, particularly registration information, can change before disbursement occurs. The Authorization process checks rules just before the disbursement of awards, either online or in a background authorization process.

Global disbursement rules can apply to all students in a particular career and check that packaging, federal verification, and review of the student's financial aid files are complete. Service impacts and tracking groups can be checked as a global rule. Global rules can hold financial aid if the student has withdrawn, honor any disbursement hold that might exist elsewhere in the system, and withhold disbursement for unsatisfactory academic progress.

Item type disbursement rules for particular awards are associated with a career, so different rules can be defined for each career in which the award is used. Many disbursement rules can be applied to an award, such as:

Checking a student's academic load and academic level against the load and level used to determine thee student's budget or award package.
Holding if a student is overawarded, has withdrawn, or has other holds in the system.
Verifying membership in a particular student group, such as an ethnic group, athletic team, geographic location, honor students, or particular field of study.
Using checklists, tracking groups, or service impacts.

The background disbursement process uses disbursement and authorization calendars to determine when awards can be disbursed to students:

Authorization calendars indicate the careers and terms that are eligible for authorization and if aid can be authorized more than once for that term, or reauthorized. Reauthorization retests the student's eligibility criteria to ensure that the student is still eligible for awards previously authorized and that changes made after the prior authorization have not made the student ineligible for the award.
Disbursement calendars control which awards, by career, are disbursed for a particular term. You can disburse all awards, all awards except a defined subset, or only a subset of awards. Use the disbursement calendar to control when certain awards are disbursed during the aid year.

The calendars are both effective-dated so you can set up your background disbursement plans for the entire aid year with effective dates for your second, third, and subsequent terms that determine when the awards are disbursed. Alternatively, you can use the same effective date on your calendar for all terms and use run control parameters to control the order in which awards are disbursed. Run control parameters can restrict the background authorization and disbursement processes to only a subset of terms and financial aid item types or can improve processing efficiency by dividing the total population of aid students into several smaller groups that you run sequentially.

Disbursement Proration Rules

If financial aid at your institution is always awarded based on a full time academic load or you have funds for which a full time academic award is assumed, you can set proration rules for specific awards. Use proration rules to base the disbursement for specific awards on a student's enrollment load instead of using the default full time award amount. The term award amount is prorated based on a formula that you set up on the Disbursement Proration Rules page. The proration is calculated for each disbursement for an award and the amounts can vary depending on the term each disbursement is assigned.

Disbursement proration rules are most useful for nonfederal awards and institutional funds for which the award amount should be based on the academic load of the student. You can apply a disbursement proration rule to a financial aid item type when you define the financial aid item type's disbursement rules—on the Disbursement Rules: Item Type - Indicators page.

Note. Disbursement proration rules should not be set up for Pell Awards if you select Enrollment FA Load or Enrollment Current Load in any of the Pell calculation fields Pell Calculation Start, Pell Calculation Midterm, and Pell Calculation Census. The Pell Calculator automatically prorates a student's award based on their FA Load or Current Load, Cost of Attendance (COA), and Expected Family Contribution (EFC) when you select Enrollment FA Load or Enrollment Current Load. If you select Full Time or Half Time for all of the Pell calculation fields, you could use a disbursement proration rule, but be aware that the proration rule reduces the award based on the FA Load only.

See Also

Defining Installation Level Defaults

Global Disbursement Rules

The disbursement authorization process uses global disbursement rules that are defined by career and apply to all financial aid item types. Use global disbursement rules to set up requirements that all students in the selected career must meet for authorization. Several different elements can be selected in the global disbursement rules, such as service impacts, tracking groups, and academic progress information. For example, you might set up a specific tracking group for students in a certain career. If a student does not meet the items in the tracking group, then the global disbursement rules are not satisfied and the student's aid is not authorized for disbursement.

The disbursement authorization process considers global disbursement rules, defined by career, before it considers item type disbursement rules. In addition, the authorization process verifies whether awards have been accepted and sufficient fiscal funds are available for the disbursement.

Item Type Disbursement Rules

Item type disbursement rules enable you to identify specific criteria that must be met before authorizing individual awards for disbursement. Item type disbursement rules are set up for each career, so if multiple careers use the same item type, you need to define item type disbursement rules for each career. Doing so allows you to select different item type disbursement rules for different careers that use the same item type. Item type disbursement rules take effect during authorization and apply to the designated item type only. Set up item type disbursement rules for all awards (financial aid item types) that have specific rules applied to them.

For example, a Perkins loan might require completion of a particular checklist. You can make the Perkins loan disbursement contingent upon completion of the checklist by adding the checklist as part of the item type disbursement rules. If the Perkins loan fails the authorization step and can not be disbursed, all other awards to the student can be authorized and disbursed.

The disbursement authorization process considers global disbursement rules, defined by career, before item type disbursement rules. In addition, the authorization process verifies whether awards have been accepted and that sufficient fiscal funds are available for the disbursement.

Authorization and Disbursement Calendars

Authorization and disbursement calendars are used by the background authorization and disbursement processes only. If you do not use background authorization and disbursement, you do not need to create these calendars. If you set up these calendars, they are not used if you authorize and disburse awards manually (online). For this reason, ensure that access to your online disbursement pages is carefully determined.

Authorization and disbursement calendars must include each term for which you disburse aid for the aid year. Both calendars use separate effective-dated rows. Using both authorization and disbursement calendars and run control parameters gives you flexibility in implementing your institution's authorization and disbursement. For example, you can set up a single effective-dated row for both the authorization and disbursement calendars where all valid terms and financial aid item types are selected, and then use the batch run control parameters to control the term and financial aid item types that are processed.

Alternatively, you can use multiple future effective-dated rows to introduce the terms and financial aid item types that should be processed over the course of the school year and use the batch run control parameters for exception processing only. For example, if you need a fall and spring disbursement calendar, you might set the fall term's effective date in August and the spring term's effective date in December, one month before the beginning of each term. When background authorization and disbursement is run in September, only awards for fall term would be disbursed because only the authorization and disbursement calendars for fall would have a valid effective date. Both disbursement and authorization calendars, with effective dates, should be set up for each term. Review your business processes carefully to determine the best way to set up your background processes.

Disbursement ID Table Review

The Disbursement ID Table is set up when you define disbursement plans and split codes for awards. A disbursement ID is set up for each disbursement that should be associated with a disbursement plan. Each disbursement ID has a disbursement date associated with it to control the disbursements. The background disbursement process uses the disbursement date to determine whether the awards can be disbursed. The background disbursement process only disburses awards if the cutoff date, on the disbursement calendar, is equal to or later than the disbursement date on the Disbursement ID Table. Set up both the cutoff date on the disbursement calendar and the disbursement date on the Disbursement ID Table to ensure that awards are disbursed at the correct time.

Note. Federal guidelines state that federal financial aid cannot be disbursed to a student more than 10 days prior to the first day of the term, and that federal financial aid should be disbursed separately for each term.

Defining User Edit Messages

To set up user edit messages, use the Create User Edit Messages (USER_EDIT_MSGS) component.

This section provides an overview of user edit messages and discusses how to create user edit messages.

Understanding User Edit Messages

User edit messages can act like service impacts or can designate workflow and disbursement processes for use in special handling of students. You can specify that user edit messages affect your disbursement process by assigning a user edit message to a disbursement rule (either global or financial aid item type). Add user edit messages on the Disbursement Rules: Global page and Disbursement Rules: Item Type page.

Page Used to Define User Edit Messages

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
User Edit Messages	FA_EDIT_MSG_TBL	Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Create User Edit Messages, User Edit Messages	Create or modify user edit messages. These messages are financial-aid-specific indicators that the disbursement processes can use.

Creating User Edit Messages

Access the User Edit Messages page (Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Create User Edit Messages, User Edit Messages).

Edit Message Type

Displays the categorized edit message. This field is currently used for statistical purposes only and does not control any processing. Values include Error, Informational, and Warning.

Note. When you enter a new edit message code, select an edit message type to categorize the error message.

Edit Message Code

Enter a code, up to six characters long, to represent this error message. Enter any code that is meaningful to those who use it. This code appears on the Message Detail page in the authorization and disbursement components if the financial aid item type fails authorization.

Setting Up Disbursement Proration Rules

To set up disbursement proration rules, use the Create Proration Rules (DISB_PRORATION) component.

This section discusses how to define a proration scheme.

Page Used to Set Up Disbursement Proration Rules

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
Disbursement Proration Rules	DISB_PRORATION	Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Create Proration Rules, Disbursement Proration Rules	Define a proration scheme. Then use the Disbursement Rules: Item Type - Indicators page to apply the disbursement proration rule to a specific financial aid item type.

Defining a Proration Scheme

Access the Disbursement Proration Rules page (Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Create Proration Rules, Disbursement Proration Rules).

FA Load

Select an enrollment value to include in the proration rule. Insert rows to add all valid FA Load values for your institution. If a student's enrollment does not match any of the values that you select on this page, the system generates an error message when you run the authorization process. FA Load values are defined in the PeopleSoft Student Records Level/Load Rules component. Values are:

Full-Time: The student is enrolled full-time.

Half-Time: The student is enrolled half-time.

Less 1/2: The student is enrolled less than half-time.

No Units: The student is not enrolled in any units for the term.

Three Qtrs: (three-quarters): The student is enrolled for three-quarters of a full-time load.

% (percentage)

Enter the percent of the term's disbursement that the student should receive for this enrollment level.

Note. You should create an award message that tells students why their disbursed amount is less than their awarded amount for awards that use the disbursement proration rule. The award message can be defined for individual financial aid item types.

See Also

Setting Up Award Messages

Defining Global Disbursement Rules

To set up global disbursement rules, use the Define Global Rules (DISB_RULE_GLB) component.

Global disbursement rules are set up by career and affect all students in the career.

This section discusses how to:

Define basic global rules for authorization.
Assign service indicators, tracking groups, and user edit messages.

Pages Used to Define Global Disbursement Rules

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
Disbursement Rules: Global - Indicators	DISB_RULE_GLB	Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Define Global Rules, Indicators	Define basic global rules for authorization. Select specific rules used to hold disbursements of financial aid monies.
Tracking/Messages	DISB_RULE_GLB_2	Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Define Global Rules, Tracking/Messages	Assign service indicators, tracking groups, and user edit messages to a global disbursement rule.

Defining Basic Global Rules for Authorization

Access the Disbursement Rules: Global - Indicators page (Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Define Global Rules, Indicators).

Because these global disbursement rules apply to a particular career, you might want to include the career as part of the description and short description.

Select the reasons that you want disbursement to be held. The authorization process verifies each of the items that you select.

Review Complete	Select this check box to require that an institutional review must be completed before disbursement. The Authorization process requires that the value in the Review Status field on the Packaging Status Summary page is Complete.
Package Complete	Select this check box to require that packaging must be completed before disbursement. The Authorization process requires that the value in the Aid Processing Status field on the Packaging Status Summary page is Packaging Completed.
Verification Complete	Select this check box to require that the Department of Education's federal verification must be completed before disbursement. The authorization process requires that the value in the Verification Flag field on the Packaging Status Summary page is Complete or Not Required.
Post Disb Reduction Control (post disbursement reduction control)	Select this check box to activate post disbursement reduction control, which causes award reductions that cause authorization failures for current terms to be managed in the same way as those for previous terms if money had been previously disbursed. For example, assume that a disbursement has been made after which the award is changed for the current term. If this check box is selected, and authorization of the financial aid item type subsequent to the change fails, the lesser of the disbursed amount or the awarded amount is authorized for disbursement for the current term. The lesser of the disbursed amount or awarded amount is authorized for disbursement in previous terms regardless of whether this check box is selected. If you select this check box, the Post Disb Red Ctrl − Census Dt (post disbursement reduction control − census date) check box becomes unavailable. The Disbursement Authorization routine determines current term and prior term using the current date and term end dates. If the current date is before the term end date, that term is the current term. If the current date is after the term end date, that term is a prior term.
Post Disb Red Ctrl − Census Dt (post disbursement reduction control − census date)	Select this check box to use the same rules as the Post Disb Reduction Control check box except that only award changes that occur after the census date for the term are evaluated. The disbursement authorization process uses the same census date as the Financial Aid Term build process. The Census Date Locking page, which you access from the FA Term page, displays the census date used. If you select this check box, the Post Disb Reduction Control check box becomes unavailable.
Hold If Withdrawn	Select this check box to require that disbursement is held when a student has withdrawn from the institution. If a student withdraws, you might want to reduce the student's financial aid award and manually disburse online. The authorization process searches Financial Aid Term records for withdrawal information.
Honor Disbursement Hold	Select this check box to require the authorization process to honor any disbursement hold that has been entered on the Packaging Status Summary page if the financial aid item type matches the disbursement hold type. The types of awards that can be held are Fed Aid (federal aid), Institut. (institutional), and Loan Hold. Funds are not authorized for disbursement if a disbursement hold exists.
Must Meet Satisfactory Prog (must meet satisfactory progress)	Select this check box to require that the value in the Satisfactory Academic Progress field on the Packaging Status Summary page is Meets SAP or Probation.
Hold If No Enrollment Data	Select this check box to require that a student's current FA Term record for the award is built from enrollment data in Student Records—not projection data—for disbursements to be authorized. The rule verifies whether the FA Term build source is Term. For example, if you select this check box and the student has never enrolled in any classes for the term, no funds are disbursed. The same option is available for financial aid item type disbursement rules. Selecting it here enforces the rule for all students and all of their awards in the career for which this global disbursement rule applies. This rule should be used in conjunction with the Hold if Withdrawn and Minimum Units rules to insure that the student is still enrolled for the current term.
Match Fees	Select this check box to require that the tuition-related fees on the student's account match the amount calculated in the student's budget to disburse funds. The fees in the student's account are based on the financial aid item types that belong to the FA-BUDGET item grouping (used by the tuition calculation process). This amount is compared to the financial aid budget fees that belong to the TUIT budget category.
Tolerance Amt (tolerance amount)	This field appears when you select the Match Fees check box. Enter the largest amount by which the fee and budget item amounts can differ. If the difference between a fee and a budget item is smaller than or equal to the amount entered in this field, the disbursement is authorized; otherwise, the disbursement is held.

Assigning Service Impacts, Tracking Groups, and User Edit Messages

Access the Tracking/Messages page (Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Define Global Rules, Tracking/Messages).

Service Impact

Select any service impacts to honor global disbursement rules. If a student with this career has an active service indicator with a matching service impact, the authorization process does not authorize the student's awards.

Note. If your institution has upgraded from a previous release of Campus Solutions, review service impacts in the Setting Up Service Indicator Security in the PeopleSoft Campus Community Fundamentals 9.0 PeopleBook.

See Setting Up Service Indicator Security.

Tracking

Enter the tracking groups that must be completed before financial aid can be disbursed to a student's account. A tracking group can contain one or more checklists. Insert rows to enter additional tracking groups. You can add checklists to disbursement rules in the Disbursement Rules: Item Type component.

User Edit Messages

Enter messages whose presence on a student's record should hold disbursement. User edit messages are special handling instructions that you define for your students. If a student with this career has one of the user edit messages entered in this group box, the authorization process does not authorize that student's awards.

Type	Indicates the type of user edit message that you want to associate with the global disbursement rule. You can only select user edit messages of this type in the Msg Code (message code) field. Insert additional rows to enter additional user edit message types and message codes.
Msg Code (message code)	Enter the message code of the user edit message that causes disbursement to be held. The values are restricted to those with a matching Type value.

Defining Item Type Disbursement Rules

To set up item type disbursement rules, use the Define Item Type Rules (DISB_RULE_ITEM) component.

This section discusses how to:

Define authorization rules for a financial aid item type.
Define additional restrictions.
Assign checklists, tracking groups, service indicators, and user edit messages.

Pages Used to Define Item Type Disbursement Rules

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
Disbursement Rules: Item Type - Indicators	DISB_RULE_ITM1	Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Define Item Types Rules, Indicators	Define authorization rules for a financial aid item type. Select specific rules used to hold disbursements of financial aid monies.
Copy Disbursement Rule Data	DISB_RULE_COPY	Click the Copy Setup Data link on the Disbursement Rules: Item Type - Indicators page.	Copy disbursement rule setup from one combination of academic institution, aid year, academic career, item type, and effective date to another.
Groups/Thresholds	DISB_RULE_ITM2	Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Define Item Type Rules, Groups/Thresholds	Define additional restrictions necessary for disbursement of the item type. Place restrictions by minimum units, by grade point average (GPA) required, by a student's attributes, by academic standing, by home residency, or by academic focus.
Checklists/Tracking	DISB_RULE_ITM3	Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Define Item Type Rules, Checklists/Tracking	Assign checklists, tracking groups, service indicators, and user edit messages to an item type disbursement rule.

Defining Authorization Rules for a Financial Aid Item Type

Access the Disbursement Rules: Item Type - Indicators page (Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Define Item Types Rules, Indicators).

Note. Schools are required to create item type disbursement rules for every ACG and SMART item type. This is required even when schools do not use the delivered ACG and SMART item type disbursement authorization rules.

Copy Setup Data

Click this link to access the Copy Disbursement Rule Data page and copy disbursement rule setup from one combination of academic institution, aid year, academic career, item type, and effective date to another. You can also copy item type disbursement rules using the aid year rollover process.

Indicators

Select the reasons that you want disbursement to be held. The Authorization process verifies each of the items that have been selected.

Official Fed EFC (official federal expected family contribution)	Select this check box to require that an official EFC must be included in the latest Institutional Student Information Records (ISIR) data prior to disbursement.
NSLDS Loan Year Match (National Student Loan Data System loan year match)	Select this check box to require that the loan year information on the budget term table match the student's NSLDS Loan year on the Financial Aid Term.
Bdgt/Term Level Match (budget/term level match)	Select this check box to require that the student's level on the budget term table must match the student's level on the Financial Aid Term before a disbursement can be made.
Loan Entrance Intervw Req (loan entrance interview requirement)	Select this check box to have the authorization process determine whether a student must complete loan entrance counseling for awards of this item type. If your school uses a Loan Counseling Version of Expanded,the authorization process reviews the student's loan counseling history on the Loan Counseling page to determine whether the student has satisfied the requirement. If your school uses a Loan Counseling Version of Simple, the authorization process checks the student's NSLDS history for a prior Stafford, Direct, or Supplemental Loan for Student (SLS) loan. If the system finds a record, it authorizes the item type for disbursement. If no prior loan history exists, the student is assumed to be a new borrower, and the Loan Entrance Interview Status field on the Packaging Status Summary component is checked for the student's current status. When an item type fails authorization because of the loan entrance counseling requirement, the following messages can appear: The student is a first time borrower if the current Loan Entrance Interview Status field is blank, or Loan Interview is required to authorize the loan if the current Loan Entrance Interview Status value is Inst Req (Institution Required). To control how this disbursement rule is carried out, use the Loan Entrance Interview Status field on the Packaging Status Summary page. Setting this field to Complete or Pending Resolution allows the disbursement to pass this requirement. You can select this check box only for Direct Loan and FFEL financial aid item types. See Setting Up Loan Counseling.
Awd Career Match Term Career (award career matches term career)	Select this check box to prevent disbursement if the career used when making the award is not the career that is in Financial Aid Term data.
Hold Disb Fed Overaward (hold disbursement federal overaward)	Select this check box to prevent disbursement of this financial aid item type if a federal overaward exists.
Hold Disb Inst Overaward (hold disbursement institutional overaward)	Select this check box to prevent disbursement of this financial aid item type if an institutional overaward exists.
Authorize to Fee Assessment	Select this check box to require that the disbursed amount for the financial aid item type cannot be greater than the balance on the student's account for the term. If selected, the amount disbursed for the financial aid item type is not greater than the balance on the student's account. For this feature to work, you must set up the predelivered item grouping named "FA-BUDGET" in Student Financials. Item groupings are set up on the Item Groupings component (Set Up SACR, Product Related, Student Financials, Item Types, Item Type Group). You must assign the appropriate item tree and tree nodes that contain the charge item types that you want the rule to count. See Setting Up Item Types and Item Type Groups.
FFELP Tolerance Amt (Federal Family Educational Loan Program tolerance amount)	Enter the acceptable difference between the authorized amount and the net disbursement amount for the financial aid item type. If the authorized amount is greater than the net disbursed amount, the system calculates the difference. If this difference is greater than the FFELP tolerance amount, the system displays an error during disbursement authorization. If you leave this field at the default setting (zero), the loan disbursement amount must match the net disbursement amount from the student's package. Generally, you should set this field to a large value (such as 1,000.00 USD) if FFELP loan increases are common. The authorization process never authorizes an amount greater than the amount of any loan check. In addition, disbursements for loans processed electronically using CommonLine are updated to match the approved disbursement amounts from the lender if an electronic guarantee is received and processed by the school.
ASG HERA Level Match (ACG/SMART Higher Education Reconciliation Act Level Match)	Select this check box to compare the HERA level in the grant eligibility record with the beginning of term HERA level in FA Term. Authorization fails if the values do not match.
ASG CIP Code Match (ACG/SMART Certification of Instructional Program Code Match)	Select this check box to compare the CIP code stored in the grant eligibility record and to the student's derived CIP code from Student Records data, which is from the student's program, plan, or sub-plan and the CIP Code source setting in the ACG/SMART Processing Options page. Authorization fails if the values do not match. If the student has more than one CIP code due to having multiple active programs, plans, or subplans, one match satisfies the rule.
ASG Minimum GPA (ACG/SMART minimum grade point average)	Select this check box to verify that the current GPA meets the minimum GPA assigned for the item type ASG Minimum GPA field. For non 2nd year ACG item types, the GPA from the current FA Term record is used. If the award is defined as a second year ACG grant, then the GPA that is checked is the current GPA for the term where the student completed their HERA level 1. Note. The rule fails for new transfer students awarded 2nd year ACG and first time financial aid recipients because they would not have any prior FA Term information. Use the disbursement override functionality to disburse the award.
ASG Incomplete Grades (ACG/SMART incomplete grades)	Select this check box to check for any enrolled course prior to the current term where the grade is still considered in progress (a final grade has not yet been posted). Only courses requiring a grade are checked. If the rule fails, the term that the course is enrolled displays with the error message.
ASG Pell Grant Awarded (ACG/SMART Pell Grant awarded)	Select this check box to verify that the student has been awarded and has accepted a Pell Grant for the current aid year.
Review Complete, Package Complete, Post Disb Reduction Control (post disbursement reduction control), Post Disb Red Ctrl - Census Dt (post disbursement reduction control − census date), Hold If Withdrawn, Honor Disbursement Hold, Must Meet Satisfactory Prog (must meet satisfactory progress), Hold If No Enrollment Data, Match Fees, Verification Complete, and Tolerance Amt (tolerance amount)	The descriptions for these fields are the same as for the fields on the Disbursement Rules: Global - Indicators page. See Defining Basic Global Rules for Authorization.

Load Level Rules

Select whether the three enrollment load-dependent fields in this group box use the default FA Load enrollment load or the student's current load. Both values can be viewed on the student's Financial Aid Term record.

Bdgt/Term Load Match (budget/term load match)	Select this check box to require that the academic load in the budget term table match the student's Financial Aid Term FA Load enrollment load information. You can also use the current load from the student's Financial Aid Term record.
Disbursement Proration Rule	Select a disbursement proration rule if awards of this financial aid item type should be prorated based upon the student's Financial Aid Term FA Load value. This rule is used to disburse fractional award amounts to students based on fractional academic loads. For example, a student who is enrolled three-quarters time would receive only 75 percent of the scheduled disbursement amount. These rules are set up on the Disbursement Proration Rules page. You can also use the current load from the student's Financial Aid Term record.
Stop After Census	Appears only when you select a value in the Disbursement Proration Rule field. Select this check box to prevent the disbursement proration rule from taking effect for this financial aid item type after your institution's census date for the term. The disbursement authorization process uses the same census date as the Financial Aid Term build process. The Census Date Locking page, accessed from the FA Term page, displays the census date used. The proration of disbursements typically occurs during the add and drop period before the census date of the term. After that point, depending on your business processes, your institution repackages all prorated awards based on the census date enrollment. After this repackaging has been completed, institutions typically disable the proration rule for the term. This process is repeated each term. This check box enables you to control the proration of financial aid item types per term without having to change the disbursement proration rule settings each term. For example, assume that an item type's proration rule indicates that the student should receive 50 percent of the disbursement if enrolled half-time. You select the Stop After Census check box for this item type and the census date is October 15, 2007. If you authorize an award of this item type for a student enrolled half-time on October 14, 2007, the Packaging routine prorates the award. If you authorize the same award on October 16, 2007, the Packaging routine authorizes the entire award, not just the 50 percent that results from proration. If you do not repackage all of your prorated awards before the stop after census feature goes into effect, you risk reauthorizing prorated awards for the maximum amount for the term. You might want to stop running batch authorization for these financial aid item types until you have completed repackaging the prorated awards. You can use the new batch authorization page functionality to accomplish this.
Awd/Term Load Match (award/term load match)	Select this check box to require that the academic load used by the award match the Financial Aid Term FA Load value. You can also use the current load from the student's Financial Aid Term record.
Use Current Load	The academic load used for awarding can match the Financial Aid Term current load value instead of the Financial Aid Term FA Load value. If you select a value in this field, the Bdgt/Term Load Match, Disbursement Proration, and Awd/Term Load Match rules all use the selected value. Values are: (blank): Use Financial Aid Term academic load information. All Stdnts (all students): Use Financial Aid Term current load information for all students with this financial aid item type. OEE Only: Use Financial Aid Term current load information for only open entry and open exit students with this financial aid item type.

Defining Additional Restrictions

Access the Groups/Thresholds page (Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Define Item Type Rules, Groups/Thresholds).

Ethnic Group

Select a value if the student must be a member of an ethnic group to receive this financial aid item type.

Res State (residence state)

Select the country code in the field. The system then displays the state field. Then select a state of residence to limit disbursement of the item type to a student with a specific state or province of residence, such as Arizona or Nova Scotia.

For the Res State field, the system collects the country code along with the state code when establishing this rule. Additionally, the authorization program uses the country code when selecting information from the residency tables. This enables the rule to continue to function for global clients.

The disbursement authorization process continues to use official residency information in its evaluation, but uses self-reported residency information if no official information exists. The process also considers effective dates and active term residency information.

Acad Stand Hold (academic standing hold)

Select a value if a student must have a certain academic standing to receive disbursement of the financial aid item type. For example, you could use this to prevent students on academic probation from receiving a merit-based award. Academic standing codes are indicated on the Financial Aid Term pages.

Country

Select a value to limit disbursement to a student from a specific country.

Form of Study

Select a form of study to allow disbursement only to students who are Study Abroad, have Advanced to Candidacy (for a Ph.D. program for example), have a Class Enrollment, or are in a Detached Study program. The authorization process checks the student's form of study on Financial Aid Term.

Group

Select a student group to allow disbursement of the financial aid item type only to students who are a member of a the selected group, such as first generation college students, athletes of all sports, or veterans. You define student groups in Student Records.

Sport

Select a sport if this financial aid item type can be disbursed only to a student participating in a particular sport.

Acad Plan (academic plan)

Select an academic plan to limit disbursement of the financial aid item type to students with a particular academic plan, such as chemistry or art.

Ath Par Cd (athletic participation code)

Select an athletic participation code to further define the type of sport participation required for disbursement. You can choose Active Participant, Manager, Not Recruited,or Recruited. The athletic participation code applies to the selected sport.

Sub-Plan

Select a subplan to limit disbursement of the financial aid item type to students with a particular academic subplan. The authorization process checks academic plan and subplan information from Financial Aid Term. You define academic plans and subplans in Student Records.

Min GPA on FA Term (minimum GPA on Financial Aid Term)

Enter the minimum GPA that a student must have for disbursement of this financial aid item type. The authorization process verifies the cumulative GPA on the current Financial Aid Term.

Min GPA Prior FA Term (minimum GPA on prior Financial Aid Term)

Enter the minimum GPA that a student must have on a prior Financial Aid Term for disbursement of this financial aid item type. Authorization reviews the cumulative GPA on the prior Financial Aid Term within the aid year. For example, if you want the system to check the fall term's minimum GPA before disbursing this financial aid item type for the spring term, you would enter the minimum fall term GPA here. You cannot use this feature if you want to check spring term's GPA for the following fall term's disbursement if the fall term is in a different aid year.

Minimum Units

Enter the minimum number of units for which a student must be registered before this financial aid item type can be disbursed.

Use Current Units

Enter the number of current units, instead of the FA Units from the student's Financial Aid Term record, to determine whether the student meets the minimum units requirement. Values are:

(blank): Use FA Units information.

All Stdnts (all students): Use current unit information for all students with this financial aid item type.

OEE Only: Use current unit information for only open entry and open exit students with this financial aid item type.

ASG Minimum GPA (ACG/SMART minimum grade point average

This field displays the GPA used by the ASG Minimum GPA rule. You can update only when the ASG Minimum GPA option is selected.

Assigning Checklists, Tracking Groups, Service Indicators, and User Edit Messages

Access the Checklists/Tracking page (Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Define Item Type Rules, Checklists/Tracking).

Checklists

Enter the checklists that must be completed before awards of this financial aid item type are authorized. If a checklist has been assigned to a student and it is not complete, the item type is not disbursed. Checklists can include multiple items that need to be completed or verified. To enter additional checklists, add a new row.

Tracking

Enter the tracking groups that must be completed before awards of this financial aid item type are authorized. To enter additional tracking groups add a new row.

Service Impact

Select any service impacts that you want the financial aid item type disbursement rule to honor. If a student with an award of this financial aid item type has any service indicators with a matching service impact, the authorization process does not authorize that award.

User Edit Messages

User edit messages are special handling instructions that you define for your students. Enter messages whose presence on a student's record should hold disbursement. If a student with this career has one of the user edit messages entered in this group box, the authorization process does not authorize that student's awards.

Type	Indicates the type of user edit message that you want to associate with the global disbursement rule. You can only select user edit messages of this type in the Msg Code (message code) field. Insert additional rows to enter additional user edit message types and message codes.
Msg Code (message code)	Enter the message code of the user edit message that causes disbursement to be held.

Setting Up Authorization and Disbursement Calendars

To set up authorization and disbursement calendars, use the Set Up Disbursement Calendars component (AUTH_CALENDER).

This section discusses how to:

Define the authorization calendar.
Define the disbursement calendar.

Pages Used to Set Up Authorization and Disbursement Calendars

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
Authorization Calendar	AUTH_CALENDER	Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Set Up Disbursement Calendars, Authorization Calendar	Define the authorization calendar by selecting which careers, and which terms for each career, can be authorized for disbursement in batch.
Disbursement Calendar	DISB_CALENDER	Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Set Up Disbursement Calendars, Disbursement Calendar	Define the disbursement calendar by selecting which awards should be disbursed and the disbursement date cutoff.

Defining the Authorization Calendar

Access the Authorization Calendar page (Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Set Up Disbursement Calendars, Authorization Calendar).

Career

Select a career that you want to be included in background authorization. Insert rows to list additional careers or combinations of career and term.

Term

Select a term to include in background authorization for the selected career. This field works in conjunction with the Disbursement Date field on the Disbursement ID Table page to determine the disbursement IDs that are displayed on the Disbursement Calendar page.

Reauthorize All Aid

Select to indicate that the system can run a student's aid authorization against the disbursement rules multiple times to ensure that the system is using the most current information to disburse awards. Currently, disbursement authorization processes an award as long as the award has not been disbursed. The authorization process determines that the award has been disbursed when the disbursement net amount equals the amount previously authorized. If an award has been previously authorized, it is not reauthorized unless the award amount is changed or this check box is selected. Your institution might want to run the authorization process with this option active until it is time to disburse awards to the student's account.

Note. Awards that have been completely disbursed are never reauthorized.

Defining the Disbursement Calendar

Access the Disbursement Calendar page (Set Up SACR, Product Related, Financial Aid, Disbursement, Set Up Disbursement Calendars, Disbursement Calendar).

Depending on your needs, you can set up various disbursement calendars with different effective dates and different subsets of awards to be disbursed. You can set up a disbursement calendar for each term for which you want to disburse aid in the aid year. You can set up disbursement calendars with future effective dates for your second, third, and subsequent terms. Conversely, you can also define all of your terms in the same calendar with the same effective date, but control the terms and financial aid item types to be processed using the batch run control parameters.

Disbursement Calendar Effective Date

Assign To	Select the ID of the administrator that the background disbursement process assigns to all group post transactions created in Student Financials. The record and field PS_GROUP_CONT_INFO.ASSN_OPRID is updated in Student Financials. All financial aid funds processed in batch are assigned this ID. You can view this assigned ID in the various Group Post-related components.
SetID	Select a set ID for this disbursement calendar. The set ID, in this case, indicates which accounts in the Student Financials system to credit when disbursements occur.
Origin	Student Financials considers financial aid monies a receivable. Select the source of receivables; for financial aid monies, you usually specify the financial aid office as the origin. Identifying each background disbursement group by origin and type of group helps to manage the flow of receivables. You set up origins in Student Financials.
Group Type	Group types classify disbursements for Student Financials so that the system knows what type of receivable the disbursement should be. For example, you might use Financial Aid Disbursements as the group type. The values in this field depend on the group types that you define in Student Financials.

Career/Term/Item Type Disb Calendar

Career	Select a career that you want to be included in background disbursement. Insert rows to list additional careers or combinations of career and term. You can enter as many combinations of career and term as you need to define your disbursement calendar. The background disbursement process only disburses for the careers and terms that you designate here.
Term	Select a term to include in background disbursement for the selected career.
Cutoff Date	Enter a cutoff date for the associated career and term. When the batch disbursement process runs, it selects only financial aid item types for the associated career and term that have a disbursement date that is equal to or before the defined cutoff date. You set up disbursement dates on the Disbursement ID page when you assign disbursement IDs to packaging plans.
All Types	For each combination of career and term, you can control which item types are included during the background disbursement process. Select this check box to include all financial aid item types in the background disbursement process. This check box is selected by default.

Subset

Except Items	If you select the All Types check box, this field becomes available. Select to exclude some financial aid item types from the background disbursement process. Use the From and To fields to enter a range of financial aid item type IDs to exclude.
Only Include Items	If you clear the All Types check box, this field becomes available. Select to indicate a range of financial aid item types that should be included in the background disbursement process.
From and To	Enter the first and last financial aid item types to be included or excluded from the background disbursement process. These financial aid item types and any financial aid item types within that numbering sequence are included or excluded from the background disbursement.

Selected Plan/IDs

Displays disbursement plans and their associated disbursements that meet the disbursement calendar settings you enter in the previous group boxes.

Disb Plan (disbursement plan)	Displays disbursement plans for the career/term combination used as part of the background disbursement process. The cutoff date determines which disbursement plans and disbursement IDs are displayed. Only awards that have the same disbursement plans as those listed in this group box are disbursed when background disbursement is run.
Disb ID (disbursement ID)	Displays disbursement IDs for the selected disbursement plan that fall within the selected term. The cutoff date determines which disbursement IDs are displayed in this group box. Only the portion of an award that matches the displayed disbursement IDs is disbursed when background disbursement is run.
Disb Date (disbursement date)	Displays disbursement dates associated with each disbursement ID.

Note. The disbursement ID for a combination of disbursement plan and disbursement ID must be earlier or equal to the cutoff date for the disbursement plan and disbursement ID combination to be listed in the Selected Plan/IDs group box. The following table illustrates the selection process.

Examples

Example Cutoff Date	Example Disbursement Dates	Disbursement Plan Selected
June 6, 2004	January 8, 2004 May 30, 2004 June 1, 2004	All disbursement plans and disbursement IDs with the example disbursement dates are selected, because the disbursement dates are earlier or equal to the cutoff date.
January 7, 2004	January 8, 2004 May 30, 2004 June 1, 2004	None of the disbursement plans and disbursement IDs with the example disbursement dates are selected. The disbursement dates are after the cutoff date.
January 8, 2004	January 8, 2004 May 30, 2004 June 1, 2004	Only disbursement plans and disbursement IDs with the disbursement date of January 8, 2004 are selected because the disbursement date is equal to the cutoff date. All others are not selected because they are after the cutoff date.

See Also

Tableset Sharing

Ethnic Group	Select a value if the student must be a member of an ethnic group to receive this financial aid item type.
Res State (residence state)	Select the country code in the field. The system then displays the state field. Then select a state of residence to limit disbursement of the item type to a student with a specific state or province of residence, such as Arizona or Nova Scotia. For the Res State field, the system collects the country code along with the state code when establishing this rule. Additionally, the authorization program uses the country code when selecting information from the residency tables. This enables the rule to continue to function for global clients. The disbursement authorization process continues to use official residency information in its evaluation, but uses self-reported residency information if no official information exists. The process also considers effective dates and active term residency information.
Acad Stand Hold (academic standing hold)	Select a value if a student must have a certain academic standing to receive disbursement of the financial aid item type. For example, you could use this to prevent students on academic probation from receiving a merit-based award. Academic standing codes are indicated on the Financial Aid Term pages.
Country	Select a value to limit disbursement to a student from a specific country.
Form of Study	Select a form of study to allow disbursement only to students who are Study Abroad, have Advanced to Candidacy (for a Ph.D. program for example), have a Class Enrollment, or are in a Detached Study program. The authorization process checks the student's form of study on Financial Aid Term.
Group	Select a student group to allow disbursement of the financial aid item type only to students who are a member of a the selected group, such as first generation college students, athletes of all sports, or veterans. You define student groups in Student Records.
Sport	Select a sport if this financial aid item type can be disbursed only to a student participating in a particular sport.
Acad Plan (academic plan)	Select an academic plan to limit disbursement of the financial aid item type to students with a particular academic plan, such as chemistry or art.
Ath Par Cd (athletic participation code)	Select an athletic participation code to further define the type of sport participation required for disbursement. You can choose Active Participant, Manager, Not Recruited,or Recruited. The athletic participation code applies to the selected sport.
Sub-Plan	Select a subplan to limit disbursement of the financial aid item type to students with a particular academic subplan. The authorization process checks academic plan and subplan information from Financial Aid Term. You define academic plans and subplans in Student Records.
Min GPA on FA Term (minimum GPA on Financial Aid Term)	Enter the minimum GPA that a student must have for disbursement of this financial aid item type. The authorization process verifies the cumulative GPA on the current Financial Aid Term.
Min GPA Prior FA Term (minimum GPA on prior Financial Aid Term)	Enter the minimum GPA that a student must have on a prior Financial Aid Term for disbursement of this financial aid item type. Authorization reviews the cumulative GPA on the prior Financial Aid Term within the aid year. For example, if you want the system to check the fall term's minimum GPA before disbursing this financial aid item type for the spring term, you would enter the minimum fall term GPA here. You cannot use this feature if you want to check spring term's GPA for the following fall term's disbursement if the fall term is in a different aid year.
Minimum Units	Enter the minimum number of units for which a student must be registered before this financial aid item type can be disbursed.
Use Current Units	Enter the number of current units, instead of the FA Units from the student's Financial Aid Term record, to determine whether the student meets the minimum units requirement. Values are: (blank): Use FA Units information. All Stdnts (all students): Use current unit information for all students with this financial aid item type. OEE Only: Use current unit information for only open entry and open exit students with this financial aid item type.
ASG Minimum GPA (ACG/SMART minimum grade point average	This field displays the GPA used by the ASG Minimum GPA rule. You can update only when the ASG Minimum GPA option is selected.