1. Using Student Financial Planning
  2. Disbursement Administration

Disbursement Administration

Disbursement Administration is totally manual and Student Financial Planning accepts any value entered by the user.

Overview

It should only be used by experienced/authorized users only that have an in-depth knowledge of the origination and disbursement process and integrations/workflows setup between Student Financial Planning and Common Originations and Disbursement (COD). To use these features, the user must be assigned a role that has the Disbursement Administrator, General Permission enabled.

When a student record is updated through the Disbursement Administration screen, the update is a one-time manual update. Neither the fund type nor the disbursement requires additional monitoring. The receipt of new documents, messages, etc will continue to be processed automatically. It should be noted, that one-time manual updates made by a user can be overridden by future automated process updates.

Making updates through the Disbursement Administration screen allows the institution to update the Student Financial Planning system to match the accurate information reported by COD or to update COD with accurate information processed by Student Financial Planning. This functionality was created to allow the institution maximum flexibility to update disbursements and disbursement information.

Note: When an adjustment is made outside the application directly with COD, you must update the application to the sequence number created on COD (66-99). If you don't update the sequence number to a value between 66-99, the next time the application communicates with COD, COD will reject the disbursement record for incorrect sequence numbers.

Student Financial Planning User Interface Actions

In order to update disbursements, there are different options available. From the Disbursement Administration user interface, you can:

  1. Save Disbursement Records
    • The Student Financial Planning User Interface is updated, but communication is not sent to COD
    • The Disbursing screen is updated, but no further downstream automation occurs
    • Future automated or manual updates could override a one-time manual override made through the Disbursement Administration screen
  2. Send Originations to COD
    • Communication is sent to COD for the entire fund group, for every fund type
    • Downstream automation occurs automatically:
      • Disbursing screen updates with manually overridden data
      • Additional Disbursement Sequence Numbers are automatically created as necessary
      • Disbursement Status for updated disbursement(s) set appropriately in order to be picked up in origination/disbursement batch jobs
  3. Re-Originate
    • Communication is sent to COD for the entire fund group, but only for the fund type selected (for example, Pell - 2015-2016 AY1 PP1)
    • Downstream automation occurs automatically:
      • Disbursing screen updates with manually overridden data
      • Additional Disbursement Sequence Numbers are automatically created as necessary
      • Disbursement Status for updated disbursement(s) set appropriately in order to be picked up in origination/disbursement batch jobs

Using the Disbursement Administration UI versus the Disbursing UI

When an authorized user updates disbursement information through the Disbursement Administration UI (Administration > System Management > Disbursement Administration), the update is a one-time manual override. The disbursement isn't put into manual mode; therefore, future automation is not interrupted. Future automation or manual updates may override the one-time manual override a user made using the Disbursement Administration tool. A common scenario for making updates using the Disbursement Administration UI is to update the system to match changes that were made directly in the COD system, being careful to match the COD-generated sequence number.

You are also able to update disbursement information using the Disbursing UI (Student > Financial Information > Disbursing).

When updates are made through the Disbursing UI the disbursement that is updated is put into manual mode and must be monitored throughout the duration of the payment period. If only one fund type for one payment period is manually overridden, only that fund type for that payment period is put into manual mode. If a disbursement is increased or reduced and it results in a need for additional disbursement sequence numbers, Student Financial Planning will create any required additional sequence numbers, complete any related math for that disbursement, set the disbursement status correctly. For more information on using the Disbursing UI, see Disbursing.

Overrides within the Disbursement Administration UI

Overrides done within the Disbursement Administration UI should be thought of as setting a value that can potentially be overridden by the system as needed and won't prevent automation.

These fields can be subsequently updated by the system as needed during automation:
  • Disbursement Status
  • Total Amount
  • Incremental Amount
  • Incremental Net Amount
  • Cancellation Reason
  • Cancellation Date
  • Re-Originate
The system won't override these manually updated fields but will automate additional updates based on the values set by the user:
  • Disbursement Number
  • Sequence Number
  • Payment ID
  • Disbursement Date
  • Return to Lender ID
  • Return Date
  • Delete

Required Role Permissions

The user must have a role with the following General Permission(s) through Roles Management in order to view the following information.

  • Administration
  • System Management
  • Disbursement Administrator

See Set General Permissions Matrix for additional information.

Navigation to the Student Financial Planning User Interface Functionality

To view the disbursement administration screen Student Financial Planning User Interface > Administration > System Management > Disbursement Administration