The Book Bag : Financial aid

Student Billing State-of-Mind: Where's My Billing Item?

Jennifer Maroney — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:11:00 GMT

Here's the scenario: You have a list of charges or financial aid to enter. You're a pro at this process so you jump right in, but the Item/Description drop-down is blank or does not show the billing item. What do you do now? Well, there are many reasons why a billing item or fee may not be available including:

The billing item or fee is not valid for the transaction date. Only billing items set to be used during the transaction date are included in the drop-down list.
The billing item is marked as inactive.
The billing item type is different than the transaction type.

Ok, so now you know why the items can go missing, what do you? Follow these steps which take you through fixing the most common causes of missing items.

In Configuration, click Products and Billing Items.
Open the billing item that was not included in the drop-down list.
Verify the transaction date is within the Item can only be used from date range fields. If the date does not fall within the date range, create a new fee for the appropriate date range.
Verify the billing item's status is Active.
If adding a Fee Schedule and the fee was created as a manual fee, re-enter the fee in Configuration as an Automatic Item.

Talk to you soon!

Tips from a Troubleshooter: Aiding (But Not Financially) with Financial Aid

Sean Long — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:36:00 GMT

I'm calling an emergency posting of Tips from a Troubleshooter, because I know a lot of you are awarding financial aid to students right now. I'll return to my series on Student Billing 6 vs. Student Billing 7 soon, I promise.

The Financial Aid Billing Item describes the accounts the financial aid affects in the General Ledger, the schedule of financial aid credits, and a date range for the item. Also, if the Financial Aid type has an awarded default amount, you define it on the Billing Item itself.

If you want to generate your financial aid credits alongside your Tuition charges, you can create separate financial aid items that mirror your tuition charge schedules. For example, this screenshot shows a 10-pay Tuition item. Of course, with an amount of $0.00, the student wouldn't be very grateful.

So how do we give each student the financial aid they deserve? There's a few different ways of doing this, so pick the best for your organization's structure.

Financial Aid Applications tab - Use this tab if the Registrar's Office or Admissions Office determines the financial aid amount and recipient. This tab is visible from both Registrar's Office and Student Billing, so the Registrar's Office can determine the amount students receive for each financial aid type.
Tip: Make sure to use a different financial aid type for each billing item.
Add transactions to a group of records - If the financial aid amount is determined outside the software, use the Add Transactions to a Group of Records utility to add Financial Aid schedules to all of your students at the same time. Knowledgebase solution BB203392 guides you through the steps and you can use it for Financial Aid schedules as well!
Import - Good with spreadsheets? Use Import to put all of the schedules on the students' records.

Have more questions or additional clarification about financial aid? Leave a comment!

Student Billing State-of-Mind: Control Generated Credit Applications

Jennifer Maroney — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:13:00 GMT

How would you like to ensure credits generated from Financial Aid schedules can only apply to tuition or specific charges? Beginning in version 7.75, you can set application restrictions to control the application of advance deposit credits and financial aid credits.

Follow these steps to restrict applications when generating financial aid credits or advance deposit credits:

In Configuration, click Products and Billing Items.
Open the Financial Aid or Advance Deposit item.
Select the Restrictions tab.
In the Use the restrictions from field, select Specific settings below and define the appropriate filters or Configuration and select the appropriate application restriction.
Click Save and Close.

Talk to you soon!