Student Financials and Financial Aid

Here you will find the most frequently asked questions around Student Financials and Financial Aid. Please check to see if your question has been answered. If you can't find what you're looking for, please raise an IT helpdesk request for support.

In the interests of security, our user guides and Financial Aid item type request form have been moved to our Moodle site:  Student Financials Moodle

These documents are only available for users that have attended training. To access the site, you will need to enter the enrolment key that was sent to you following training, If you can't find this and need access to the guides, please raise a Helpdesk request for Access and Permissions.

 

Student Financials FAQs

How do I assign a finance related call in the IT helpdesk/Ivanti?

Staff/Customer Profile (via IT helpdesk)

When using Ivanti via a Staff/Customer Profile, you simply select (or search for) the MyCampus Help tile and select the appropriate option from the drop down menu - this will route your call to the relevant team. The majority of finance related calls go to Accounts Receivable for triage who will then pass on where required. 

 

Student Support Analyst Profile

When using Ivanti via a Student Support Analyst Profile, you can select a team to assign your call to. If your call relates to a student's payment plan or debt repayments, you must update the Service field to Collections. You can then assign the call to the Student Collections team.

Calls around interpreting customer accounts, fee questions etc. should go to Finance Office Accounts Receivable in the first instance (they will subsequently pass over to another team if required). The Service field should be MyCampus Support - you can then assign the call.

For Finance training enquiries, finance related system queries, waiver processing problems, calls can be assigned directly to MSDI Finance. The Service field should be MyCampus Support - you can then assign the call to Information Services MyCampus Finance.

Please note that automatic call routing in Ivanti is currently being updated to improve the user experience.

I need information on tuition fees and how they are calculated.

Fees on student records are driven by data. The system looks at Career, Residency, Load, Program, Plan and Form of Study to calculate a fee. Other factors such as Admit Term come into play for International and Part Time students. For PGR students, the Research Summary start date is also a factor.

Full-time students are charged upfront at the beginning of the academic year in full and generate regardless of enrolments; part-time students fees are based on the number of credits in which they are enrolled.

If a fee is considered “incorrect”, this is typically due to an issue with the data—the data is not something Accounts Receivable or MSDI Finance can fix, so we advise always double checking your data first whenever you see a fee issue.

Some frequently asked questions are available here: Student Financials FAQs

When I run the Tuition Calculation process, I receive an error message.

Tuition calculation errors can be caused be a few things - conflicting data, missing data etc. 

Any error produced by tuition calculation needs to be investigated by MSDI Finance. Raise an IT helpdesk request detailing the student number and a copy of the errror message and we will take a look.

There's a Hold on the student's account.

Holds, or Service Indicators are applied for various reasons.

Financially speaking, a Hold will typically relate to an overdue balance. Holds are added onto and removed from student accounts in overnight processes; that means that if your student satisfies an overdue balance by making a payment, the hold will be removed overnight. 

Some holds will prevent a student from accessing registration, graduation and exam results. This is inline with University policy. Students should make the relevant payments to satisfy any overdue balances be it via card or payment plan. They can discuss this further with Student Collections/Credit Control: finance-student@glasgow.ac.uk

Financial Aid FAQs

When I search for a student and Aid Year on the Assign Award to a Student page, I receive the “No Matching Values Were Found” error.

This error highlights that your student is not Aid Year Activated for your desired Aid Year.

The fix for this can be found in Section 3 of the Complete Financial Aid Awarding User Guide.

 

On the Assign Award to a Student page, the Career field is blank.

The student has not been FA Term Built.

This is covered in Section 4 of the Financial Aid Training Guide. 

 

 

I’ve applied a stipend, but the student has not received it.

Please refer to the stipend payment calendar at MyCampus Financial Aid Payments.

Please be advised that if an award is entered with a Disbursement Plan of F1, this notes it as a Financial Aid prize that will disburse at the end of June only.

If the payment date has passed and the student has still not received their stipend, the most likely issue is that the student has no bank details on the system. To verify this, navigate to Main Menu > Records and Enrolment > Student Summary and click on the Stdnt Financial Summary tab—if the Bank Details section is populated and has an Active Flag of Y, the student has bank details on the system. A lack of data in the Bank Details section means that there are no details held. In this instance, the FA will appear as a credit in the customer account. Instructions for students on adding a bank account to self service are available on the Registry Financial Aid page, here.

If the student has bank details on the system but has still not received their funds, please raise an IT helpdesk/Ivanti call.

On pressing Post, I receive an "Award Posting Process Encountered Errors" message.

Typically, this error is due to an issue with the student's FA Term Build. 

This is covered in Section 4 of the Financial Aid Training Guide.

If updating/correcting the term build does not remove the error, please raise an IT helpdesk request.

 

I’ve applied Financial Aid but can’t see it on the customer account.

Financial Aid will only apply to the customer account once the authorization and disbursement processes have been run by Registry Financial Aid. FA should be applied by 5pm on a Friday – the authorization and disbursement processes are run on the following Monday/Tuesday. The award should be visible on the customer account by Wednesday, with any stipends paid to the student’s bank account on the Friday. If these dates have passed, please raise an IT helpdesk/Ivanti call.

I don’t know what item type to use.

MSDI can’t advise what item type should be used. There are queries that can help you determine this. The following query will provide a list of all item types available to your College (Colleges are coded alphabetically and numerically, i.e. Arts = 1, MVLS = 2, SciEng = 3, SocSci = 4): UOG_FA_ALL_ITEMTYPE

The following query provides item types based on a sub-project entered: UOG_SF_ITEM_TYPE_USING_PROJ_01

If neither of these queries help, we suggest speaking with your College Finance team.

After validating an award, the Offered and Accepted amounts reduce in value.

This typically means that your award would take your item type over its Fiscal Limit (as declared on the item type set up form). To check this, you should run the UOG_FA_ITEMTYPE query as discussed in training. This query will display the maximum amount per student, the total budget for the item type and the amount available.

If you need your Fiscal Limit increased, please contact Accounts Receivable. In the IT helpdesk, search for MyCampus, select the MyCampus: Help (staff) tile > in the category section select Item Type Set up/Amendment – this will then reach Accounts Receivable for action.

I receive the “Invalid value -- press the prompt button or hyperlink for a list of valid values” error after inputting the item type.

There are a few reasons for this error. The most common is that your item type is not active for the desired aid year. By running the following query, you can determine if your item type is active (see the status column for A for Active, I for Inactive): UOG_FA_ITEMTYPE

If your item type is Inactive, contact Accounts Receivable to have it activated. Please search for MyCampus within the IT helpdesk, select MyCampus: Help (staff) tile > in the category section select Item Type Set Up/Amendments.

Another reason for this error is that your security is not set up to include this particular item type. After confirming that the item type is active, raise an Ivanti call to Information Services MyCampus Finance via the IT helpdesk, search for MyCampus, select the MyCampus: Help (staff) tile > in the category section select Access and Permissions.

Should I use Financial Aid or a Waiver to pay tuition?

The policy on the use of Financial Aid or Waivers for tuition fee reduction was made by the Senior Management Group. The functionality you use will depend on the circumstances.

Please see Section 9 and 10 of the Financial Aid Training Guide for guidance.

I have awarded FA, but need to change the item type retrospectively.

If you have awarded Financial Aid and need to change the item type used, the process needs followed in a particular order to allow everything to balance correctly.

You should first cancel the "incorrect" award in full - you must award, validate and post. In order for the cancellation to take effect on the customer account, the authorisation and disbursement process must be run. From your training, you will know that this is carried out by the Registry Financial Aid team in a weekly process. The preference is that you process the cancellation and allow this to be picked up in the team's weekly run. 

Once the cancellation has been disbursed, you can go ahead and re-apply the aid using the "correct" item type. Again, the preference is that you allow this to be picked up in the Registry Financial Aid team's weekly run. 

If you are concerned about a student receiving debt communications, or require this change to be made urgently you can contact the Registry Financial Aid team to request a manual disbursement, but please do so before actioning any changes to ensure that the team has capacity to do so.