| PublicationDate: 3/17/2000 Summary: The Year to Date Record for the Federal Pell Grant Program Author: General Manager: SFA School Channel Posted on March 17, 2000 TO: All Destination Points FROM: Pell Grant Processing SUBJECT: The Year to Date Record for the Federal Pell Grant Program This Message - Provides you with additional information regarding the Year to Date (YTD) file in the Recipient Financial Management System (RFMS) of the Federal Pell Grant Program. Including: - the function of the YTD - how to request a YTD - what's in a YTD - how to use in EDExpress for Reconciling RFMS is designed to report and request funds for the Federal Pell Grant Program. The YTD file is used in reconciliation as well as replacing a corrupted database. It also provides information to you about a student's origination and disbursement status as well as a summary total of all origination and disbursement data submitted by you. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE YTD FILE AND HOW DOES THE PROCESS WORK? One of the major changes to the Pell reporting process beginning with the 1999-2000 cycle, is the elimination of the Student Payment Summary (SPS) file. In the legacy system for prior years, the SPS was used to reconcile Pell dataand the Year-to-Date (YTD) was used primarily to replace lost databases. The SPS file contained both active and inactive record segments and the YTD file contained only active record segments. The RFMS has only active record segments. Therefore, only the YTD file was retained in the RFMS. Purpose: The YTD file performs a dual role. Institutions can request the YTD file to replace a corrupt database or to reconcile their records with the accepted data that RFMS has retained. In EDExpress institutions have the option of the following: -- Comparing and printing a discrepancy report -- Printing all YTD records -- Update selected records -- Update/Rebuild All ***************************************************************** * NOTE: A school must have accepted origination records on file in RFMS in order to receive a YTD file. * *************************************************************** PROCESS FOR REQUESTING A YTD: You may request a YTD file at any time by submitting a data request record or by using the RFMS web site (http://www.pellgrantsonline.ed.gov) to submit a data request. Unlike the Student Payment Summary (SPS), where one request for the reporting campus returned files for all attending campuses, a data request must be received for each attended campus desired when requesting a YTD file. To request a YTD file, you must have received an origination acknowledgment record with accepted records from RFMS for your school. After submitting origination records for eligible students to RFMS and receiving origination acknowledgements using EDExpress or other software, you may submit data request records asking for a YTD file on your originated students. RFMS receives and edits the data request record to verify that students has been originated at your institution and that the physical layout of the data request record is accurate. If the data request record passes all the edits and the requested data exists on the database, RFMS sends a YTD file for your institution under the message class PGYR00OP. There is no paper copy of the YTD file. If the data request record fails the edits or RFMS does not find the data you requested, it acknowledges receipt of your request and identifies the reason for rejecting it. For example: -- If you submit a data request record for an institution and omit necessary information, such as leaving the attending campus blank, RFMS acknowledges receipt of the request and rejects it, telling you that your request was incomplete. -- If you submit a data request record for an institution that has not received accepted origination acknowledgment records, RFMS acknowledges receipt of the request and rejects it, telling you that it has no information for the requested institution. All edits codes and their descriptions are available on the IFAP Website at http://ifap.ed.gov under the Pell Grant (RFMS) Process Section. THE FORMAT OF THE YTD FILE SENT FROM RFMS: Each YTD file from RFMS contains three parts: - the last accepted Origination record for each student - each accepted Disbursement record for each student - a summary of data sent to the school. The Origination portion contains all accepted data for the last accepted origination on record in the RFMS for your institution. The Disbursement portion provides you with each accepted disbursement tied to the above origination. The summary section provides the institution with summary information on all origination and disbursements contained in the YTD record. It is not possible to request or receive one part of the YTD file, all three are sent with each request. The most current record layout is available on the IFAP website at http://ifap.ed.gov under "Pell Grant (RFMS) Process." ********************************************************************* * Please note that the "YTD Disbursement Amount" is located on the Origination portion of the record beginning at position 301.* *This value reflects the current amount of accepted disbursements for that origination in RFMS. ********************************************************************* FOR EDEXPRESS USERS When users import a Pell YTD file, the printed results will not be in the same format as previous SPS reports. Like the SPS report, the YTD Comparison Report will list the differences between your database and the imported YTD file --- but the YTD report will print in two sections: the first section notes the Pell Origination exceptions and the second section prints the Pell Disbursement exceptions, followed by a one-page summary of the Origination and Disbursement data. When importing a YTD file you can mark the "Compare and Print Exception?" box so the software will identify the differences between the information in the import file and your EDExpress database Pell tables and generate a discrepancy report in Origination ID order. Verify you have imported all Pell Origination and Disbursement acknowledgements before running the compare feature; this will ensure the RFMS data in the YTD file is being compared against your most current processing results. You should also delete records for students not attending your school that have been created but not submitted to RFMS. Otherwise, these records will flag as exceptions on the import Compare Report under the Pell database exceptions. If you are unsure of whether or not you wish to use the Update option then we recommend you use the compare feature the first time you import the YTD file to view what updates may occur. There may not be any exceptions. You also have the ability to mark the "Print All" box which will print all records in the YTD file in Origination ID order. Once you have imported the YTD file with the compare feature marked and verified you agree with the potential updates, you can re-import the same YTD file and choose "Update: Selected Records". With this feature you can update specific student records with the information from the imported YTD file. You may want to use this feature if, for instance, you have a duplicate rejected record that needs to be set back to accepted status, or if you are missing an acknowledgement file and wish to update specific records that were in the missing batch. The "Rebuild All" Update option will overwrite all the records in your database that have matching origination IDs in the YTD file. You should only use this option if you were forced to reinstall EDExpress and wish to recreate your Pell record database. NOTE: CPS Customer Service strongly recommends you install the EDExpress Version 5.4.1 Service Release, available at http://fsadownload.ed.gov/index.htm, before importing any Pell YTD data. Version 5.4.1 resolves several YTD import problems present in Version 5.4. If you have any questions regarding working with the YTD in EDExpress please contact CPS Customer Service at 800/330-5947, option 4, or via email at CPS@NCS.COM. For all other inquiries please contact Pell Customer Service at 1 (800) 4PGRANT or write to us via e-mail at #pell_systems@ed.gov. |