Posted Date:June 7, 2013
| Author: | William Leith, Service Director, Program Management, Federal Student Aid |
Subject: TEACH Grant Closeout Information for 2012-2013 Award Year
The Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grant closeout deadline for the 2012-2013 Award Year is Monday, September 30, 2013. This is the last processing day of the award year, so all school data must be received and accepted by this date, and any necessary funds must be requested in G5, for this information to be included in a school's final Ending Cash Balance for the year. To be considered successfully closed out, the school must—
Have an Ending Cash Balance (Net Drawdowns – Total Net Booked Disbursements) of $0 and Total Net Unbooked Disbursements of $0, as reflected on the TEACH Grant School Account Statement (SAS).
After the closeout deadline, schools with outstanding balances will be billed.
Note: As a reminder, all cash management, disbursement/adjustment reporting, and reconciliation regulatory requirements supersede the closeout deadline. If a school is meeting these regulatory requirements, they should be able to reach a zero ending cash balance and be fully reconciled within a month or two of their final scheduled disbursements for a given program and year. In other words, schools should not wait until the closeout deadline to be fully reconciled to a zero ending cash balance.
To assist schools in achieving a successful closeout, we will send monthly Balance Notification e-mails to notify schools of their current Ending Cash Balance and to provide general information regarding the closeout process. These e-mails will be sent to the Financial Aid Administrator and President at each school.
A school must be aware of its closeout status even if its TEACH Grant processing is handled by a third party servicer. We encourage each school to communicate regularly with its third party servicer to ensure closeout is completed. It is the school's responsibility to ensure that it finishes processing and completes closeout on time.
Reconciliation should be performed on at least a monthly basis, and the final closeout stage should be the final reconciliation for the award year. As part of this final reconciliation, all discrepancies and reasons for a school's Ending Cash Balance should be identified and resolved, and any remaining funds must be returned to the Department. A key factor to an easy reconciliation and closeout is staying on top of the process. We encourage schools to review the following information:
Compare internal student accounts and Business Office/Bursar records with Financial Aid Office records and resolve any discrepancies.
Ensure that all drawdowns and refunds of cash are accounted for and applied to the correct program year.
Ensure that all batches have been sent to and accepted by the Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) System, all disbursements and adjustments are accurately reflected on the COD System, and all responses are imported into the school's system.
Resolve all outstanding rejected records.
Return all refunds of cash to the Department.
Request any remaining funds owed to the school based on actual disbursements accepted by the COD System.
There are numerous tools available to assist schools in reconciliation and closeout efforts. These tools are as follows:
TEACH Grant School Account Statement (SAS) – This report is automatically sent to your Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG) mailbox each month.
School Account Statement (SAS) Disbursement Detail on Demand – These on demand reports can be requested on the COD Web site via the Report Requests page.
Pending Disbursement Listing
G5 Web Site and G5 Reports
COD Web site (particularly the School Summary Financial Information, Funding Information, Cash Activity, and Refunds of Cash pages under the School tab)
COD Customer Service Representative/COD Reconciliation Coordinator
Contact Information
We appreciate your cooperation as we work to close out the 2012-2013 TEACH Grant Award Year. If you have questions about this announcement or need assistance with closeout, contact the COD School Relations Center at 800/474-7268. You may also e-mail CODSupport@ed.gov.