Purpose

To approve Refund records created in a Pending state by the system, to create and approve such records individually, or to view Refund information.

SubSystem

Finance

Payments are received into Callista via an external financial system. Students and sponsors whose payments exceed the assessed fees for which they are liable can be refunded, wholly or in part, up to the amount of their available credit.

A credit balance relates to a Person or an organisation, and is based on all fees for which they have ever been liable, irrespective of fee periods, courses or (for sponsors) the number of students involved. This 'system credit' is re-calculated each time information is queried in this form (see Credit in Special Topics).

Refund is achieved by creating and authorising Refund records in this subsystem, and then transferring the information to the institution's external financial system (via COFI) for payment.

For students, Refund records can be created either

• By running the job FINJ6430 (Process Student Refunds), or
• Individually, using this form.

For Sponsors and/or Loan Schemes, Refund records can only be created in this form.

Records created by FINJ6430

A single run of this job can either create Refund records pending approval, or create records which have been automatically approved, but not a mixture of the two. Records created in one run are given a common number identifying them as members of a refund group. They can be accessed by this number in the current form.

In this documentation:

• To query on existing records
• To create individual Refund Records
• To approve pending Refund Records (One-off approval; Approval of a marked set)
• To cancel approved Refund Records

The Refund block contains:

• Refund Group
• Person ID
• Sponsor/Loan Code
• Refund Status
• Currency
• Refund Amount
• System Credit
• Include check box

  Button

  • Find Person

The Person Details block contains:

• Name
• Authorising Person ID
• Authorised On
• Payment Type
• Comments Available in Inquiry Forms
• Private Comments

  Buttons

  • Find Person
  • SET Payment (Inc) - (overlay)
    • Refund Payment
    • Payment Type
    • OK/Cancel buttons
  • SET Comment (Inc) - (overlay)
    
    • Refund Comment
      Comments Available in Inquiry Forms
    • Private Comments
  • OK/Cancel buttons
  • SET Approval (Inc) - (overlay)
    • Authorising Person ID
    • Name
    • Authorised On
    • Refund Status
    • Find Person button
    • OK/Cancel buttons
  • References - (overlay)
    • External Reference Type
    • Description
    • External Reference
    • Reference Date
    • Back button

Rules/Notes:

Payment Types are:

• CHEQUE,
• ON-HOLD,
• ELECTRONIC,
• WIRE, or
• an institution-defined Refund Payment Type (created in FINF1L00).

A Refund Payment Type can be changed to a different Payment Type only if the Refund record has a System Status of PENDING.

A Refund Payment Type can be used for multiple Refund records, by selecting the required Payment Type via the 'SET Payment (Inc)' button.

Private Comments are only displayed on this form; other Refund Comments can also be viewed in Callista Inquiry Forms.

Note: The underlying routine that is used to calculate the system credit amount also takes into account the calculation of system credit for VET students with fees of a VET-TUIT System Fee Type with a loan scheme attached, with or without sponsorship of the fee.
(i.e. a person's system credit = student's payments – student debt, and student debt = total debt less loan debt and less sponsor debt.)

To Query on Existing Records:

In query mode, find sponsors or students with existing Refund records by entering one or more of these query criteria before querying:

• Individually for students, by entering a known Person ID, or by selecting the button to use the Find Person facility (ADMF1211).

• Individually for sponsors and/or loans, by entering a known Sponsor/Loan Code or selecting one from the list of values.

• By entering a Refund Group number.
• By typing in/selecting a particular Refund Status (e.g. finding all persons/organisations with a PENDING status).
• By entering a Refund Amount - normally with an operator. For example, entering < 50 selects all candidates with refunds below 50.00 (any currency).

Query results

Depending on the record selected, the overflow area shows details of the student or Sponsor/Loan Scheme. For sponsor organisations, this includes the Org Unit Code in the ID field, and associated details.

Rules/Notes:

To find all Sponsors/Loans with refunds, enter % in the Sponsor/Loan Code field.

Using an operator with a Refund Group number (e.g. > 275) allows display of all records created since a particular job run, including those created individually in the form.

Refund Statuses equate to System Refund Statuses of PENDING, APPROVED, CANCELLED and APPLIED. The first three are available to users. An APPLIED Status is recorded by the System once a refund has been successfully notified to the external financial system.

Equivalents to the System Status APPLIED do not appear in the list of values (LOV) giving open statuses. To query on refunds already applied, type in the equivalent user defined status.

Currently (Sept 1999) there are no system restrictions on which candidates can have a refund approved. However, an ENCUMBERED lamp is displayed against a student's name where appropriate.

External references (accessed via the References button, and for information only) are only available for applied refunds. They are supplied from an external financial system.

In Insert mode:

• Enter/select either a student's Person ID number, OR a Sponsor/Loan Code.
• Tab to the Refund Amount field. Any system credit for this candidate will be displayed.
• If required, the amount to be refunded can be decreased.
• EITHER save as a PENDING record, OR follow the steps described for One-off approval, below.

Rules/Notes:

Records created here default to PENDING. They can only have statuses set to an equivalent of either PENDING or APPROVED.

Only one PENDING record in the same currency can exist at any one time for a student or sponsor.

A new Refund Group number is assigned to each record created in this form.

The currency of the credit displayed defaults to the local currency (as set in FINF1410). To see the candidate's available credit in all currencies, these must be selected in turn from the LOV.

Whether PENDING records have been created in this form or by the job FINJ6430, they can be approved either:

• On a one-off basis,

OR

• By marking a set of records to be included for group approval.

For any record, the Refund amount defaults to the available credit, but can be decreased before approving.

One-Off Approval:

For the selected record:

• Set the Refund Status to an equivalent of the System Status APPROVED.
• If blank, enter the ID of the person authorising the refund. (If an ID has already been recorded by FINJ6430 at record creation, this can be changed if required).
• The authorised on date defaults to the current date, but can be altered to a past or future date.
• Select a Payment Type, if other than the default CHEQUE.
• Optionally, add Comments.
• Save the record.

Approval of a Marked Set:

Select all records to be approved by marking their Include check box. For the set selected:

• Optionally, to override existing Refund Payment Types recorded for these records, enter the required Payment Type for ALL, using the SET Payment button.
• Optionally, to enter a comment applicable to all (overriding any individual comments), use the SET Comment button.
• To approve all records, use the SET Approval button, and enter:
• An authorising Person ID - this will override the ID recorded against individual records.
• The Authorised On Date must be entered - it overrides existing Dates.
• Type in/select a status equivalent to APPROVED.
• Select OK to approve.

Rules/Notes:

An advisory message displays at processing time if records with a System Status other than PENDING have their Include check box selected. Only pending records are processed.

Once approved, only the comments for a record can be changed.

Only people recorded on the database as staff members can authorise the approval of refunds.

On initial creation of a record, the Find Person screen is presented if the authorising Person ID entered is not valid.

The authorising Person and date of authorisation are for information only.

A Refund Payment Type set in a job can be overridden either by changing it in a one-off approval, or recording a different Payment Type (using the SET Payment button) when approving as part of a marked group.

Once approved, the available credit amount is adjusted to reflect the new balance.

For all blocks accessed via the SET buttons, changes are only made if OK is selected in the block. Messages ask for confirmation about changes to be made and advise on outcomes.

Changes can continue to be made to individual records until they are approved, either as a set or individually.

When checkmarks have been added in the Include check box, the Approval process must be completed before exiting the form. It is not possible to save the selection for later approval.

Once Refund records have been approved, information is prepared for transfer to the External Finance System (via COFI) so that transactions are created to clear credit balances in the financial system and enable Refund payments to be made to students and sponsors through the External Finance System.

To cancel approved Refund Records:

Cancelling applies only to records with a Refund Status equivalent to APPROVED.

• Set the Refund Status to an equivalent of the System Status CANCELLED, and save.

Rules/Notes:

Once cancelled, the Refund Status cannot be changed.

PENDING records cannot be cancelled, but can be deleted.

1617 - VET-SV FEE-HELP (Release 2)

Added note about system credit calculation for VET-TUIT fee types.