Creating and Editing a Fund

A fund needs to be defined for each source of aid that students at your institution can receive including loans, grants, scholarships, and jobs.

Note: For certain funds, some fields will be automatically set and read-only based on the selection made in a previous field. For example, if you select the Government ID of Pell Grant, the Type will automatically display as Grant and will not be editable.

To create a fund, complete the following steps:

  1. Select System Administration in the top navigation bar to open the System Administration menu along the left side of the page.
  2. Expand the Packaging options in the left navigation menu and select Funds.
  1. Select the Add icon + in the Funds header to open the Create New Fund window.

    Each section of the Create Fund Window can be expanded or collapsed by selecting the blue Expand or Collapse icons + / - to the right of the section header.

  2. Enter the name you want the fund to use within the application in the Fund Name field.

    Note: For users of previous versions of PowerFAIDS, avoid putting the award year in the name of the fund as funds are not year specific in PowerFAIDS Cloud.

    Ruffalo Noel Levitz (RNL) Customers: It is important to ensure fund names are unique within the first 20 characters, as only the first 20 characters of the Fund Name are used when syncing fund information with RNL.

  3. Enter the name you want the fund to use in communications in the Display Name field.

    The Fund Name and Display Name can be the same.

  1. Select the source of the funding from the Donor list.

    The following options are available:

    ValueDescription
    FederalAwards from this fund are funded by the United States federal government. This includes funds that are administered under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965.
    InstitutionAwards from this fund are funded by institutional sources.
    OtherAwards from this fund are funded by a source that does not fit into the available donor categories.
    PrivateAwards from this fund are funded by a private individual or corporation.
    StateAwards from this fund are funded by a state government body.
  2. Select the Federal program associated with this fund from the Government ID list.

    This field is only available and required when the Donor option is set to Federal.

  3. Select the fund category from the Type list and select a Sub-type if desired.

    For loans, you are required to indicate a Sub-type.

    The following options are available:

    CategorySub-typeDescription
    GrantNoneThis fund is awarded as a gift and does not require repayment except under specific circumstances. Scholarships are considered grants under this categorization.

    Athletic Awards

    		This is a sub-type of grant used to indicate that the award is specific to student athletes.
    Annual GiftThis is a sub-type of grant used to indicate that the award comes from an annual gift (sometimes called Current Use or Restricted).
    EndowmentThis is a sub-type of grant used to indicate that the award comes from the endowment.

    Stipend

    		This is a sub-type of grant used to indicate that the award is paid out through a stipend.

    Tuition Waivers

    		This is a sub-type of grant used to indicate that the award is paid out through a tuition waiver.
    JobNoneThis fund is awarded through a job program that requires the student to work to receive the funding.

    Stipend

    		This is a sub-type of job used to indicate that the award is paid out through a stipend.
    LoanNoneThis fund is awarded as a loan that requires repayment.

    Parent/Other

    		This is a sub-type of loan used to indicate that the borrower is the parent or other non-student borrower.

    Student

    		This is a sub-type of loan used to indicate that the borrower is the student.
  4. Optionally, indicate any internal information relevant to the fund that is not captured elsewhere in the Note field.
  5. Optionally, enter any further categories in the Family 1 and Family 2 fields. For example, if you wanted to identify the academic departments that oversee scholarships, you could enter the name of those departments in these fields. These will not be shown in the student record but can be pulled in as data points in custom reports.
  6. Optionally, provide the ledger number associated with the award in the Ledger Number field. This information can be used as a data point in custom reports.
  1. Choose how the packaging process will award the fund from the Packaging Behavior list.

    The following options are available:

    ValueDescription
    Cap at remaining unmet needIndicates that awards from this fund cannot exceed a student’s remaining unmet need at the time of packaging.

    Tip: The amount of unmet need a student has is determined by the data received from the ISIR. Students that do not have ISIR data in a given award year are considered by the system to have 0 unmet need.

    Can exceed remaining unmet needIndicates that awards from this fund can exceed a student’s remaining unmet need at the time of packaging.
    Can exceed remaining unmet need and COA; excluded from EFAIndicates that awards from this fund can exceed both a student’s remaining unmet need and their cost of attendance at the time of packaging. Awards from this fund are also excluded from a student’s Estimated Financial Aid (EFA).

    Note: For users of previous versions of PowerFAIDS, this logic was previously controlled by two fields in the fund setup: Can Replace TFC and Need-Based.

  2. Indicate whether the status for newly added awards of the fund should default to Pending or Accepted in the Default Award Status field.
  3. Specify how you want the awards of this fund to be distributed across payment periods when the award is automatically distributed by the system in the Distribution field.

    The following options are available:

    ValueDescription
    Total Award / Number of Payment Periods

    This award is distributed equally across all payment periods.

    Payment Period Percent of Year

    This award is distributed across all payment periods using a weighted distribution based on the percent of year that each payment period represents.

    Any further distribution within each payment period is determined by the Alternate Schedule selected for the fund and the associated values that have been set in the disbursement schedule for the payment period.

    Any necessary rounding is done in an alternating pattern by first rounding up and then down starting with the earliest payment period and proceeding in date sequence order. Any remainder is then added to the last available payment period. This pattern is again repeated if any rounding is needed for multiple distributions within a single payment period, with any remainder added to the last available distribution within the payment period.

    For the Pell Grant fund only, this rounding pattern will reset whenever the enrollment status changes between payment periods.

  4. Choose which Percent to Pay option in the payment period disbursement schedule is used to distribute the award across distributions within each payment period from the Alternate Schedule list.
  5. In the Include as Need-Based in Reporting setting, indicate whether the fund should be categorized as need based or non-need based in reports.

    This setting does not directly impact how a student's need is calculated or impose any need-based award limits on this fund; those settings are controlled through the Packaging Behavior field.

  6. Set the Allow Cents setting to Yes if awards from this fund can allow cents rather than just whole dollars.
  7. Set the Always Shield Award setting to Yes if you want these fund awards to be added in a shielded state.

    Note: A shield prevents any system-driven updates from impacting the fund. For example, a manually added and shielded fund would not be removed through automated packaging. This option is not available for Federal Pell Grant.

  8. Set the Estimated Award setting to Yes if awards from this fund should be considered as estimates only. This flag does not impact how the system calculates or packages the awards. Setting this to Yes flags awards packaged from the fund as estimated awards so you can communicate to students that their award amount is estimated.
  9. Indicate whether Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) should be considered when awarding this fund, using the Alternate SAP value for each student by setting the Enforce Alternate SAP setting to Yes or No.

    This option is not available for Federal funds, which are required to use the Federal SAP value when considering Satisfactory Academic Progress.

  1. If the fund is disbursed through your financial aid office rather than directly to the student's account, leave the Disbursable setting set to Yes.
  2. Set the Disburse Estimated Awards setting to indicate whether to flag packaged awards form the fund as estimated awards.

    Setting this to Yes flags awards packaged from the fund as estimated awards so you can communicate to students that the award is estimated.

  3. Set the Report as Additional Unsubsidized setting to Yes if awards from this fund are to be reported as additional federal direct unsubsidized loans awarded beyond a student's base eligibility due to a PLUS Loan denial on record.

    This option is only available for funds with a Government ID of Unsubsidized loan.

  4. Set the First Time Borrower setting to Yes if federal first-time borrower rules apply to this fund.

    This option is only available for funds with a Government ID of Subsidized or Unsubsidized loans.

  5. If applicable, choose the appropriate Disclosure Statement Print Code from the list.

    This option is only available for funds with a Government ID of Subsidized, Unsubsidized, PLUS, or Graduate PLUS loans.

  1. Choose when you want to report the fund as estimated to COD from the Report Estimated to COD list.
  2. Set the Include in CDS setting to Yes if you want to include this fund in Common Data Set (CDS) reporting.
  3. Set the Include in IPEDS setting to Yes if you want to include this fund in Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) reporting.

Note: These fields only show if the RNL Customer field is set to Yes on the School Profile page. For more information on setting up or updating this page, see School Profile.

The Source and Award Type fields will populate automatically in this section based on the Donor and Type selected in the General Information section.

Select the appropriate values in the Funding and Basis, or populate the Alpha Entry field.

For reference, see the options for each of the RNL fields below:

Position 1
Source

Position 2
Basis

Position 3
Funding

Position 4
Award Type

I = Institutional

N = Need-Based

F= Funded

W = Work

C = Campus-Based Government

T = Talent-Based
(Athletic, Music, etc.)

U = Unfunded
(Tuition Source)

L = Loan

F = Federal Government

M = Merit-Based (Academic)

R = Unfunded (Room and Board Source)

G = Gift

S = State and Local Government

P = Premier Academic

 

 

P = Private Scholarships

O = Other (County)

 

 

O = Other Outside

 

 

 
Alpha Entry Description

EXCL

Non-need-based loans (such as PLUS, and Unsubsidized Stafford or Direct Loans or alternative loans) or any other awards that are to be excluded from the analysis.

EMPB

Awards that constitute an employee benefit.

EXCH

Institutional awards that constitute a tuition exchange with another school.
  1. Specify the order the fund is listed in communications (such as an award letter) in the Display Sequence field.

    The lower the number, the higher on the list the fund will be displayed.

  2. Set the Display in Communications setting to Yes if you want the fund to be included in communications.
  1. Select Create.

    A success message is displayed in the upper right portion of the page letting you know the fund has been created.

Once created, you'll see the fund in the Funds list. Select it from the list to make any necessary edits to the parameters you previously set.

Note: The following fields cannot be edited once a fund is created or in the fund copy process: Donor, Government ID, Type, Sub-type, and Packaging Behavior.

In addition, select the fund from the list to complete the Activity, College Financing Plan, and Requirements sections as needed.

Funds must be available in the associated award year to award a fund to a student.

  1. Select + Add New to add a new row for an award year in the Activity table.

    The Activity section of the fund screen is shown with an arrow pointing out the Add New link to the bottom left of the table to add a new award year instance to the fund.

  2. Select the federal award year you want to associate with the fund from the Award Year list.

    You can add multiple award years to the same instance of the fund and update the funding information specific to each year by adding additional rows for additional years in the table.

    Caution: Do not add an award year more than once to the Activity table or the fund will not function properly throughout the system.

  3. Enter the total amount of available funding for the associated award year to any packaging in the Available Funds field.
  4. Enter the maximum amount the system is allowed to package from this fund across all awards in the associated award year in the Packaging Target field.

    Note: In some cases, this amount may be higher than the Available Funds for the award year as some institutional processes may be set up to account for a percentage of awards that have been historically declined.

  5. Select + Add New and repeat the above steps to add multiple award years of this fund as needed.

    Since funds in PowerFAIDS are global and only created once, you can add as many award years as needed and adjust the amount of money available in each fund on an award year by award year basis.

  6. Once you have completed each of the fields in the row, select Save save icon. You can also select Cancel cancel icon to discard your changes.
  1. Select + Add New to add a new row for an award year in the College Financing Plan table.

    College Financing plan table with five columns: Award Year, Undergraduate Category, Interest Rate, and Origination fee. The Add New option is highlighted to add a new award year to the table.

  2. Select the federal award year you want to associate with the fund from the Award Year list.

    You can add multiple award years to the same instance of the fund and update the College Financing Plan information specific to each year by adding additional rows for additional years in the table.

    Caution: Do not add an award year more than once to the College Financing Plan table or the fund will not function properly throughout the system.

  3. Select the appropriate Undergraduate Category and Graduate Category for the fund from the lists. If a fund only applies to one category, select the Do Not Include option for the inapplicable category.
  4. If applicable, populate the Interest Rate and Origination fields.
  5. Select + Add New and repeat the above steps to add multiple award years of this fund as needed.

    Since funds in PowerFAIDS are global and only created once, you can add as many award years as needed and adjust the College Financing Plan information on an award year by award year basis.

  6. Once you have completed each of the fields in the row, select Save save icon. You can also select Cancel cancel icon to discard your changes.
  1. Select + Add New to add a new row for a template in the Disbursement Notification Template table.

    Disbursement Notification Templates table. The Add New option is highlighted to add a new row to the table.

  2. Select the disbursement notification communication template you want to associate with the fund from the Template list.
  3. Once you have completed each of the fields in the row, select Save save icon. You can also select Cancel cancel icon to discard your changes.

    Only one template can be associated with each fund. To update the template associated with a fund, first remove the existing template, then add the new template.

  1. Select + Add New to add a new requirement in the Requirements table.

    Requirements table filled out with 20-21 ISIR as the Requirement, 2020-2021 as the award year, and ISIR as the description.

  2. Select the requirement you want to associate with the fund from the Requirement list.

    You can add multiple requirements to the same instance of the fund by adding additional rows for additional requirements in this table.

  3. Select + Add New and repeat the above steps to add multiple award years of this fund as needed.

    Since funds in PowerFAIDS are global and only created once, a requirement only needs to be added once and then will be assigned to any student with an award from the fund, regardless of award year.

  4. Once you have completed each of the fields in the row, select Save save icon. You can also select Cancel cancel icon to discard your changes.