Imaging, Document Management and the Future

Nick ZinserNortheastern University

Jim SlatteryThe College Board

MASFAA Conference2002

Financial Aid Office Challenges Improve service to students and families

• Reduce burden on families through streamlined process• Deploy staff to provide excellent customer service

Support institution’s enrollment efforts• Send timely, competitive, and accurate financial aid awards• Develop policies and processes with eye to retention

Maintain or reduce staffing levels• “Do more with less”• Ensure compliance with regulations

Cost savings• Cost awareness

Verification Requirements Federal government requires verification

of key income data for selected applicants Many institutions do more

• 100% verification of income data for recipients of institutional need-based aid

• All applicants or only first-time applicants• Careful review of tax schedules and W-2’s

Manual, paper-based process at most institutions• Some key enter data from tax forms to automate

verification

Response - Documentation Service

Advantages of Service

Correction process can be automated by institution

Institutions have access to same documentation

Family submits forms once

Institution Saves

Storage Space

Staff Time

Mailing Costs

Possible Expanded Services Employ imaging technology for all processes Paperless processing can be more than just

scanning Obtain “document” directly from source Outsourcing of paper-based “back office”

processes• Vendor collects all admission and financial aid

documents• High school or community college transcripts• Letters of recommendation• Student applications and essays

Other Questions Document storage

• Web-based system?• Archiving documents

Technology Hardware Follow up processes Who pays?

One Story

How Northeastern University Implemented The College Board’s Imaging and Documentation Service

Northeastern University

24,000 Student Enrollment 5 Year Undergraduate Program Graduate Programs School of Law University College (Evening Programs) More than 50% of Total Population

Receives Aid

Northeastern University

Processed 4,000 Federal Verifications in 2001-2002

Wanted to increase response time, and decrease award changes

Decided to use IDOC for only the Undergraduate Day population and all admitted students

Northeastern UniversityMoving to a Paperless Office Began processing with The College

Board’s IDOC process at the start of the 2002-2003 processing season

Decided to evaluate first year of operations before reassigning staff or changing office roles

Continued with paper follow up to students missing information

Moving to a Paperless Office

Required a change in business procedure• Verification for returning students would

occur prior to awarding• Need to communicate message to both

students and families• Need to retrain staff on new procedure for

verification and document processing

Which Groups of Students?

Admitted Students Matriculated Students Returning Students Undergraduate Full-Time Students IDOC provides flexibility to register a

variety of different students depending upon your institutional needs

Northeastern Student Notification

Incoming Students would be notified via Missing Information letters about IDOC through verification-specific messages

Returning Students were sent a letter in December announcing the change in verification procedure and reminding students of Financial Aid deadlines

Northeastern Student Notification

Once the notification record from IDOC arrives, we send a follow-up letter to the student

Includes our NU-specific verification worksheet

Serves as a reminder to the student to complete the packet!

Communicating IDOC to Students Communication with students is

important. Messages included references to IDOC

if student selected for verification:VERIFICATION WORKSHEET: You have been selected for a federal process called verification. It is a requirement that you complete and return a Verification Worksheet, as well as the related federal tax documents, to: College Board IDOC, P.O. Box 4017, Mt. Vernon, IL 62864. You must submit these documents along with the "Cover Sheet" that is being provided to you by the College Board. Your information can not be processed without this sheet. Financial aid funds that are awarded to you are tentative and will not be disbursed to your student account until the verification process is complete.

Northeastern’s IDOC Process Student registration files generated on

a weekly basis and files sent to College Board

Notification to students sent from IDOC to families within 2-3 days

Northeastern sends follow up letter including verification worksheet to family

Once packet of tax data returned to IDOC, data available within 3-4 days

Rethinking Verification Using the Verification sheet introduced in

PowerFAIDS this spring allowed Northeastern to adapt to the new process quickly• Data storage is electronic – currently at IDOC

website, but will come to Northeastern on CD at the end of the cycle.

• We created a verification worksheet which collects asset information from FM and IM.

• Selection sets assigned by counselor name can be run to allow counselors to view how many pending verifications they have.

Rethinking Verification

Traditional paper-based verification no longer exists for most students• How do we keep track of the data?• How will we verify asset information?• With no paper file to pull from a cabinet,

how can we alert counselors to verifications which need to be completed?

IDOC Processing

IDOC Processing allowed Northeastern to focus human resources on student contact rather than data entry.

Nearly 91% of our verification documents came via IDOC.

Students still had the option to submit documents to the Student Financial Services office.

IDOC Benefits

Efficient use of staff resources• Reduction in paper handling

• No more lost files

• Ability to automate document tracking and data corrections

Level playing field -- other IDOC schools have access to same information for common applicants

Northeastern & IDOC –A New Process Required rethinking our business

process from initial student contact through packaging

Staff training reinforced in weekly counselor meetings

Time savings for counselors and space savings for files have helped Northeastern serve our students better

IDOC

New process easily integrated into PowerFAIDS

College Board representatives are very responsive to suggestions from users

New procedures can help any institution – not just PROFILE schools!

Looking Ahead to Next Year

IDOC reminder e-mail to students if packet is not returned after thirty days – eliminates a follow up mailing from our office

Ability to scan “stray” documents submitted directly to our office and upload them to the student’s IDOC record

Looking Ahead to Next Year

Placement of verification worksheet at IDOC website which eliminates costly paper follow up letter from our office

Additional elements will be key entered including medical/dental expenses from Schedule A

Many of these changes were suggested by users during the last processing year!

Contact Us With Questions!

• Nick Zinser• n.zinser@neu.edu• 617-373-5830

• Jim Slattery• jslattery@collegeboard.org• 781-890-9153