Financial Aid Disbursement/Overpayment Refunds

Michelle Harper

I am looking for some ideas on how to handle our financial aid disbursements and overpayment refunds on student accounts. Currently, after the loans are put on the student accounts, I (accounting) create the refund on the student accounts and cut the checks through AP one-time checks since Blackbaud doesn't seem to give the option of EFT payments. For non-loan refunds, it gets more tricky. Years ago, staff members who are now retired started a practice of having students request to have their credit balances refunded. If they didn't request the refund, we would just let it roll over to the next semester. I would like to change this practice to refund students when the semester ends or when the add/drop period ends. I am not entirely sure what the best way to do this within the system is. 


What do other people do for refunds and overpayments? What do your policies state?