Does Anticipated Aid show on Student Statements???

Dawn Alonso

Hi All!

I find myself in need of some expertise from the hive mind. Does anyone out there know if loaded anticipated aid is shown on a student statement? We are participating in a new scholarship and they would like to see the scholarship reflected on the student invoice prior to sending the check and the only way I can think to do that the cleanest is anticipated aid. However, that won't work if it doesn't reflect on a student statement.

Happy Friday!?

Dale Cecil

@Dawn Alonso - To my knowledge there is no way to show anticipated aid on the statement which is a HUGE problem for us. Hopefully I am wrong or Blackbaud will recognize this flaw and correct it.

Alla Londinski

Hello @Dawn Alonso - no, the anticipated aid cannot be visible on the statements or anywhere else - even a student cannot see the anticipated aid on their portal. The only place where a student can see a total amount of anticipated aid is on the Billing - Current Bill page.

It is a huge problem for us also as we are sending statements to students 4-5 month before any aid can be disbursed and students and parents cannot see the projected amount due. We are using a “workaround” - exporting all necessary data from the system and generating our own statements. This is very tedious process, considering that all the data are already in the system. I have submitted the idea to the idea bank; the link is below. Please vote if you think that this has to be added to the Billing management.

Dawn Alonso

@Alla Londinski

Thanks, I didn't think it would just because it literally hasn't generated a credit or debit. My work around for the one scholarship is that I created a billing item to use as a credit. So, I will put “Pending Scholarship” on as a credit, mark it do not post, and then remove it when the scholarship comes in. A bit of work, but since we are a small school, it is the best I can do.

Dawn Alonso

@Dale Cecil

We have stopped mailing statements when we transitioned to Billing Management, since they are accessible to the student via the portal. Honestly, that has saved a lot of headaches for many reasons, the least of which is the cost of postage and the fact that the post office is hit or miss.

I created a Pushpage that I send when the student billing is done and guide them to the portal to review charges and see their anticipated aid. Our Financial Aid person also loads their Award letters into Blackbaud, no more mailing those as well. It was a transition, but we always say that in 3 years it will be that was how it was always done to some students.