About SAS Reconciliation Review
The Department of Education issues an award-year specific SAS, similar to a bank statement, on a monthly basis to schools participating in Title IV aid processing. SAS are available for both Federal Direct Loan programs and for the Federal Pell Grant program. For information on how to receive and request these items, please review the FSA Partner Connect Portal and the FSA Handbook.
SAS review is an important monthly and yearly process for Title IV Aid compliance and to maintain accurate data and is generally requested during annual internal and Title IV audits.
Upon receipt of the SAS, your school can compare the SAS Cash Summary to its internal records to determine and research discrepancies.
Campus Cafe has a SAS Reconciliation tool which will allow you to more easily compare the SAS record with the information currently in Campus Cafe and to highlight any discrepancies for your school’s team to research.
Access SAS Reconciliation Review in Campus Cafe
Navigate to Financials > F/A COD Documents
Click on Reconciliation (at top of the Financial Aid COD Documents screen).
Click ' Choose File' to upload the SAS you have received from ED and that you want to compare to records currently in Campus Cafe. You can do this multiple times for different SAS documents and for Pell and Direct Loans. The upload functions supports fixed length and CSV files and also monthly and year-to-date SAS records.
Click ‘Get Reconciliation Report’.
You will see that a list of all students on the SAS reconciliation report will populate. You may export this information to excel, PDF, print, or copy the information, or review in Campus Cafe.
Remember that you can choose which columns are visible when reviewing these and other reports in Campus Cafe by clicking on ‘Column Visibility’. You can also drag columns to relocate them and resize them as is convenient for you.
Understanding and interpreting the SAS reconciliation review output
The output from the SAS review will provide student information and identify the following fields: COD Award ID, Award Code, Award Year, Disbursement Sequence number, Disbursement Number, Campus Cafe Amount, COD Amount, and an Error Message as applicable.
Rows that match will remain white with black text. There is also a ‘Match' column that will have a green check box if the information in the SAS matches what is in Campus Cafe so that you can easily identify matched/mismatched information when printed or exported.
Rows that are mismatched will be yellow with red text on the screen and will not have the ‘Match’ column populated with a check box. These are the items that will need further review to meet Department of Education SAS Reconciliation guidelines.
If there is a mismatch between what is in the report and what is on the SAS, you will also see one of the error messages outlined below.
Error Message on SAS Report | Additional Explanation of Error |
|---|---|
Campus Cafe Amount differs from COD Amount | Disbursement amount in SAS file is different from the amount in the Campus Cafe database. |
Unable to find disb history with matching COD Disb Seq# | Found matching award, but unable to find a matching disbursement sequence number for award. |
No matching student found for SSN | Based on the SSN in the SAS file, we could not find a matching student in Campus Cafe. |
No matching award found | Based on the information in the file (either the COD Award ID or the PELL SSN/award year/etc), no matching awards could be found. |
Multiple matching awards found | Based on the information in the file (either the COD Award ID or the PELL SSN/award year/etc), multiple matching awards could be found. |
No disbursement found for COD Disb# | Matching award found, but unable to find a disbursement with a matching COD Disbursement #. |
Matching disbursement has no COD Disb Seq# | Matching award and disbursement found, but the disbursement has no COD Disb Sequence # specified. |
Once the issues are identified through the Reconciliation tool in Campus Cafe, you can research mismatched items to determine where the discrepancy lies and adjust either COD information or Campus Cafe data so that information matches in both locations, if needed.
Sometimes timing is a legitimate factor in SAS Reconciliation especially for loans and pell grants processed near the end of the month. It may appear that there is a mismatch when comparing the SAS file with Campus Cafe, but COD will soon reflect what is in Campus Cafe when timing is an issue.
If your investigation into a mismatched item finds that timing is the reason, document this discrepancy and make sure that COD reflects what is in Campus Cafe in an appropriate timeframe.
For more information on reconciliation best practices review the FSA Student Handbook Volume 4, Chapter 6 for Direct Loan Reconciliation and Volume 4, Chapter 5 for Pell Grant Reconciliation.
