Imaging, Document
Management and the Future
MASFAA Conference
2002
Nick Zinser
Northeastern University
Jim Slattery
The College Board
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
Institution Saves
Family submits forms once
Mailing Costs
Institutions have access to
same documentation
Staff Time
Correction process can be
automated by institution
Storage Space
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 University
Moving 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