Student Financial Software (SFS) Overview

SFS products

The SFS products available are:

  • Billing and Payment Management

  • Collection Management

  • On Demand Plans

  • eRefunds

  • Secure Checkout

Billing and Payment Management

Billing and Payment Management offers you full student account services. The billing and payment management product includes payment processing and payment plans with additional functionality such as managing credit balance refunds (eRefunds), displaying announcements, accessing tax documents, and automated communications.

The SFS can be integrated with Banner, Peoplesoft, and Colleague ERPs.

 

The available features for the billing and payment management product are:

The Account Summary tab is the main landing page for payers on the Payer Home page. It shows a summary of the payer's account including any balance due, anticipated aid amounts, and payment plans.

From the Account Summary tab, the payer can view additional features such as approved Authorized Users, the ability to enroll in eRefunds, and their 1098T tax forms.

Payer activity includes any action taken on an account. The action can be taken by the payer, an Administrator at your institution, or the Flywire system. All payer activity is stored in the SFS system and can be filtered and searched.

Balance payment plans are tuition plans based on real charges. Balance payment plans do not have a budget worksheet and the balance is not editable. Balance payment plans can’t be used until charges are actually on the payer's account, which means they can’t be offered until later. The payer will not see an offer for a balance payment plan until they have charges that match the configured item types.

Budget payment plans are tuition plans based on potential charges. In budget payment plans, the payer chooses or calculates the plan amount.

You can create budget payment plans three ways:

  • Basic balance input - The payer inputs a dollar amount as a total sum.

  • Budget worksheet - The payer uses the worksheet to calculate an appropriate plan balance.

  • A calculator created by your institution - You can create a budget calculator and incorporate it into the SFS. Flywire takes the calculated amount as the total plan balance. This calculator is maintained by your institution.

The message feed is a feature within the SFS that allows you to display an announcement banner to customers. It is configured at the root level of an institution and cannot be cohort specific.

Notifications are SMS text or email messages the SFS sends to the payer. Each type of notification has two templates - a template for email communications and a template for text message (SMS) communications. You can configure the communications using customizable templates.

Account statements are a feature within the SFS that provides a static summary of the financial transactions that have occurred over a specific period of time.

The 1098t tax forms feature allows a payer to view and print their 1098t tax forms. 1098t tax forms are US-only tax forms used to assist in claiming tax credits for amounts paid towards tuition.

On Demand Payment Plans

On demand payment plans are a flexible payment plans where you can choose the amount, length, and timing for the plan. An On Demand payment plan is created manually and is not tied to any tuition or collections bill. Since it is not tied to a bill, an on demand payment plan is never updated by a batch or real time integration process.

The on demand payment plans are not tied to a specific time period and do not need to be completed by the end of the term.

On demand payment plans are always balance based and can never be converted to a balance or budget payment plan.

eRefunds

The eRefunds feature allows you to streamline the credit balance refund process. The eRefunds feature is part of the Student Financial Software (SFS) and is enabled as part of the implementation process.

An eRefund is when the you refund a credit balance to a payer (also known as the recipient). A credit balance occurs when financial aid disbursement exceeds the account balance. The credit balance is sent to the payer (student or Authorized User) using the eRefunds feature.

Collection Management

Collection Management allows you to define the collections lifecycle for you institution. You can set rules for how the SFS communicates with the payer and how the payer is allowed to pay the balance owed.

 

There are three phase modules your institution can implement for Collection Management. Your institution can implement one or all of these options and customize the length of time an account is worked in each module. The modules are:

In the Pre-Collect phase, past due students are automatically engaged by the SFS to enroll in a payment plan or pay their balance in full.

You define the payment plan offers and communications for your institution.

You configure how long the Pre-Collect phase lasts and the pre-determined intervals when Flywire sends payment plan offer communications.

If you have the Internal Collections phase configured, the system will automatically move the accounts which have not enrolled in a payment plan or made payment in full to the Internal Collections phase when the Pre-Collect phase is complete.

In the Internal Collection phase, Customer Service Representatives (CSRs), Collectors, and Managers work directly with students to negotiate a payment arrangement.

Collectors can negotiate a custom payment plan with a student and send them an offer to enroll.

Your Managers and CSRs can use the SFS dashboards to see the daily work queue and view available reports and analytics.

At the end of the Internal Collection phase, the accounts which have not enrolled in a payment plan or made payment in full may be automatically placed for first round with collection agencies or any other configured placement such as Shelved.

The Agency Management feature allows you to integrate collection agencies with your SFS collection management. With agency integration the SFS can automatically place student accounts in their first placement with collection agencies, allow manual reassignment to second and third agency placements, and post payments made to an agency back to the SFS.

 

The available features for the collections management product are:

Collection payment plans are payment plans created to fit the payer's budget and meet their financial responsibility. Collection payment plans are tied to a bill but are not tied to a term or specific time frame.

The payer timeline is a visual representation of the payer's journey through their current collection phase. The timeline displays a summary of pending and completed actions, scheduled communications, offer expiration dates, and automatic moves from Collection Management. Managers and collectors can easily see a timeline of scheduled collection activities and quickly take action on priority work items.

The payer timeline only covers the current phase the student is in (precollect, internal collections, etc) and only shows actions/events for that phase.

Integrations

There are three different ways you can integrate your SIS/ERP with the SFS. Each integration requires different levels of effort from your institution and has a different level of information exchange.

The three integration options are:

Quickstart Integration

Quickstart integration sets up SFS functionality without needing work from your IT department. Quickstart integration allows you to provide limited SFS functionality such as payment plans, cross border payments, auto-debit, and one time payments.

For billing and payments, quickstart integration requires manual processing by an admin.

For collection management, there is some automated processes, such as using a file to load student accounts.

Batch Integration

Batch integration is when your data is stored in your ERP and moved to the SFS in a block. Batch integration can be set up to process at scheduled intervals, you can set up the integration to process hourly, daily, or weekly.

Real-Time Integration

Real-time integration allows seamless data flow and enhanced financial management between the SFS and your institution's SIS/ERP. Real-time integration ensures instant, accurate, and up-to-date payment and payment plan information, benefiting both your institution and your payers.

Real-time integration requires work between your IT department and Flywire to configure the communication (or integration).

For more information about real-time integration, see Real-Time Integration.