Fee Collection, Reconciliation, and Remittance: GradCAS

Fee Assistance Program

Your participation agreement may outline that each cycle, Liaison covers the application processing fee for a certain percentage of a school’s submitted applicants (this percentage is noted in your contract). These application processing fees are offset via coupons that you can provide to domestic applicants who demonstrate financial hardship. At the end of the cycle, Liaison performs a reconciliation, comparing the coupons redeemed to the applications received, applying the allotted percentage, and billing the school for any shortfall in applicant processing fees.

The following conditions apply to this program:

• Schools can request and issue coupons at any time throughout the cycle.
• At the end of the cycle, Liaison will perform a reconciliation and will apply the coupon value toward your account balance.
  • If at the end of the cycle the total redeemed coupons amount equals more than the allotted financial hardship percentage, Liaison will invoice the school for the difference.
  • If at the end of the cycle the total redeemed coupons amount equals less than the allotted financial hardship percentage, no credits will be issued and no remaining balances will be carried forward or applied in other cycles.

Schools that choose to use the fee assistance program benefit are encouraged to perform forecasting before the start of the cycle to estimate the amount of coupons to request. 

For more information on utilizing this program, contact a member of your account team. 

Purchasing Additional Coupons

In some cases, you might want to issue more coupons than what you are allotted via the Fee Assistance Program. If so, you can purchase application coupons directly from Liaison.

For more information on purchasing coupon codes, contact a member of your account team. 

Note: schools can request coupon amounts in excess of the allotted Fee Assistance Program percentage but are responsible for funding any differences. If you decide to purchase coupons in excess of the allotted percentage, this will be reflected in the quarterly report Liaison provides for reconciliation and remittance. See the Reporting, Reconciliation, and Remittance section below for more information.

Cover Sheet

This tab is similar to a table of contents – it provides details on each of the tabs in the workbook.

eMerchant & Bank Fees

This tab shows what the credit card and bank fees are for each month in the cycle. 

Coupon Code Detail

This tab shows all the coupon codes that have been redeemed in the period covered by the report. There are 17 columns of data. The following columns are most pertinent to this report:

• Organization (Program): the institution name and the program at the institution for which the coupon code was redeemed.
• Applicant Name: the applicant's name. 
• Email: the applicant's email address.
• Date Redeemed: the date the applicant redeemed the coupon. 
• Coupon Amount: the value of the coupon. 
• Coupon Type: there are three types of coupon codes:
  • School Fee: this type of coupon covers the cost of the school's program fee. In the example above, the cost of the Fall 2020 Computer Science program is $65.
  • Processing Fee: this type of coupon covers Liaison's application processing fee. In the example above, the fee is $58.
  • Combined: this type of coupon code covers the total of the school's program fee and the Liaison application processing fee. In the example above, the combined fee is $123 ($65 program fee + $58 application processing fee). 

Transaction Detail

This tab provides detailed information for each applicant applying to the institution. There are 25 columns of data. The following columns are most pertinent to this report:

• Applicant Name: the applicant's name. 
• CAS Id: the applicant's CAS ID number. 
• Program Fee: the fee for the program the applicant is applying to.  
• Program Name: the name of the program the applicant is applying to. 
• Program Pay Type: indicates whether the program is a “Paying” or “Non-Paying” program. Institutions may not charge a fee for certain programs, as is the case for the PhD Mechanical Engineering in our example above. Note that while an institution may not charge a fee, Liaison’s processing fee still applies.
• Summable Transaction Amount: the amount Liaison collected from the applicant upon application submission (a negative number indicates a refund or chargeback). 
• Transaction Date: the date the summable transaction amount was collected (i.e., the date the application was submitted). 
• CC Fees: the credit card fee that was charged for the transaction.

Full Cycle Detail

This tab uses the pertinent information from the Transaction Detail tab to calculate the amount owed for Liaison processing fees. 

This tab is also where you can find the Fee Assistance Program calculation. In the example above:

• The institution had 3,650 total applicants. 
• The application processing fee is $58.
• The institution's contract (not shown) indicates Liaison will cover processing fees for 5% of submitted applicants, which equals 183 applicants (3,650 applicants x 5% = 183). 
• The institution received an allowance of $10,614 in coupon codes (183 applicants x $58 processing fee = $10,614).

Note that the report indicates that $26,796 worth of coupons were redeemed. Liaison applies the $10,614 fee assistance credit and the remaining amount of redeemed coupons is included in the balance due to Liaison (i.e., Total Processing Fees to Liaison).  

Royalty Fee Analysis

This tab displays a general breakdown of fees and the ultimate amount owed to or due from your institution.

Note that based on your institution's contract, your report may vary slightly from the example below.

• Report Header: this line displays which CAS the report represents and through which quarter-end the report runs.
  • In this example, the report includes activity for SuperSchool for the 2019–2020 cycle through December 31, 2019.
• Total Processing Fees: the total fees owed to Liaison for application processing.
  • This amount represents the number of processed applications multiplied by the fee Liaison charges for the service. 
• Fee Waiver/Coupon Code Allowance: the total amount of coupons Liaison provides to the institution via the Fee Assistance Program (see above). 
  • The details for any redeemed coupon codes are provided in the Coupon Code Detail tab of the report (see above).
• Net Processing Fees due to Liaison: the Total Processing Fees less any Fee Waiver/Coupon Code Allowances.
• Total e-merchant Fees and Bank Fees: the total amount of credit card and bank fees charged for application payments. This amount is provided on an averaged basis across the CAS. For example, if Liaison pays a total of $14,000 in CAS credit card processing fees on $652,000 worth of CAS payments for the month of December, the averaged rate for that month will be 2.14% ($14,000/$652,000). The 2.14% will be applied to each payment received in that month and broken down by institution.
  • Note that Liaison is charged approximately $20 for any disputes/chargebacks filed by applicants. These fees are not averaged across the CAS and are instead applied only to the institution to which the applicant’s original payment was made. Chargeback information appears in several places in the report: 
    • Chargeback details are displayed as line items on the Transaction Detail tab of the report. 
    • Chargeback fees are indicated in the eMerchant & Bank Fees tab of the report.
• Chargebacks/Refunds/Bad Payments: the total amount of refunds and chargebacks processed cycle-to-date (fed from the eMerchant & Bank Fees tab of the report).
• Net Cash Collected: the total amount Liaison has collected on behalf of the institution, less the Chargeback/Refunds/Bad Payments.
  • For the total amount collected, see the Transaction Detail tab or Full Cycle Detail tab of the report (see above). 
• Total Amount Due to (from) Institution: the Net Processing Fees due to Liaison less Net Cash Collected.
  • This is the amount Liaison owes the institution or the amount the institution owes Liaison (if negative).
• Liability paid as of X/XX/20XX: displays what Liaison has previously paid to the institution for this CAS in this cycle, if any. 
• Current amount due to (from): the Total Amount Due to (from) Institution less any Liability paid as of X/XX/20XX.
  • If the net amount collected is less than amounts owed to Liaison, this number represents monies owed to Liaison (negative amount). 
  • If the net amount collected exceeds any amounts owed to Liaison, this number represents the amount Liaison owes to the Institution (positive amount).
    • Important: this is the final amount that the receiver of the report must confirm and approve to get the payment process initiated if monies are owed to the institution.