NSW - Understanding the SAP Finance Sync

This help article relates to Hero schools located in New South Wales only.

The Department of Education looks after the receipt and distribution of funds for public schools in NSW.   All funds received from caregivers are receipted into the DoE accounts.  Because of this, the DoE is the single source of truth for all GL Accounts, Fee Categories,  Cost Centres and Internal Orders.   These form the 'Master Data Items' set.  

A school is able to create their own Internal Order for a school specific event, but this needs to be done in the DoE system and synced to Hero.  No component of the Master Data Items set can be created or updated directly in Hero.

WHEN A SCHOOL BEGINS USING HERO STUDENT BILLING

When a school decides to switch to Hero for student billing, two initial processes occur.

1. The initial sync of the Master Data Items takes place to populate the Hero Student Billing system with the required accounting codes.
2. The DoE schedules and facilitates the finance data migration process, including when to stop using the previous student billing system, getting data from the other vendor and providing the data to Hero.  Hero will import the provided data into your school's Hero site.

Once the initial syncs have been actioned the school is ready to go.  In order to keep the DoE accounts updated, transaction-based syncs need to occur.  Most of these happen automatically.

RE-SYNCING MASTER DATA ITEMS

This sync is actioned manually by the school Finance Officer and needs to be done if the DoE informs the school of a code change OR an Internal Order is added or updated by the Finance Officer.   Errors in the Fee Mapping upload will occur if changes are made to any Master Data Items without this sync being run.

1.  Navigate to the Administration menu and click Finance.

2.  Click FEE CATEGORIES.

3.  Click SYNC MASTER DATA ITEMS.

FEE MAPPING UPLOAD

When a Fee Mapping or a sundry Line Item on an individual student, that is not associated with a Fee Mapping, is created or changed by the school, it will automatically be uploaded to the DoE to signal that your school will be receipting payments against it.  A status indicator will be received in response and applied to the Fee Mapping to indicate a successful upload.

• A Red cloud indicates an error in one of the Master Data Set fields.  Click the cloud to view the error message.   Correcting the Fee Mapping will instigate a further upload.
• A Green cloud indicates a successful upload.
• A Grey cloud indicates that the upload is pending but no errors have been encountered.

To elevate errors, the ability to create line items against a Fee Mapping will be disabled until a Green or Grey cloud response has been received.  A sundry line item is created at the same time as the upload so the same restriction does not apply for sundry line items.  It is best to avoid adding payments until a successful upload has been signalled.

Note:  Individual line items associated with a Fee Mapping are not sent to the DoE.  The sync is purely to signal to the DoE that payments will be made against a specific set of Master Data Items.

PAYMENTS, CANCELLATIONS AND REFUNDS UPLOAD

Only credit transactions which will affect the DoE accounts are required to be uploaded to the DoE.  This is carried out automatically as soon as the transaction is created.  i.e.

• When a payment is added to a line item or a student's Payment in Advance (PIA) balance
• When a payment on a line item or PIA is cancelled
• When a refund is issued against a line item or PIA.

As this happens at the time the transaction is entered, it is important to ensure the correct payment method is selected.  

If an incorrect payment method is identified when carrying out till reconciliation. the transaction needs to be cancelled and reentered with the correct payment method in order to ensure that the correction is sent to the DoE.

As for Fee Mappings, a status indicator is received in response to the upload.  This is visible under View Payments.

• A Red cloud indicates an error in one of the Master Data Set fields relating to the line item.  Click the cloud to view the error message.   A change will need to be made to the associated Fee Mapping, which will in turn trickle down to the payment. 
• A Green cloud indicates a successful upload.
• A Grey cloud indicates that the upload is pending but no errors have been encountered.