G&P SSA Fiscal Agent Management Setup

The Shared Service Arrangement (SSA) Fiscal Agent Management feature provides fiscal agents a more efficient way to handle grant budget revision requests and reimbursement requests from SSA members as well as manage budget adjustments. Education Service Centers (ESCs) and Local Education Agencies (LEAs) can both serve as designated fiscal agents.

The purpose of this document is to guide you through the necessary steps to assist fiscal agents in administering member LEA grant funds. As members submit requests through MemberPortal, fiscal agents have the ability to promptly move the requests through a customized approval path to ensure timely budget revisions and reimbursements.

If the Document Attachments feature exists on a page/pop-up window, depending on your access, you may have the ability to upload or view supporting documentation by clicking the Documents button or the paper icon.

This document assumes you are familiar with the basic features of the ASCENDER Business system and have reviewed the ASCENDER Business Overview guide.

Some of the images and/or examples provided in this document are for informational purposes only and may not completely represent your LEA’s process.


Prerequisites

❏ Update roles/users in Security Administration to allow SSA Fiscal Agent Management permissions. You can add permissions to an existing role or create a new role.

Terms:

ASCENDER MemberPortalAn integrated portal that allows SSA member LEAs to submit grant budget revision and reimbursement requests to their respective fiscal agents.
Budget AdjustmentA budget adjustment is used to add or subtract an amount from an object's total award.
Budget RevisionA budget revision is used to move an amount between object classes within the total award.
GrantA grant is funds that are given to an LEA by an entity such as a public body, charitable foundation, or specialized grant institution to provide a specific level of support for a specified period of time.
ReimbursementA reimbursement is used to create a transaction to reimburse a member LEA's vendor using an amount that is equal to or less than the amount available in a grant's eligible remaining amount.
Shared Service Arrangement (SSA)A financial arrangement used by Local Education Agencies (LEAs) and Education Service Centers (ESCs) to share and manage services for other LEAs referred to as members.
SSA Fiscal AgentA fiscal agent is an organization that manages the accounting and financial reporting responsibility for grant funds on behalf of another organization. Education Service Centers (ESCs) and Local Education Agencies (LEAs) can both serve as designated fiscal agents.
SSA MemberAn SSA member enters into a Shared Service Arrangement with a fiscal agent and is the LEA for which the fiscal agent manages services. The member designates a fiscal agent to conduct administrative duties for any grant funds issued to their LEA.

Upload Signatures in District Administration

  1. Upload signatures.

Define Grants

The following steps allow fiscal agents to define grants and set up approved grant applications for their member LEAs.

  1. Create member records.
  2. Add member bank information.
  3. Set up grant types.
  4. (Optional) Set up grant type payment dates.
  5. (Optional) Copy payment dates.

Set up Notice of Grant Award (NOGA)

The following steps allow fiscal agents to track all facets of a NOGA so that member LEAs can be reimbursed appropriately.

  1. Create grant maintenance records.
  2. Add object code data.

Set up & Manage Grant Request Workflows

  1. Set up approval path.
  2. Set up alternate approvers as needed.
  3. Approval emails.

Set up & Manage Users

The following steps allow fiscal agents to create and manage Grants and Projects and MemberPortal user profiles.

  1. Create and maintain user profiles.

After fiscal agents have completed the above setup process in Grants and Projects, Grants and Projects users and MemberPortal users can begin submitting grant requests.

Review the following guides for further information about fiscal agents entering grant requests, approving grant requests, and processing approved grant requests for payment.


Reports

The following reports are available in the Grants and Projects application:

Report IDReport NameReport Summary
GP1000Grant Summary Status ReportThis report provides a summary of grant status information.
GP1100Grant Payment Transaction ReportThis report provides a list of grant payment transactions.
GP1200Past Final Date Without Final ReportThis report provides a list of grant years and IDs that have a Final Report Due Date without a reimbursement transaction designated as the final reimbursement for the grant year and grant ID before the date entered in the Effective Date (MMDDYYYY) report parameter.
GP1300Grant Detail General Ledger ReportThis report provides a list of detailed transactions from the general ledger for a specified grant code. You can view grant/project data for the entire grant period regardless of the school year or file ID, or you can retrieve data based on the school year, file ID, and from/to accounting periods.