FACTS: Web-Provided Integration – Finalsite Enrollment

Overview

With the FACTS Web-Provided integration, there is a one time push of tuition and fees are passed from Finalsite Enrollment to FACTS. This integration option is for schools that have yearly contracts/registration forms, and cannot be used for schools with continuous/Evergreen enrollment contracts. Payment plan options do not roll over year to year for returning families, which means all families (new and returning) must complete a contract each year and pick their payment plan within FACTS.

Web-Provided Integration (Yearly Contracts)

To utilize the Web-Provided integration with FACTS, all students (new and returning) must complete a contract each year. It cannot be used for just new students or just returning students. This integration allows all tuition and fee amounts on the contract/registration form to be passed over by clicking on a FACTS button within the Enrollment Checklist.

Image of FACTS checklist item and button

Important Note About Tuition or Fee Changes:
The integration is a one-time push of tuition and fees from Finalsite Enrollment to FACTS. If any tuition or fee amounts have changed after the FACTS checklist item has been marked complete, a manual adjustment of fees is required by the school within FACTS.
Parents can then complete the tuition management sign-up and confirmation process within FACTS. The completion of this step will mark the 'FACTS' checklist item complete in the enrollment checklist for both Admins and parents.

Parent Workflow

Complete Contract(s) to Access FACTS

A Parent completes the online Enrollment Contract/Registration form through Finalsite Enrollment. All Contracts for the family need to be submitted within Finalsite Enrollment before going to FACTS. Tuition and fees are included in this contract.

Important Note about FACTS Checklist Access:
The FACTS link will be hidden if there are any siblings who are still in an active admissions status (regardless of their term).
Active Admissions statuses include Applicant, Application Complete, Accepted, or any custom statuses that are set as 'active.'
For the FACTS link to display, every kid must be in an Enrollment status with a completed contract, or in an 'inactive' Admissions status. Inactive admissions statuses include:

Parent declined
Application withdrawn
Denied
or any custom admissions statuses that are marked as 'inactive.'

The FACTS system does not allow for updating data via their integration API once it has been passed over to the FACTS system, so this behavior seeks to reduce the cases where a school has to manually update FACTS because a potential sibling has not yet been moved to Enrollment.

Using the FACTS Integration

After the contract has been submitted, the parent will click the FACTS button on their Enrollment checklist, which brings in their demographic information and tuition/fees data from Finalsite Enrollment into FACTS.

The button link provided in the Finalsite Enrollment checklist item is specific to the integration and must be used. Any outside links used by the parent will break the integration.

Once in FACTS, the parent/guardian can use their existing username and password to log-in, or create a new account if they are a first time user.

The two accounts will then be linked, and Finalsite Enrollment will remember the sign-on so they can access it from the FACTS checklist item.
All bank account information etc. that was entered last year in FACTS will remain.
The address/name(s) will be updated in FACTS if it’s different on the contract, which usually has a contact update page embedded within.

How the Integration Works

Once logged into FACTS, the tuition and fees will pass over from Finalsite Enrollment to FACTS.
- Fee examples include: Tuition, Required Fees, Optional Fees, Discounts, Supply Fee, Sibling Discount, Deposit, Scholarship Amounts, and Financial Aid Amounts.
- NOTE: If you have certain fees that don't need to be passed over to FACTS, this can be set on an individual fee basis.
Grades and Fees will be mapped between Finalsite Enrollment and the FACTS institution accounts as part of the integration setup.
Balances are passed over per student, not per family.
Parents will select their payment plan within FACTS and finalize the agreement. The school will not need to manually finalize agreements.

Finalsite Enrollment Checklist Behavior

As noted above, if a family has one child in enrollment, and one or more children in an active admissions status such as applicant, application complete or accepted, the FACTS link will not display until the kid(s) in admissions are either moved to an inactive admissions status or into enrollment with completed contracts. In this case, the parent/guardian will see the following message in their checklist:

image of the FACTS checklist item

Once all kids are either in enrollment with submitted contracts or those in admissions are set to an inactive status, the FACTS button will display. Below is an example with customized parent explanation text that you can edit within your enrollment checklist settings.

We recommend you tell parents/guardians not to log into their FACTS account directly because this will break the integration. Click here to learn how to update the parent explanation text.

image of the FACTS checklist item

Parents/guardians will click on the button, which will pass over all tuition and fees one time. Anything that needs to be adjusted after the button is pushed, will need to be updated in FACTS directly.

Once the enrollment agreement has been finalized in FACTS and the payment plan has been selected, the Finalsite Enrollment checklist item is marked complete automatically. This allows you to monitor who completed the FACTS process and who did not via a complete/incomplete checklist item search.

image of the FACTS item marked as compete

Mid-Year Enrollment
The FACTS system does not support multiple active years. This means, once the FACTS year is rolled-over to a new year, families who are enrolling for the prior year (aka mid-year enrollment) cannot use the integration to pass over fees and set up their account.

General Best Practices

Customize the parent explanation text of the FACTS Checklist item. For example, 'The FACTS link will be available once all contracts in a family have been submitted. Once that is available, FACTS must be accessed via this link from your Finalsite Enrollment checklist. If FACTS is accessed externally, you will not see your fees in FACTS.”
If you make any changes on the FACTS site, please make sure you notify Finalsite Enrollment of these changes, to ensure there are no errors when we push the data over from our system to FACTS.

FAQs

Errors

What does it mean if I see a "term code error"?

This means FACTS has not enabled the term or the active terms do not match in Finalsite Enrollment and FACTS.

What does it mean if I see an "account code error"?

This means there is a code or codes that do not match in Finalsite Enrollment and FACTS

What does it mean if I see a "grade error"?

This means that the grade doesn't match in FACTS with the way that it's written in Finalsite Enrollment. For example, we may list a grade as "K" in Finalsite Enrollment, which is listed as "Kindergarten" in FACTS.

Parent View and Navigation

If parents already have a FACTS account, do they use the same login?

Yes!

What does the integration look like in Finalsite Enrollment and FACTS?

A button will be activated on the student’s checklist within Finalsite Enrollment once all contracts in a family have been completed. This button will allow the family to transfer their fees over to FACTS and complete their agreements.

Parents/Guardians MUST click on this button for the integration to work. Once the agreements in FACTS are finalized, the checklist item in Finalsite Enrollment will be marked complete. This checklist item will be searchable so you can track who completed their FACTS agreement and who did not.

Scholarship/Financial Aid and Updates

Can we make adjustments/credits in special case scenarios?

Yes, these can be made in FACTS as an account adjustment if they are not done in Finalsite Enrollment.

How do I add financial aid/tuition assistance and/or scholarship amounts into Finalsite Enrollment?

If you have this information prior to contract generation, you can create a saved search and bulk update template to fill out the updated amounts and import it back into the system. Click here to learn how.
Please note: When adding any new scholarships/aid categories, they need to be set up in both Finalsite Enrollment and FACTS. Whenever adding in new scholarship or aid be sure to communicate the addition on both sides of the integration.

What if our school receives financial aid and scholarship amounts later in the process?

In this instance, all financial aid and scholarship amounts can be entered manually into FACTS after the parents finalize their agreements. A statement letting families know their total tuition is subject to change may also be added to the agreement.

If a contract is submitted, can changes be made that will also reflect in FACTS?

If the family has not yet completed their FACTS agreement, the contract can be regenerated in Finalsite Enrollment and resubmitted. The correct amounts will then pass over to FACTS.

If the family has already gone over to FACTS and finalized their agreement on the FACTS end, adjustments will need to be made in FACTS.

What if a contract is regenerated?

If a contract is regenerated and changes are made to fees/tuition, this information will update in FACTS only if the parent hasn’t finalized the FACTS agreement.

If they did finalize the agreement in FACTS, the school will need to make updates directly in FACTS in order change any of those fees.

General

When should the school or parents contact FACTS?

If parents have issues logging into FACTS.
- For example, they may have gone through the checklist, all amounts are correct, but their FACTS log-in doesn't work or exist.
If the parent needs split payments, the school will need to connect with FACTS in order to facilitate that.

Typically our families use automatic re-enrollment (continuous enrollment) each year in FACTS. What is the difference with the integration?

Some schools offer automatic re-enrollment (aka continuous enrollment) and do not require returning families to complete a contract yearly.

Schools using continuous enrollment should only use the SSO integration. Please review our FACTS: Unique Workflows article for our recommendations on managing this.

What if a family has a returning student and a new student - since returning and new student enrollment is done at different times during the year?

This can be an issue because all students in a family must have a signed contract in order for the family to push to FACTS. The FACTS link will not appear for anyone in the family until all active student contracts are signed. You can read more about our recommendations for managing scenarios like these in this article.

We have families enrolling multiple kids, how does that work with FACTS?

They won’t be able to log into FACTS until all of their children's contracts have been completed. There’s one contract per child, and all need to be completed within Finalsite Enrollment before clicking on the FACTS link within the Enrollment Checklist.

What about full-pay students/families?

Full-pay students don’t have to go through FACTS if the school has an established process for handling them.

What about families that are waiting on a decision for their Applicant student? Can they finalize their FACTS account and payment?

No. Schools should instruct returning families who are waiting on a decision for a new student not to finalize their agreement. This is to allow families to have one FACTS agreement for the entire family.

Split Family Situations

How are split families handled with the integration?

In Finalsite Enrollment, we cannot split payments or have multiple contracts.

We recommend having a statement within the tuition and fees section of the contract such as "The totals may not accurately reflect split payment amounts and will be adjusted in FACTS." It's possible to add a checkbox for parents to mark that they read and agree to the statement.

You will need to handle and adjust the split payments in FACTS for both parents on a case-by-case basis. Since two separate parents are unable to register or enroll through Finalsite Enrollment, there isn't a way for each parent to set up a separate payment plan within Finalsite Enrollment.
One parent will need to go through Finalsite Enrollment to complete the process. Once the payment plan has been set up, you can manually adjust that parent's payment plan in FACTS to reduce the amount of tuition and fees that are due.
The other option is for you school to manually create an invoice agreement so that the family can log into their online account and convert it to an ACH/CC plan. Both parents log into FACTS with their own account so they can see their own individual payment plan and amounts that are due.

Can all parents see the contract?

Please note that both parents will be able to see everything (the amounts on the contract and the amounts on the ad-hoc form) if they each have a Parent Portal account in Finalsite Enrollment AND if they both have financial responsibility set to 'yes' within the tied student record.

Please note: Only parents/guardians with the financial responsibility toggle enabled can access and complete a student's contract. A parent without this flag enabled will be able to see the contract checklist item but will not be able to access and sign the contract.Click here to learn how to manage financial responsibility.

Additional Resources