Trimdata Links Ellucian’s Colleague® with Campus Stores
FA~Link is a real-time, two-way interface allowing students to use Financial Aid and Sponsorship funds set up in Colleague directly at the bookstore cash register.
Students may purchase their books as soon as they are registered for classes, or as soon as your campus rules allow. Charges are authorized in real?time and an invoice is created on the student account in Colleague, so both systems are in balance at all times.
Manual processes and paper vouchers are eliminated. The Business Office does not need to manage and reconcile paper, spend hours tracking down discrepancies and fixing errors, and creating invoices manually in Colleague. The bookstore staff does not need to know which students can charge and which cannot because their POS system will tell them.
The students are better served because they don’t have to go from place to place on campus to get their book voucher or wait until they receive their Financial Aid checks. Studies show that students that have their books for the start of their courses have higher retention rates. Bookstore sales usually increase because the student funds are available only at the on-campus bookstore which encourages students to buy there rather than other sources.
Because FA~Link is real-time rather than a batch system, the two sides are never out of balance. A student cannot go to the bookstore multiple times in one day to trick the system. Each trip to the bookstore initiates a new conversation with Colleague for the most recent A/R picture of that student, including new invoices on their account, new aid amounts available, any new restrictions on that aid, add/dropping of classes, etc. There is no lag time – all information is up-to-date.
FA~Link is an optional module in Ellucian’s Colleague system. It is licensed through Trimdata, and the software is delivered through the Ellucian repository. All our development is done on Ellucian servers using native Ellucian technologies. Software updates are released usually once or twice a year to maintain consistency with Colleague changes, and to add new features as requested by our customers.
Product Benefits
- Reduces Labor Costs. FA~Link eliminates manual processes and costly errors that must be tracked and reconciled by your staff.
- Fast, Reliable, Proven. FA~Link is fast and reliable with a robust feature set that is enhanced each year based on our customer’s requests.
- No IT expertise required. No large project plan or QA budget needed. You simply download the software to your system from the Ellucian repository, and we configure it. You are up and running in no time. Business and technical training is delivered on-site.
- Accounts Receivable & Point-of-Sale workflow. Created with Ellucian’s Colleague Studio programming language. Configuration allows FA~link to map to your College workflow.
- Automatic Updates and Feature Enhancements. Trimdata partners with Ellucian to provide up to-date releases for FA~Link that align with Ellucian’s cycle. Enhancements to keep current with Ellucian software or underlying platforms are part of the on-going support that comes with FA~Link
Customer Experience
“Since implementing FA~Link, the Students are happy because they can purchase their books with FA funds as soon as they are registered. The Bookstore is happy because students must buy books at the campus bookstore, resulting in higher sales. The Business Office is happy – no more cash handling needed for FA book purchases. And finally, Trimdata has given excellent support. When you call them, they respond right away and everyone is willing to help.”
— Olga Bustos, Amarillo College
If interested in FA~Link for Colleague, please email sales@trimdata.com or phone us at 888.666.6056.