Individual Training Account

Making and Managing Claims for ITA Funding on FIPS

May 2019

V3

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Table of Contents

Information on Claiming ITA Payments 3

Make a Claim (step by step process)

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Viewing and Managing Claims for Payment

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Viewing and Managing Payments

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Searching and Filtering to Find an Existing Claim

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Appendix 1: Glossary of Terms

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Information on Claiming ITA Payments

Payment process:

1. Training provider submits a claim on FIPS for an assignment

2. The claim sits on a ‘pre-posting run’ waiting to be issued

3. The payment is issued once a week on Thursdays

4. Payment is sent by BACS and is received usually on the following Tuesday

The Pre-Posting Run

Once a claim is submitted is added to the pre-posting run. This means that it is added to the batch of payments that will be paid in a single lump sum by SDS to your organisation. These lump sum payments are for all SDS programmes delivered by your organisation and are paid out weekly.

For example, if you make an ITA claim on a Monday but the posting run only occurs on a Thursday, your claim will sit waiting to be paid in what is known as the ‘pre-posting run’.

On the Thursday, your payment will be ‘posted’ along with other payments for SDS programme funding, and therefore it will no longer be on the pre-posting run.

Once posted the payment will take normal banking timescales to reach your

organisation’s bank account. SDS will issue the training provider with a remittance

detailing all payments issued.

Pre-requisites for payment:

• Assignment must be active on FIPS

• Valid proof of income documentation and signed ITA attendance register attached to the assignment

If you make a mistake when making a claim:

• If the payment is still on the pre-posting run then it has not yet been issued and

you have the following options for amending it:

UNDO CLAIM: When you undo a claim the funds remain available but you will need to

submit a new claim for them. If you undo a bulk claim then all associated payments will

be undone.

UNDO PAYMENT: You can undo an individual payment within a claim if you don’t want

to undo the entire claim. Again, these funds can be claimed again by submitting a new

claim.

• If the claim is no longer on the pre-posting run then the payment has been issued and

you cannot put undo it. However, SDS are able to undo the payment if you contact

SDS Customer Services Team at customer.services@sds.co.uk or call 0300 013

3859.

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Make a Claim

1. On FIPS, go to Active Bulk ITA Claims

→ Workplace

→ ITA Claims

This will open up the ITA Claims page, which shows claims previously made against your

courses.

If necessary you can search through previous claims by course title using the alphabet at the

bottom of the screen.

• To create a new claim for payment, click on ‘New’

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2. Enter claim details

→ General

• Scroll down to the ‘General’ section

• Enter the Contract

(Click in the field to bring up the magnifying glass icon, then click on the

magnifying glass to bring up a list of all contracts or courses.)

• Enter the Course: you can again use the magnifying glass icon to bring up a list of

courses against the contract specified.

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To see a bigger list of your courses, or to filter the list, scroll down and hit ‘Look up

more records’

o Search for a course by entering the name of the course in the ‘Search’ field o Filter list to see only courses with active assignments (ie. assignments that

are available to claim) by selecting the drop down menu in the ‘Look In’ field

o Select the course by double clicking on the blue line o You can view course details if desired by clicking on the course title

• Tick the ‘Confirm Details and Populate Assignments’ box: this will lock down the

contract & course chosen below and populate the Selected Assignments section with

all assignments associated with that course.

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3. Identify the assignments you are claiming for

If you wish to claim for all of the participants on that course:

• Press the big green ‘Submit’ button

If you wish to only claim for some of the assignments listed:

• Hover over the assignment you do NOT want to claim for until you see the trash can

icon appear on the right hand side

• Click on the trash can to remove the assignment from the claim list.

Note that removing assignments from this list only removes them from this claim; the next time you raise a new claim against this course they will appear again and be available to claim for.

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4. Submit claim

Claims should only be submitted when the participant has attended the course. Once you

submit the claim, the participant’s assignment becomes a ‘Confirmed Assignment’, meaning

that no further claims can be made against that participant for the rest of their learner year.

Submitting a claim triggers an automatic customer feedback process where SDS contacts the

participant to obtain confirmation that they attended their course. If they confirm that they

have not yet attended their course then this is a significant breach of ITA Operational rules and

SDS have the right to claw back the ITA payment.

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• Scroll down and select ‘I confirm this declaration’

• Press ‘Next’

• Press ‘Finish’

The claim has now been submitted; this triggers the following:

o The payment is added to the pre-posting run o The ‘Unconfirmed Assignment’ becomes a ‘Confirmed Assignment’ o The customer confirmation process will be initiated (unless the claim

or payment is undone, or the payment is held)

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Viewing and Managing Claims for Payment

Payment Claims

For viewing and managing your claims for payment:

→ Workplace

→ Payment Claims

Claims on this list may have been submitted in bulk, but they are displayed here by the

individual assignments. You can search them by the participant’s name using the search bar

or the alphabet at the bottom of the screen.

Note that these are claims, not payments. A claim is a request for payment, while the

payment is the actual transfer of funds.

Each claim has a Status Reason listed on the left hand side; this tells you at what stage of the

payment cycle the claim is at.

Pending The claim has not yet been submitted therefore payment has not been added to the pre-posting run

Confirmed Claim

The claim has been made Undone

The claim was made but has been undone, which in turn undoes all

associated payments

Holding The claim has been made and payment put on hold

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Viewing an individual claim

• Search for the participant whose claim you want to view in the Payment Claims All list

• Double-click on them to select

• Here you can see:

o The date the claim was made o The status of the claim is ‘Active’, meaning that the payment has

not yet left the pre-posting run o The Status Reason Display (bottom right) is ‘Unconfirmed Claim’

as the payment has not yet left the pre-posting run.

• This is where you would undo the claim for this assignment. Undoing a claim

undoes all of the associated payments as well.

If you wish to undo only some of the payments within a claim then you would need to go to those individual payments and undo them instead of the claim.

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Viewing a claim on the participant’s assignment

It is also possible to view the status of a claim against an individual assignment.

→ Workplace

→ Assignments

→ ITA Assignments Active – Training Provider

→ (Search for and select participant)

→ Scroll down to Training Details on the Participant Record

The table underneath the course details shows the claim type (which for ITA will always be Course Attendance) and the Status Reason. These are the same claim status reasons that show on the Payment Claims All list, i.e.:

Pending The claim has not yet been submitted therefore payment

has not been added to the pre-posting run

Confirmed Claim The claim has been made

Undone The claim was made but has been undone, which in turn

undoes all associated payments

Holding The claim has been made and payment put on hold

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Viewing and Managing Payments

Payments Payments can be viewed in the Payments section on FIPS, but only while they are in the pre-

posting run. FIPS only tracks payments up until the point where it issues them from the pre-posting run across to the banking system, and therefore it cannot advise you on a payment’s progress after that point.

To view a payment that has been raised once a claim has been submitted by the training provider:

→ Workplace

→ Payments

→ Active Payments

Each payment has a Status Reason listed on the left hand side; this tells you at what stage of

the payment cycle the payment is at.

Ready to send to finance The payment is on the pre-posting run Sent to finance The payment is no longer on the pre-posting run Hold The payment is on hold

View an individual payment

• Double-click on an assignment in the Active Payments list to view it

• This is also where you can hold or undo a payment. Undoing an individual payment within a claim means that any other payments on the same claim will still be issued.

• When you view the payment you will see the history of the payment on the right hand side, including when its posting run was issued

• Payments retain a status of ‘Active’ both before and after they have left the pre- posting run.

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Undo an Individual Payment

• Press the Undo button

• Continue through the pop-up dialogue boxes by clicking ‘Next’

• Enter a rationale for the Undo (e.g. ‘made in error’/’premature claim’)

• Press ‘Next’ and then ‘Finish’ to complete the Undo.

The pop-up dialogue boxes will warn you that undoing this payment ‘could result in the

deletion of the current record’ and that it cannot be reversed. This only applies to the payment

you are undoing; it will still be possible for you to raise a new claim for the assignment

following this payment being undone.

At the end of the pop-up dialogue you will get the below message; this means that the

payment has now been undone and can no longer be viewed in this section of FIPS. To

navigate away from this message you will need to return to the menu in the blue bar at the top

of the screen.

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Searching and Filtering to Find an Existing Claim

The search functions below illustrate searching for claims, however the same techniques work across all lists and sections provided on FIPS.

To search for a participant:

• You can search for the participant alphabetically using the letters at the bottom of the screen

• Alternatively you can search for the participant’s first name using the search field at the top right.

If your organisation delivers other SDS programmes besides ITA, you can search or filter the list of claims by Programme.

To filter the list:

• Click on the Filter icon on the right hand side of the column headings

• Click the little arrow that appears next to the column heading ‘Programme’

• Click on ‘Filter by specific programme’

• Click on ‘ITA’ and press ‘Select’

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• Press ‘Add’

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Appendix 1 Glossary of Terms

Application: The process of requesting funding for a particular

funded course through the My World of Work website, details of which are presented in FIPS

Assignment: The status of an individual who has been verified by the Training Provider as being eligible for ITA and subsequently booked onto a course

Claim: The request for payment for an ITA funded course delivered by an approved training provider to an approved learner account holder

Contract: The agreement between SDS, Scottish Ministers and a Training Provider which allows that training provider to offer ITA funded courses

Contract Signatory: The person within the training organisation who is ultimately responsible for the delivery of ITA training

Course: The training delivered to the learner in exchange for payment, including ITA funds

Course Management Tool: The online tool, available on the SDS website, which allows training providers to upload and manage courses

FIPS: Funding and Information Processing System - the system provided by SDS and used to manage all ITA payment activity

Participant: The individual who has applied for ITA funding

Payment: The payment that is generated when a claim is submitted

Payment Claim: The claim submitted by a training provider for payment(s)

Presentation: The individual instance(s) of a course, including cost and location. Every course must have at least one presentation

Proof of income: Evidence of annual income submitted by the ITA applicant to the training provider when they are booked onto a course

Training Provider: The individual or organisation approved by SDS to deliver ITA funded training