Recommended Ledger Procedures - Title-IV Disbursements

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OnlineSMART Training Video: Recommended Ledger Procedures - Posting Financial Aid

Topics covered in this Article: Disbursing Title-IV Awards in the correct order Allocating Award dollars to the appropriate categories Posting Title IV Disbursements to Student Ledgers

*For More Information on the Fin. Aid. Worksheet, please refer to our short training video on the subject, found here.

Disbursing and Allocating Awards in the Correct Order

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When it comes to disbursing the student’s awards to their ledgers in OnlineSMART, we recommend the following order:

1. Grants and Scholarships


These awards do not have to be paid back by the student, and therefore should be the first things disbursed on the student’s ledger.


2. Subsidized Loans


Since students do not start earning interest on Subsidized loans until after they complete their program, these should be the 2nd round of awards disbursed.


3. Unsubsidized Loans


Since students will start accruing interest on these loans as soon as they accept the award, we want to disburse Unsubsidized Loans last.This ensures that any overages will come out of the Unsubsidized awards, allowing the student to theoretically use the overage to start paying back some of the interest they are actively accruing.

When you disburse awards in the student’s ledger, we also recommend allocating these funds in the following order:

1. Fees


2. Books/Kit


3. Tuition

OnlineSMART Ledgers - Title IV Disbursement Entries

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Now that you know in which order to disburse Title IV Awards, and which categories to allocate award dollars to first, you are ready to post Title IV awards to the students ledger.

Before we look at the Ledger entries, make sure you have a screenshot or a copy of the Contract Table in the Financial Tab of the student's OnlineSMART profile:


You need to make sure that you disburse exactly the amount that is shown in each category, and nothing more, having a copy of the above information handy will save you from having jump around in OnlineSMART to gather the information you will need in the following steps.

Assuming this student was only awarded Direct Loans and a Pell Grant, as per the instructions in the beginning of this article, we will post the Pell disbursement first:

1. Blue Box


Select the DISB Ledger Type


2. Yellow Boxes


Select the appropriate Payment Period from the Dropdown menu at the top right, and make sure the correct Academic Year is selected in the Year dropdown menu.


3. Green Box


Select the appropriate Title IV Program Code from this dropdown menu.


If you do not see any Title IV programs in this list, please refer to the Reminder at the top of this article


4. Red Boxes


In the Amount field, enter the amount of the disbursement. Allocate this amount accordingly in the table at the bottom, making sure to follow the recommended order outlined above in this article.

Once you have double checked your Disbursement and Post dates for accuracy, click Save in the upper left corner.

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