HEIMS Data Collections VET FEE-HELP eNews - printer friendly version - May 2016
Reporting deadlines in May
31 May is the deadline for reporting your 2016 VET FEE-HELP Student submissions.
What’s coming up?
With the timeframes for the verification of your 2015 student and completions data now passed, don’t forget that there is a requirement to submit a statutory declaration signed by the CEO, Managing Director or equivalent representative of your organisation.
The completed declaration, together with a copy of the verified reports, were due to be uploaded to the HELP IT System (HITS) under the Administration/ Statutory Declaration tab by close of business Friday 20 May 2016, so that reconciliation of the 2015 data may occur.
If you have any queries about the process to complete your statutory declaration please email: [email protected].
The next challenge is the reporting of the 2016 VET FEE-HELP Student submissions by 31 May 2016.
Please ensure the right people are available to submit and check your data. We have many training opportunities coming up to support your reporting requirements.
Import or subscribe to our calendars to have a year’s worth of reporting dates at your fingertips. This is a great way to assist your annual planning and personnel requirements, especially during peak periods.
Visit our Mobile Calendars page on HEIMSHELP to get started.
Date Key Date or deadline
31 May 2016 VET Student submission deadline For census dates between 1 January and 31 March 2016. VET Student submission
VET Student Revisions submissions Submit any outstanding revisions to ensure accurate debt information is transferred to the ATO in June.
Remember you can submit any time before the due date. Plan well! Please don’t leave your submissions until the last day.
The key dates and reporting deadlines calendar lists all the dates you need to remember. First 2016 submissions now due
Student data for units of study with census dates between 1 January and 31 March are due no later than 31 May 2016.
All revisions to student debts that have not yet been reported to the department must also be submitted by this date. This is an essential part of your responsibilities as a HELP provider. It also helps to ensure there is no disadvantage to students when their debts are transferred to the Tax Office.
Order of reporting
To help simplify reporting, we recommend that when you are preparing your student data, you create and report your submissions in the following order. This is because your student submission checks against information in your course submission and your HELP Due file. If you follow this process you will reduce your validation errors and simplify your workload.
1. Course Submission Details of your courses must be reported before you can submit your student data.
2. HELP Due file Students who have a debt must have their details included in your 2016 period 1 HELP due file. Remember that this file only requires a validated status. HEPCAT will automatically update the debt records when you submit your Student submission.
3. Student Submission Details of your students enrolment and study load information can now be validated and reported.
If you need assistance in preparing your next submission our toolkits and training page have a wealth of information on all aspects of reporting. This includes our HEPCAT training videos on creating, validating and submitting data and our webinars on Reporting with HEPCAT and Validating your data.
If you have no student data or revisions to submit by 31 May please let us know as soon as possible. This will set you free from our regular submission follow ups. Nightly HELP calculations
Have your students exceeded their HELP limits? Our new calculation will now check entitlements each night.
HELP calculations have been previously performed quarterly, after each of the four reporting dates.
These calculations identify any students who have exceeded their HELP entitlements and let you know that these students cannot use FEEHELP or VET FEEHELP to pay any of the tuition fees that exceed their limit.
From this week onwards HEIMS will run these HELP calculations each night, to check the data that has been reported during the day. This will significantly reduce the waiting time for this information and provide you with much earlier advice on any invalidated and adjusted amounts that will be excluded from your HELP payments.
The new HELP Entitlement reports in HEIMS Online will help you monitor your students use of FEEHELP and VET FEEHELP. These reports will be invaluable in enabling you to more effectively manage your HELP funding. They will be updated each time you submit data with any new invalidated or adjusted HELP debts for your students. Please ensure the Output Alert Officers within your organisation are familiar with these changes.
This new process is the first stage of moving towards the real time transfer of HELP debts to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) from mid2017.
If you have any questions about the HELP entitlement calculations please contact the HEIMS data collection team.
Training
Struggling with reporting? Do you need to refresh your skills? Check out what training is on offer this month.
Please take advantage of our training opportunities to help increase your understanding of the reporting processes and enable you to more easily meet your reporting deadlines. Knowledge is power and a great stress reliever!
The next session is scheduled for:
Date Webinar
7 June Reporting – Getting Started 2pm—3pm AEST - register now
Customised training sessions
If you need an individual or small group training session tailored to your needs, you can organise these at any time throughout the year in our Canberra office or via a webinar. This will provide you with the opportunity to work with our team to focus on specific issues and challenges for your particular organisation.
If you would like to arrange customised training just send us an email at [email protected].
As always, we appreciate your feedback on our current training sessions to ensure these are as valuable as possible in helping you report your data to the department. If you have any suggestions for improvements or other training resources you would like to see on HEIMSHELP please email our data collections team. Online Registration for HEIMS
No more paper forms! In the coming months staff will be able to request access to HEIMS systems through a fully automated online registration process.
To streamline the registration processes for access to HEIMS the department will soon be releasing a fully automated registration and password management system via the Education Portal.
This is the second iteration of the Portal, following the release in stage 1 of the single signon function in early March.
Existing users will continue to log onto the Education Portal with their current credentials. There is no need to do anything at all unless you require additional access to HEIMS or you need to reset your password. Instead of coming to the HEIMS team you will now be able to reset your password directly in the portal using the new reset password function.
The story gets better. Your organisation can also now approve new users. You will no longer need the department to set up and authorise accounts for your new users. You will be able to nominate two (or more) senior staff members who can authorise your new user accounts. This gives you greater flexibility to manage your staff’s access to HEIMS.
The Portal has been a key focus of the Government’s response to the recommendations from the Review of Reporting Requirements for Universities.
The department will be contacting providers in the coming weeks to confirm who you would like to have this administration role at your organisation.
If you have any questions relating to the portal please contact us.
Contacts and Access
Who has system access to your data?
Please take the time to review the people at your organisation who have access to the HEIMS systems. A check of your team’s access and administrative contacts will ensure your data can only be reported and viewed by authorised persons and all staff who may have changed roles or left the organisation have had their access removed.
You can also ensure the correct people are receiving HELP entitlement information and important news updates.
If you have any questions about access to HEIMS please contact us.