New Optical Character Recognition Capability Enables Colleges and Universities to Navigate IRS Data Retrieval Tool Outage

News provided by

Apr 25, 2017, 10:00 ET

Phoenix, AZ (PRWEB) April 25, 2017 -- Financial aid pioneer CampusLogic, today, announced the release of a new Optical Character Recognition (OCR) feature which will enable financial aid offices to seamlessly extract critical information from tax documents and streamline the federal aid process. Now widely used in the financial services industry to enable real-time deposit of checks from ATMs or smartphones, integration of OCR technology into the company’s popular StudentForms product will help financial aid staff nationwide provide more timely service to students during the financial aid process.

Last month, the federal government announced that the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) would be down through the fall application season due to security concerns. The DRT allows students and parents to access IRS tax return information needed to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), and transfer the data directly into their FAFSA from the IRS Web site. Without the DRT, students must obtain a copy of their Tax Transcript directly from the IRS, making the process time-consuming and cumbersome. The outage is expected to significantly impact colleges and universities across the country by increasing the volume of paperwork and manual processing to verify FAFSAs along with an increase in comment codes showing conflicting info.

“Enterprise technology allows colleges and universities to automate cumbersome parts of the financial aid process, making it possible to weather issues, like the DRT outage, with ease. Financial aid offices using our platform already see dramatic improvements in financial aid processing times,” said CampusLogic COO Chris Chumley. “The new OCR functionality will reduce data entry errors and save administrators even more time—while ensuring data security and freeing staff to counsel students through the financial aid process.”

The OCR feature was first developed to simplify the process of FAFSA verification; nearly 30 percent of all applicants are flagged by the Department of Education for verification – for students who couldn’t use the DRT, even when it was functioning. With OCR, the documents are scanned, and compared to students’ records. Conflicts are automatically highlighted for the financial aid professional to review, and corrections are then sent back to ED with just the push of a button.

For current CampusLogic partners, implementation of the OCR function requires no IT or additional training. It’s a free, simple feature that financial aid offices can opt-in to start using.
_____

About CampusLogic

CampusLogic transforms the way colleges and universities deliver financial aid with the first—and only—student financial aid engagement platform. Easy. Mobile. Personalized. Our cloud-based technology helps schools increase accessibility, reduce student borrowing, and decrease the cost of financial aid administration. More than 400 customers improve enrollment yield, process efficiencies, and student satisfaction by engaging students from the initial college search through graduation. For more information visit http://www.campuslogic.com. ;

Follow CampusLogic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/campuslogic
Blog: http://campuslogic.com/blog/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/campuslogic

Ben Watsky, +1 202.851.3601, [email protected]