Dear Lyn

We are also very interested in this and are looking at setting something up. The last time we asked SFE (December 2018) we received the following:

Student Finance England have made available an application program interface (API) which suppliers wishing to submit e-invoices can link to.

An API is code that allows two software programs to communicate with each other. The API defines the correct way for a developer to write a program that will submit e-invoices into SFE's database application.  Suppliers will need to develop their own solution for linking to the API.  To be as flexible as possible, SFE have not defined what that solution should be and instead set out a  criteria of conditions that a chosen solution will need to meet. The chosen solution will need to successfully pass a series of business and technical integration tests before submission via this route will be possible/permissible.

Because the API does not provide a website;  where a supplier can simply log-in, enter their invoice information and attach supporting documents before hitting 'submit', we appreciate this may not be an option for everyone. Most providers taking this option took 3-6 months to develop, integrate and successfully test their systems with API.

We also need to highlight that the API for e-invoice is available only for invoices related to students funded by Student Finance England. Invoices for other funding bodies, such as Student Finance Wales, can't be submitted via this route. We'd like to explore this in the future but there are no firm plans or timescales at the time of writing.

Should this be a route you'd like to explore, we'd be happy to talk you through the more technical aspects - please advise us of a suitable date/time.

Unfortunately SFE continue to be unable to accept invoice submission via email. This proved operationally challenging during a trial in 2011 and caused delays to payments when invoices were 'bounced back' from the mailboxes. To the supplier, it seemed all invoices had been received but at SFE the invoices never came through. The need to print and collate invoices and timesheets, often scattered across different emails due to the mailbox capacity issue, required significant resources to ensure the documents were collated against the correct student accounts. There were also time delays in that one set of documents would be linked to the student account but it could be several days before the next set was handled. This meant we were trying to review invoices but we may only be able to see the timesheets at that point and this in turn led to increased queries - some of which proved unnecessary because the documents had been received but had been delayed in our administration area. We understand that posting invoices can be time-consuming and costly however it does provide an increased assurance that the invoices are received and processed.

This was from: [log in to unmask]

On behalf of:

DSA Electronic Projects

Student Loans Company

Memphis Building, Lingfield Point, Darlington DL1 1RW

I don’t know if this makes any sense to you as it doesn’t to me but we do have someone technical looking in to it.

Good luck with it

Best wishes

Christine

Christine Breakey

Company Director / Support Co-ordinator

Spectrum First Ltd

www.spectrumfirst.co.uk

0114 2669731

0 7749 004169

My hours of work are:

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 8 30am –  6pm.

Good morning Colleagues,

I am considering whether we could remove any of our administrative burden by moving to electronic documents used between students who access Band 1-4 support and staff who provide the NMH support.  Please can I ask if you use electronic paperwork including timesheets (for Banded NMH work) and if so, which software you use?

I understand they are in use in the sector and are therefore acceptable systems for invoicing SFE and other funding bodies – do colleagues have any pros and cons they could share with me from their experiences?

Really grateful for any responses, I know how busy we all are!

Kind regards,

Lyn

Lynda Tout

Inclusion Coordinator

Plymouth Marjon University

West Block

Tel: 01752 636700 Extn: 3246

Plymouth Marjon University is a trading name of the University of St Mark & St John

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