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Religious and Independent School Support

Religious and Independent School Support

MSA-CAP Frequently Asked Questions

I do not have a username and password to access the online system. Whom do I contact?

First, please check the State Education Data Reference File (SEDREF) to complete a query determining who is listed under Administrative Positions for your school. If SEDREF has another individual listed as chief executive officer, that individual can add you as a delegated user if an account was established for you as Chief Financial Officer. Instructions can be found in the SEDDAS User Guide. Or, if you are the new chief executive officer, you will have to contact SEDREF to change the designated individual with access to your account. 

When there is a change in superintendent or principal in any public school district, regular public school, charter school, nonpublic school or BOCES, the NYSED's Office of Information and Reporting Services (I&RS) must be formally notified so that the SED Reference File (SEDREF) can be updated. Online accounts will not be generated unless a person appears appropriately on SEDREF. For nonpublic school Chief Financial Officer (CFO) changes must be captured on this CFO form  or this CFO form in PDF  and emailed to datasupport@nysed.gov.

All other questions regarding this process should be directed to datasupport@nysed.gov or phone (518) 474-7965.

 Once you have seen the information updated in SEDREF, call the State Education Department Delegated Account System (SEDDAS) Help Desk by email or phone at (518) 473-8832 to request a sign-on, password and access to the online system for Mandated Services.

My password used to work, but it doesn’t seem to work now. Can you help?

Passwords can be reset at the top of the business portal page, click on Change Your Password.

All password and access issues are serviced by the SEDDAS Help Desk at (518) 473-8832.

My claim status is “Auto approval”. What do I do now? I received an email message saying that my claim was set to “Auto approval”.

Auto Approval means that the claim didn’t have any edit or variance problems and is being sent electronically to the Office of Fiscal Management for vouchering and forwarding to the Office of the State Comptroller for payment. When the claim status changes to Closed it means that the Office of the State Comptroller has issued either an electronic payment or check.

My claim status is “Hold”. What do I do now?

You do not need to take any action. Your claim was submitted and is awaiting review by ORISS fiscal staff. If necessary, a program reviewer from the MSA-CAP Office will contact you for additional information.

My claim was set to post review. What does that mean?

The claim will be reviewed after payment. You do not need to take any action. A program reviewer from the MSA-CAP Office will contact you if necessary.

My Claim is OPEN and not letting me submit.

Most likely there is a field requiring you to fill in data before you can submit. Look for a mandate in pink or a pink message at the bottom of the claim. 

Enter a note into the white box with the requested information. (Examples include, but are not limited to: PAR increased due to a raise in Enrollment, staff were given additional health insurance benefits this year, a new Administrator was hired at a higher rate)

Save the form and the submit button will appear at the top of the claim.

I received a warning message saying Not a valid number- Mandate 1. (do not use any special characters.)

Do not enter commas when entering salary and/or benefit data. Check to be sure that you haven’t entered a special character (i.e., *, ‘, #, !)

There is an error message in my claim that says- There is a field preventing my claim from being submitted.

This means that your claim is missing vital information highlighted in pink and you will not be able to submit until it is completed. 

Click on “Summary of Expenditures” button and open any mandates appearing in the pink color.

Enter the data where it says Value Required 

 Enter a note into the white box with the requested information. (Examples include, but are not limited to: PAR increased due to a raise in Enrollment, staff were given additional health insurance benefits this year, a new Administrator was hired at a higher rate) Please scroll to the bottom of the screen and include a reason in the note section for the increase in your claim.

Once you enter the note, you should be able to submit. Save the form and the submit button will appear at the top of the claim. Your claim will be set to HOLD and await review by ORISS staff. No further action is required by you at this time.

 

I accidentally submitted my claim and it has errors.

Send an email message to msa-cap@nysed.gov explaining the problem. A program reviewer will contact you about next steps.

I’ve completed my claim online, do I need to submit anything to the State Education Department?

You do not need to submit any paperwork to the State Education Department. By using the password and user code that were assigned to you, the Mandated Services Aid claim was electronically signed. When you "certify" your CAP and MSA this acts as a signature.

People in schools get interrupted. What happens to the claim if I can’t finish it?

Save the information as you complete each mandate. You can log off the system and return to an unsubmitted claim at any time. The “save form” button appears in the right-hand corner of the screen. Buttons are available at the top and bottom of the screens. You can save as many times as you need to during the claim process. Your claim will stay OPEN until it is submitted. Please don't forget to SUBMIT the claim by pressing the "SUBMIT CLAIM" button at the top of your claim.

My printed claim is over 30 pages.

We recommend that you print the individual mandate screens to save paper. Only print screens that contain claim data. Also, change your print properties to landscape.