Pennant Accounts Support
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Pennant Accounts users can submit a ticket for assistance with an issue encountered using Pennant Accounts and associated tools.
The Next Generation Student System (NGSS) project is delivering Pennant. Read more about the upcoming phases of Pennant at the NGSS website.
Review the Pennant Access and Training page.
A detail code is the unique, four-character alphanumeric code used by Pennant for student account transactions. Detail codes have a “smart” coding system to help visually identify the meaning of the code. Each detail code has an assigned detail code category, and may correspond to more than one 26-digit BEN Financials account number. There are charge detail codes and payment detail codes.
An exemption is a type of payment that pays or offsets specific charges on a student’s account, rather than being applied to the student’s account balance as a whole. Examples of exemptions include acceptance fees, high-need student orientation plan waivers, and departmental grants, which allow for automatic posting and reversal of payments based on charges entered.
Subcode-to-Detail-Code mappings are available in the Subcode Mapping Inquiry application, which is part of Pennant Plus. Training on how to use this application will be available to all Pennant users. The subcode-to-detail-code mapping table can also be queried from the data warehouse.
For Pennant’s initial release, only those records required for Pennant Accounts functions have been loaded. Additional records will be loaded for future releases of Pennant.
Initial migration to Pennant Accounts in fall 2015 included records for all students who had at least one Accounts Receivable (AR) transaction (that is, a charge/payment or balance forward transaction that does not equal zero) after July 2013, or who have an AR hold. In other words, records were migrated for all students with transactions in current Bursar detail and intermediate files (approximately the last two academic years of students), as well as students with active AR holds (Hold types/office: FB/BURS, GH/BURS, CB/CLCT, and SA/CLCT) in SRS.
AR transactions were not migrated for any students whose accounts were fully paid as of July 2013.
Migrated records include all historical transactions from the legacy billing system except for deferments and balance forward transactions, which were not converted. A minimum set of SRS data was also migrated to support AR processing in Pennant’s Banner software. Note that SRS remains the system of record for biographical, demographic, and academic information. Changes these categories of data in SRS are synchronized in real time to Banner to support AR processes. Some basic academic information, by term, is visible on the Pennant Student Accounts Summary (PSAS) screen.
Records for incoming students will be added to Pennant when they meet one of these conditions:
- They have a Penn ID and at least one SRS student term (RT) record for the Fall 2015 term or later.
- They have a Penn ID and are matriculated into the SPC (English Language Program) division with an APS entry term of Fall 2015 or later.
Use the Detail code/subcode mapping inquiry function in Pennant Plus to look up the appropriate detail codes based on the subcodes you currently use.
Penn ID is the Student Identifier (ID) in Banner. SRS will remain the official system of record for student biographic, demographic, and academic data throughout Release 1 of Pennant. Banner will be the official system of record for Student AR data.
Charge/Payment transactions in Banner are similar to the legacy BRS transactions, but are represented by Detail Codes, instead of legacy subcodes. In Banner, all charge/payment transaction amounts are initially entered as positive numbers. A negative sign is only needed for correcting entries that reduce or reverse a previous transaction.
During Release 1 of Pennant, the SFSEASI CMT screen will remain the system of record for storing all comments and notes about interactions with students and their families. The Pennant AR comment form is utilized to hold only specific AR information such as a student's Line of Credit Eligibility and his/her Direct Deposit account status.
Students’ Privacy settings governing release of information to other individuals remains sourced in SRS. These settings can be viewed in SRS (Screen 015, 016, 017, 018) and in SFSEASI with the F3 Function Key.
Exemption authorizations permit targeted payments to a student's account based on specific charges.
Accounts Receivable (AR) holds will be sourced in Banner and synchronized to SRS in near real time as changes occur. These are viewable in SRS (hold office PNNT), but can only be changed in Banner. To temporarily suspend (i.e., formerly known as waiving) a hold in Banner, you must end-date the hold, and enter another hold with a future start date. Examples of AR holds in Banner include:
| Hold Type | Pennant | SRS |
|---|---|---|
| Financial | 1F | FB |
| Graduation | 1G | GH |
| Collection Receivable | 1C | CB |
Memos are similar to deferments in that they provide temporary credit on the student’s account in order to temporarily reduce the amount due on the student’s bill. Unlike deferments, however, memos do not generate any accounting entries in the General Ledger. Memos are automatically removed (expired) when actual financial aid credit relevant to that memo is posted to the student’s account. Any unexpired memo remaining after a certain date in each term is automatically expired. Memos are only used for the fall and spring terms.
Most memos are posted via automated feeds from SRFS or Student Financial Aid. In special circumstances, counseling staff in SRFS can post what is called an “AR memo” to the student’s account in order to provide temporary credit on the student’s account – essentially deferring payment of that portion of the student’s bill – for a specific period of time. AR memo’s are NOT related to specific sources of financial aid, but are provided as a customer service to families who are experiencing a temporary hardship in paying the bill. AR memos are set to automatically expire usually within 6 to 8 weeks after the start date of the fall or spring term.
Online training in using the Pennant Student Account Summary (PSAS) is available in Workday Learning.
You can access Pennant Accounts applications on U@Penn in the Student Advising & Admin Resources section.
If you exit the Pennant Accounts application and then try to re-enter by refreshing the browser or opening a new tab or window, your browser will generate a series of error messages. These include a Java runtime exception and on-logon trigger exceptions.
To re-enter the application, you must exit or quit your browser and launch a new browser session before signing back in to Pennant Accounts with your PennKey and password.
