Maintenance awards

The Student Funding team, within the Student Education Service, processes student award payments on behalf of their School (for example, as part of a postgraduate maintenance award) or on behalf of a University Service.

All awards, including University Approved Prizes, will need to be submitted on MA1 forms to the MA1@leeds.ac.uk inbox from that point onwards. 

Please note that the Doctoral College administer centrally funded (University) scholarships and awards separately.

Forms 

  • MA1 Form– used to authorise either one-off lump sum or regular monthly maintenance payments. Up to 20 student payments can be included on each form.
  • Maintenance Payment Amendment Form – used to notify the Student Funding team of an amendment to an existing  student maintenance award

Guidance

MA1 form submission

  • Guidance document – this is a detailed overview of how to complete the MA1 forms, where to send them, and how to request an amendment to an award. 

Prizes submission

  • Guidance document – this is a detailed overview of how to submit Prizes for payment to students.

Process Overview: Notifying Funding

  1. Individual in the School or Service completes an MA1 form
  2. An Authorised Signatory emails the form directly to MA1@leeds.ac.uk (not cc-ed or bcc-ed).
  3. If all necessary information has been provided and sent by an Authorised Signatory, Student Funding will enter the award on the Banner payment system. This will go into the weekly payment cycle matching the requested processing date (or the next available payment cycle if the date has already passed) 

 

Student Funding can only accept the approved version of the MA1 and Payment Amendment forms due to specific formatting requirements (available above). Any old versions of the form cannot be processed and therefore payments will not be made. Any Forms submitted by an unauthorised Signatory cannot be processed.

Forms: What to Use and How (the Dos and Don'ts)

Please note that the MA1 form uses macros to facilitate some of the built in functionality and it is important that once you have finished using the MA1 form you completely close down Excel before continuing on with other work. If you do not completely close Excel there can be issues with certain action (such as copy and pasting) that occur as a result of the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programme continuing to run in the background.

We have aimed to keep complexity to a minimum however, if you have any issues inputting information on a form, please contact Student Funding and we will be happy to provide you with extra information or training.

Please check carefully that the SID and Surname has been entered correctly before sending.   Note, the first name is not required for GDPR compliance.

Please send the completed form directly to MA1@leeds.ac.uk (not cc-ed or bcc-ed).

Please do:

  • Check that the Cost Object Number quoted is in a valid format
  • Check that the Student ID number(s) quoted match the student listed
  • Use a separate form to lessen data input error opportunities where there is an obvious exception to the group of students being paid (e.g. different academic year or different amount) 
  • Preserve the formatting of the form, especially when pasting in data. The font size must be legible in order for Student Funding to be able to process the payment request.
  • Remember to indicate in the Override Registration Requirement section on the MA1 form if a payment is required to be processed to a student who does not have a RE/RO registration status (see the Payment Requirements section). This will default to NO as standard.
  • For an amendment to an award that does not result in the student receiving increased money, complete the relevant pro forma Payment Amendment Form. This includes: 

- cancelling an award 
- suspending an award pending further instructions
- changing the cost object number
- reducing the amount of an award
- or changing the payment schedule

In order to increase an existing award to a student, please send another form for the extra amount only – not for the new overall award total. The amendment form should be sent from an authorised signatory to MA1@leeds.ac.uk.

  • Check that your Authorised Signatory List is up-to-date.
  • For single lump sum awards choose a payment date which is a Tuesday.
  • For multiple instalment awards choose a start date which is the first day of the month and an end date which is the last day of the month.

Please do:

  • Not send replacement forms, or forms which supersede previously submitted forms.
  • Not send a form which span across the start/end date of the payee student’s personal academic year.
  • Not alter the form from a landscape set up to portrait as this will affect the ability to input data.
  • Not leave mandatory fields blank.
  • Not scan the forms and send them as pdf attachments.
  • Not send reformat or change any part of the MA1 form.
  • Not re-send forms to MA1@leeds.ac.uk in order to query them. Any forms sent to this e-mail address are liable to be paid, so re-sending forms could result in a duplicate payment being made. Any queries should be sent to funding@leeds.ac.uk

MA1 forms should be used to pay any study-related payment to a registered student at the University including:

  • Bursaries and Scholarships
  • Prizes
  • Reimbursement of study-related expenses

MA1 forms cannot be used for the following:

  • To reimburse non-study related expenses
  • The award must not contain any element of payment for work performed by the recipient for or on behalf of the University of Leeds. Awards may only be paid to registered students of the University of Leeds. Payments for work done should be processed by Payroll.
  • The award must not constitute a refund of an overpayment of accommodation or tuition fee payments made by the student to the University. The student should contact the Fees office directly to discuss the overpayment.

Changes to Awards/Querying Awards

If a payment needs to be altered, please email a completed Pro Forma Payment Amendment Form to MA1@leeds.ac.uk

If you have any queries regarding the processing of a payment, please contact Funding directly for further information.

Payment Processing Times

Student payments are processed by BACS (Bankers Automated Clearing System). The payment process is run weekly every Monday/Tuesday by the Student Funding team. and any due payment will clear in the student’s designated bank accounts the following Friday. Forms must reach Funding at MA1@leeds.ac.uk by 4pm on a Thursday to ensure inclusion in the following week’s payment run (unless a payment date further in the future is requested).

Monthly payments are scheduled to be paid in advance, and are due on the 1st of each month. Because internal BACS processing restrictions mean payments can only clear on a Friday. Therefore to avoid disadvantaging students, where the 1st of the month does not fall on a Friday, payments are scheduled to clear the preceding Friday. Christmas, Easter and Bank Holidays may also impact on the exact payment date. 

For budgeting purposes students should always be informed that payments are due on the 1st of each month, and should not be advised of any other dates.

Payment Requirements

Student bank account details:

Students receiving an award need to supply their bank account details via the secure University Portal.

Registration status of the student:

Usually the University of Leeds will only process payments to registered students (Banner codes: RE or RO). An award will not be paid via the standard process whenever a student:

  • hasn't registered (Banner codes: EL, EN, ER, NR, NS)
  • has withdrawn (Banner codes: WD WA NA)
  • is under examination (Banner codes: UE) (see note below).
  • has suspended (Banner codes: CS, SF, SP)
  • is external (Banner codes EF, EP)

Please be aware that you will need to ensure that you identify on the MA1 form if you wish to pay a student an award where their status is anything other than RE/RO. There is a specific field on the MA1 form for this purpose. If a student’s status changes after you have notified the funding team of an award then payments will be made in these situations if the individual case is agreed via email with a member of Funding, with an authorised signatory copied in.

Where the student is not RE/RO and no extra arrangement is made, overdue instalments remain pending on their file. If the student does later become RE/RO for the academic year of their award, overdue instalments will be processed to reach the bank account as a single sum in the following payment cycle.

Payments over multiple academic years:

To request an award outside the student’s academic year, typically two MA1 forms need to be raised. The first to pay x number of instalments, taking the award to the start of the student’s academic year. The second to pay the balance of the award over the remaining months.

Retention of MA1 Forms

Copies of all MA1 forms should be retained by Schools/Faculties for the statutory retention period. For Research Council funded students a copy of all MA1 forms should be retained by Schools/Faculties for up to 12 months after the grant has closed. MA1 forms will be retained by Funding for two years.

Argos Report for Staff

An Argos report has been developed for staff, enabling them to determine i) which students have awards set up against a particular cost object number, ii) whether the awards have been paid, and iii) if the awards have not yet been paid, what cause of non-payment is likely to be. Staff can find instructions for using the Argos report here.

Contact

For enquiries and extra help or advice please contact Student Funding using the information below:

Student Funding
Student Services Centre
Marjorie and Arnold Ziff Building
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT

funding@leeds.ac.uk

0113 3432007

Please send completed forms to MA1@leeds.ac.uk. Please note that this is an automated email address, no message in the body of the email will be picked up. Please use the ‘Departmental Notes’ section of the Form 10/22 if extra information is required to process the payment, or contact Funding directly on the above email address.