EdFlo Disbursement
Alongside traditional reimbursement, EdFlo also offers the InQuisiCard to streamline integration with learning providers.
EdFlo provides end-to-end integration with the InQuisic payment gateway to ensure that only approved educational expenses get paid. Through EdFlo.com, employees can now request and receive a virtual Payment card that can be used to purchase accredited education.
Why we have a better direct bill solution
The two biggest arguments heard against setting up direct bill relationships with learning providers are:
- Each school is different, and it's a hassle to set up these relationships
- If we receive a bill and pay it prior to the completion of classes, we may have repayment obligations with the employee if they did not successfully complete their coursework.
Both of these are valid concerns. However, through the EdFlo approach to direct billing for education assistance, both of these problems are solved. Here's why:
First, we remove the complexities that each school has around direct bill by organizing all learning providers into a single billing process managed by EdFlo. In this way, a corporate client never receives a bill from a school. Instead, EdFlo validates the payment requests from schools, consolidates these requests, and provides a single bill to the corporation.
Second, EdFlo moves the billing process to the completion of courses, at which point all documentation will be automatically submitted by each learning provider to support the request for payment. EdFlo validates this documentation against the business rules for payment by the corporation, and determines whether or not the request should be paid. Only when a request meets the guidelines for payment established by the corporation is the request billed to the Company. Because of this approach, employees become directly responsible to the school for any education that was not completed within the guidelines of their corporate policy, and corporations are removed from the repayment processes that plague many 'front pay' programs.
Other benefits of Direct Bill
Employee work efficiency is improved
The single largest administrative task for employees enrolled in tuition or training assistance programs is the submittal of transcripts and receipts that support their request for reimbursement. With EdFlo, the learning providers submit this information directly to the EdFlo payment gateway. The learning provider takes on the work of the employee with regards to submittal of documentation.
Reduction in administration time
Similar to the student, the single largest task for those that administer a tuition assistance program is the review of transcripts and receipts. This task is removed through EdFlo. If you wish to review the documentation, it is stored and available in real time through EdFlo. However, you have the assurance that EdFlo has performed the verification of the documentation submitted, and reconciled those payment requests that should be paid, and the amounts for payment.
EdFlo has a patented process for automating the approval of billing requests from the school to the corporation. Each request is made for a particular set of courses and fees that were pre-approved by the corporation. EdFlo validates that each request has the appropriate justification to support it, and that the grades and dollar amounts contained within the request meet the guidelines for corporate payment. Schools create the documentation within EdFlo, and EdFlo validates this documentation instantaneously against the business payment rules that have been entered into EdFlo by the corporation.
Fraud eliminated
No one likes to discuss it, but the reality is that when employees submit documentation to justify a reimbursement request, fraud is a real problem. EdFlo removes the potential for fraud by the learning providers submitting documentation directly. The employee does not touch the documentation prior to submittal to EdFlo.
Employee access to tuition and training benefits is increased
Even when a company is willing to cover 100% of the costs for tuition and fees, there are employees who cannot afford the up front costs of tuition. They are left out of the tuition assistance program. With EdFlo, employees make no out-of-pocket payments to the learning provider. Learning providers have agreed to wait for payment until the end of the term, at which time they will seek payment from the corporation first, and from the employee second.