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Religious and Independent School Support

Religious and Independent School Support

MSA-CAP Frequently Asked Questions

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Passwords
• 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 determine if an account was established for you as Chief Financial Officer, the individual who has been authorized to certify claims forms in accordance with your school’s policies for this purpose. If SEDREF has another individual listed as chief executive officer, that individual can add you as a delegated user, or MSA contact. Or, if you are the new chief executive officer, you will have to make changes to the file. Click on SEDREF query and review who is listed under Administrative Positions.

If any change to SEDREF Administrative information is needed, click on the Public Help icon, which is an open book with a green question mark on it, found at the top and bottom of almost every SEDREF page. Follow the directions on the resulting page for changing information. Once you have seen the information updated in SEDREF, call the State Education Department Delegated Account System (SEDDAS) Help Desk 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?

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

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Claim Statuses

  • 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?
    I received an email message saying that my claim was set to “Hold”.

    You do not need to take any action. If necessary, a program reviewer from the MSA-CAP Office will contact you for additional information.

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Warning Messages

  • 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., *, ‘, #, !)

  • I received a warning message saying the claim was set to post review.

    Predetermined edits caused the claim to be sent for a post review. 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.

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Miscellaneous

  • 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.

  • 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” button appears in the right-hand corner of the screen. Buttons are available at the top and bottom of the screens.

  • When does the final certification screen appear?

    After you finish entering data for each mandate, click on the “MSA-1” button.
    Click on the “I Agree” button.
    The system returns a link to “Submit Claim”.
    The system returns a screen that shows the status of your submitted 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.

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