ED to Release New HEERF Quarterly Reporting Form

Updated 7/9/2022: In recent webcasts on the revised Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) quarterly reporting form (QRF), the Department of Education indicated that the new form will be required starting with the 2Q reports, which are now due July 11, 2022. ED publicly posted the form on July 7, and it provided the form to HEERF Grant Award contacts at individual institutions during the week of June 27. NACUBO has published additional information and a related accounting tutorial. 

In a major change, the new QRF combines reporting for HEERF student aid and institutional aid awards. There is no longer a requirement to post a separate narrative report for HEERF student aid awards.

The information reported in the new QRF is very similar to the 2021 annual reporting form (ARF) but does not ask for extensive student demographic information. For example, for each quarterly reporting period, institutions must now provide the amounts of emergency student aid disbursed directly to students or used to satisfy student account balances by student type (undergraduate and graduate)—broken down by the (a)(1) student aid piece, (a)(1) institutional aid piece, and (a)(2), (a)(3), and (a)(4) funds. For institutional funding under (a)(1), (a)(2), and (a)(3), institutions must indicate the planned use of unexpended funds by HEERF program and calendar year and complete familiar tables of allowable expenses and lost revenue—including   extinguishing student account balances.

Several important requirements have been retained for the new QRF:

1. Institutions must use the fill-in form provided by ED for the QRF. No handwritten or scanned PDFs are allowed.
2. No additional materials should be added to the uploaded form.
3. The report is for the quarter and not cumulative.
4. The file must follow a very specific naming convention: [8-digit OPEID]_[Survey name]_[Quarter/Year]_[Date of release]. For example, for the second quarter 2022 QRF posted on July 10, 2022, the file name should be something like: 01234500_HEERF_Q22022_071022.pdf
5. Institutions are encouraged to email their QRF to HEERFreporting@ed.gov in addition to posting it on their websites.
6. If necessary, institutions can update their quarterly report by redating the form, explaining the update, and posting the new report on their website using the same naming convention. During its June 23 webcast, ED indicated that the original report should be maintained on the institution’s website until three years after the end of the reporting period. The original report does not need to be updated to the new format, but the revised report must use the new QRF.

NACUBO is preparing a new accounting tutorial with a summary of all changes between the QRF and 2021 ARF as well as interpretive reporting suggestions and will share it soon.