Important Changes to the Texas Reimbursement Claim Procedure

New Report in MealTime!

Site Level Upload Ability

 
 

The 2011 version of MealTime incorporates the new claim for in the TX-UNPS format.  Also, users of MealTime Central will have the ability to export a file for ‘site level’ reporting into TX-UNPS.

 

Impact on MealTime:

For the final months of the 2010-2011 school year, it was necessary to use the Generic Claim form.  This form will continue to accurately report meals for the claim form; however, you may again use the State Reimbursement Form in MealTime.  It may be desirable to use both as the Generic Claim form generates the amount of the expected claim; this information is not on the new Texas Claim.  (For the amounts to be accurate, be sure and update the reimbursement rates.  Details on how to update the rates is at the bottom of this page.)  The Texas Claim form can be generated at the end of each month automatically by adding it to your scheduled reports. To enable printing of the State Reimbursement Claim automatically at the school level, go to Reports, Report Scheduler, Schedule Reports.  In the Report field, type S, which will scroll to State Reimbursement Claim.  Click on it, click the “Monthly” box (and change the number of copies needed, if desired), and click OK.

 

If your district reports multiple campuses, but has just one cafeteria:

Reporting meal counts by campus will be required in the 2011-2012 school year.  If your district reports as multiple campuses, but has one cafeteria, you will enter your meal counts into TX-UNPS from the Meal Counts Report (generated for the entire month).  This report will have the needed numbers for free, reduced, and paid by campus.  It may be desirable to print the State Reimbursement Claim report to have the district total meal amounts, as well as the Generic Claim Form to compare dollar amount when filing.  If it is not already automatically printing at the end of the month, add the Texas Claim Form to your scheduled reports by going to Reports, Report Scheduler, Schedule Reports.  In the Report field, type M, which will scroll to Meal Counts report.  Click on it, check the “Monthly” box (and change the number of copies needed, if needed) and click OK.  Note that there may also be a check in the Daily or Weekly boxes.  Do not remove those checks.

 

If your district uses MealTime Central, you may generate a file that can be imported into TX-UNPS:

There is an on-line tutorial on importing the information into TX-UNPS at: http://www.squaremeals.org/Portals/8/files/TXUNPS/videos/POS_SNP_Site_Claims.swf

 

Generating an export file from MealTime Central can reduce the effort to report your site claim into TX-UNPS; however, be sure that information is up-to-date before generating the file.

  • Make sure that schools have made any corrections (especially backdated meals) before generating the file.
  • Make sure that all schools have uploaded their information to MealTime Central (check the MT/POS Data Upload Status report to ensure all schools have uploaded for the month) before generating the file.  It is critical that all information has been uploaded to MealTime Central---if not, inaccurate information will be uploaded to TX-UNPS.
  • One time setup: there must be a ‘Site’ number entered for each school.  This will be the same as the school number, but entered as a four (4) digit number.  Go to System Setup, Schools.  Edit each school, and on the ‘General’ tab, add the school number to the ‘Site #’ field (see example below) as a four (4) digit number.  After this is completed once, it will not need to be repeated.

 

 

To Generate The Site Level Export File:

In MealTime Central,

  1. Go to Reports, POS Reports, State Reimbursement Claim.
  2. Select the Report Month.
  3. Enter your attendance factor.
  4. In the TX_CE_ID field, enter the Unique Contracting Entity ID that was system generated by TX-UNPS.
  5. Click on the ‘Export’ button.  The user will be prompted on where to save the file to (default is C:\MTWin\Exports).   After clicking OK, the file will be generated (and may take minutes to generate).

 

 

 

 

After Generating The Site Level Claim File, Import into TX-UNPS:

The file will be at C:\MTWin\Exports.  MealTime names the file beginning with TXUNPS, followed by month and year of the claim.  For instance, September of 2011 will be named TXUNPS0911.txt. 

 

As MealTime does not have Attendance information for the campuses, this will report as an error at each campus when the upload is complete (after the “Finish” button was pushed following the upload).  To enter Attendance information:

1.      Click the “Modify” button in the left column to enter each campus that has errors indicated and add the Attendance information.  Expect at least two errors per campus as the Attendance number must be entered for each program (such as Lunch, Breakfast, Severe Need Breakfast, Snack) that is served at that location.

  1. “Attendance” is either actual attendance, or ADA multiplied by the number of serving days.
  2. After entering the Attendance data, the Claim Site List will return.  The Status should have changed from Error to Validated.
  3. After Attendance information is entered for all campuses, click the Continue button.
  4. If all information has been entered correctly, and it certain that the information uploaded is correct, complete the process by certifying and submitting. Note: After the final confirmation screen, it is possible to return to the Claim Month Details screen where there will be a link for Summary.  By clicking this link the CE level reimbursement information will be displayed.  At the bottom of that screen is a link for Show Site Meal Details.  By clicking this link, the bottom of the screen will extend to show site level meal counts.
  5. It is suggested to print out the final confirmation screen.

 

If there are questions or encounter difficulties with exporting from MealTime, contact School Lunch Systems at 877.996.9035 or MealTime Technical Support at 800.755.0904.  If you cannot log into TX-UNPS or have other difficulty with the claim process, call (877) TEX-MEAL, or call your local Service Center.

 

 

Updating Reimbursement Rates

To make the “Reimbursement” column display correctly on the Generic Claim Form, the Reimbursement Rates will need to be updated (the counts will be accurate whether or not the rates are updated). 

In MealTime POS:

  1. Go to System Setup
  2. Select Foods
  3. Select Reimbursement Rates
  4. In the “Breakfast Meal” column (these amounts for the 2011-2012 school year only):
    1. Leave the amount on the “Adult” line at 0
    2. Change the amount on the “Free” line to 1.51
    3. Change the amount on the “Paid” line to .27
    4. Change the amount on the “Reduced” line to 1.21
  5. In the “Lunch Meal” column (these amounts for the 2011-2012 school year only):
    1. Leave the amount on the “Adult” line at 0
    2. Change the amount on the “Free” line to 2.77
    3. Leave the amount on the “Paid” line at .26
    4. Change the amount on the “Reduced” line to 2.37
  6. In the “Sev Need Brk Meal” column (these amounts for the 2011-2012 school year only):
    1. Leave the amount on the “Adult” line at 0
    2. Change the amount on the “Free” line to 1.80
    3. Change the amount on the “Paid” line to .27
    4. Change the amount on the “Reduced” line to 1.50
  7. Click OK to save the changes

 

For districts using MealTime Central:

  1. Go to System Setup
  2. Select Reimbursement Rates
  3. In the “Breakfast Meal” column (these amounts for the 2011-2012 school year only):
    1. Leave the amount on the “Adult” line at 0
    2. Change the amount on the “Free” line to 1.51
    3. Change the amount on the “Paid” line to .27
    4. Change the amount on the “Reduced” line to 1.21
  4. In the “Lunch Meal” column (these amounts for the 2011-2012 school year only):
    1. Leave the amount on the “Adult” line at 0
    2. Change the amount on the “Free” line to 2.77
    3. Leave the amount on the “Paid” line at .26
    4. Change the amount on the “Reduced” line to 2.37
  5. In the “Sev Need Brk Meal” column (these amounts for the 2011-2012 school year only):
    1. Leave the amount on the “Adult” line at 0
    2. Change the amount on the “Free” line to 1.80
    3. Change the amount on the “Paid” line to .27
    4. Change the amount on the “Reduced” line to 1.50
  6. Click OK to save the changes

 

 

This page updated December 6, 2011