This Handbook is written for VA Certifying Officials and anyone at a school involved with certification of beneficiaries of VA education benefits. This Handbook is a collaboration of the three Regional Processing Offices and Education Service and is intended to be the official source of information for VA Certifying Officials. Certification instructions in this handbook are based on the use of VA-ONCE and include general information about the program. VA-ONCE is a VA Internet based application for certifying students. VA-ONCE electronic certification is required for all programs of education except on-the-job training, apprenticeship training, and correspondence training. There are a number of additional resources that are also available on the School Certifying Officials webpage, including Online Training For New Certifying Officials. The web-based training course is required for new VA Certifying Officials and is also useful as refresher training for existing VA Certifying Officials.