SECTION 1: Accounting for Departmental Transactions EBS

The Controller’s Office requires each department to maintain consistent oversight of every account for which it is responsible. A timely and consistent review of account activity will allow the department to know the balance in its accounts at all times and provide information to meet reporting requirements. The University accounting system is the official financial record for Michigan State University and therefore, departments are required to review account activity in the financial system in a timely fashion.

A monthly Operating Statement (FIN049) is available for each account. These statements are available electronically through Cognos Business Intelligence. The statement is provided on a monthly basis, but also can be run at any time on any date parameters a user wishes to set. On a monthly basis (minimum), all transactions per the official statement must be verified with departmental records (receipts, statements, etc.) to ensure the amounts are correct and all charges have posted to the correct account number. In the event that errors are discovered in this review process, it is the departmental fiscal officer's (FO) responsibility to correct any errors by either 1) contacting the department that originated the error and request correction; or 2) processing a financial transaction document (e-doc) in the financial system to correct the transaction(s). All corrections must be made in a timely fashion (within 30 days).

Each day, updated general ledger activity is available in the financial system. Departments are encouraged to run reports and review account activity frequently and not wait for the monthly statement. This frequent review will allow for the possibility of the correction of errors prior to the processing of the monthly statement. See the “Account Review FAQs" and the "Account Review Checklist” for further information.

Selected e-docs include:

Each of the above documents are discussed in detail in the respective sections noted above.

Monthly cut-off: Financial processing transactions will usually be reviewed and processed by Accounting in order as received. Excluding June (fiscal year-end), there are no specific central monthly cut-off dates or policies for transactions. To ensure that transactions are fully approved and therefore are recorded in a specific month, please process documents well before the end of the month. Generally, transactions that are fully approved and awaiting Accounting approval will be recorded that month if received no later than seven (7) business days before month end.