.100 Control Responsibilities

The Office of Finance is responsible for analyzing and monitoring University and individual account activity, advising administrative officials if problems or potential problems exist, recommending guidelines for completing reconciliation, and providing assistance to University departments as requested.

The Department Head or Approving Authority (the person responsible for the operating budget) is responsible for maintaining accurate records, and controlling the financial activity of their departmental organization(s).

.200 Importance and Documentation

Reconciliation of monthly reports is essential to assure the accuracy of transactions posted to the Financial Information System. It allows departments to monitor the budget and guard against under and over expending. The reconciliation process involves comparing departmental transaction records to the items posted on the FIS Monthly Detail Report and Summary Financial reports. Each department head or their designee is responsible for ensuring that documentary evidence, subject to audit, is maintained, that their budget and expenditure reports have been reconciled on a timely basis (no less than monthly) and that reconciling items have been promptly resolved. The nature and extent of this documentary evidence is contingent upon the size and scope of the department's operations and should be determined by the Department Head.

.300 Departmental Responsibilities

• Maintain copies of FIS Transaction Detail reports and Budget and Expenditure summary reports obtained from the Finance System.
• Maintain copies of commitments and expenditures.
  • Documentation for Central Charges such as Telecom, Postal Services, Facilities Management, and copiers, is not required.
• Monitor departmental financial activity and ensure the reconciliation of departmental records to monthly FIS reports.
• Resolve differences between departmental records and reports promptly.
• Maintain documentation of monthly reconciliation for the current fiscal year and the three previous fiscal years.
• Ensures appropriate security controls are in place related to customer(s) personal information.
  • No customer personal information is stored on JMU server or workstation hard drives, or in hardcopy form in departmental files. Such sensitive data includes social security numbers, payment card account numbers, etc.
  • All copies of customer checks show blacked out account numbers and are marked "VOID" and/or "COPY".

.400 Reconciling FIS Reports

.410 Reconciling the FIS Summary Financial Report

Individual amounts shown on the monthly detail report, are summarized and shown in total by expenditure account code on the Summary Financial report. These amounts are automatically summarized and forwarded to the current month column on the Summary Financial Report. Year to date expenditures, Budget Balance, Encumbrances and percent of budget available for expenditure is also shown on this report.

A review of this report is recommended to determine that the financial data is reasonable and that adequate funds remain in the budget to cover commitments and future expenses.

.420 Reconciling the FIS Monthly Detail Report

The following steps are suggested for reconciling monthly reports with departmental records for expenditures.

Using the monthly detail report, review Personal Services expenditures to determine that charges are appropriate. To facilitate this process, detailed information can be obtained from the HR System Personal Expenditures Report or through HR queries requested from the Payroll Services Department. To obtain access to the Personal Expenditures Report please contact the HRMS Data Manager. For expenditures Other than Personal Services begin with Contractual Services (120000 series) account codes and review each amount listed in the current month column, to determine if charges are correct.

Differences between the posted amounts and departmental documentation shall be reconciled by contacting the appropriate department.

• Submit an online request regarding discrepancies
• Contact Accounts Payable, x86265 for copies of vouchers
• Contact Financial Reporting, x83656 for copies of ATVs