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Payroll and University Payment System (PAY)
Institutions receive several monthly burst reports from HR. For a full list of reports, refer to the HR Report Library.
Payroll Checklist
- Review the listing and ensure all employees have been costed correctly.
- Ensure the listing includes all joiners.
- Check leavers have been removed from the listing, and ensure no leavers continue to be paid.
- Review and correct the coding of individuals to Research Grants and General Ledger.
Prior to the month end, establish that any incomplete requisitions and purchase orders are actioned. Best practice dictates that this should be done regularly, throughout the month.
Purchasing (PO)
- Run the Open Purchase Orders Report (UFS) to identify incomplete and old purchase orders, and action appropriately.
- Run the Purchasing Requisition Status report and resolve incomplete requisitions appropriately.
- If required, manually close purchase order. NOTE: Do not Finally Close purchase orders until all goods and invoices have been received and processed. Refer to Finance Training, Guidance and FAQs, iProcurement: Managing Orders.
Finance Business Partners and Institution heads of finance must oversee and champion effective and efficient procurement and purchasing practice and financial controls across the institutions in the School in conjunction with the Head of Group Procurement. They must support Institutions in regularly carrying out checks of the compliance of purchases with policy, including the use of Purchase Orders, and confirming these are complete.
Accounts Payable (AP)
Accounts Payable general
Accounts Payable (AP) is the CUFS module that facilitates all invoice type transactions and payment processes. The separate transaction types are detailed below, but the following checks apply to AP itself.
Accounts Payable checklist
- Identify and action transactions needing approval using the Invoice Register (CAPSA) report
- Identify and action all transactions placed on hold by running the Invoices on Hold (CAPSA) report
- Identify any potential taxable benefits (P11D). Institutions must maintain their own list ready for the tax year end.
Supplier statements
Review supplier statements and check all invoices and credit notes have been received, processed or queried with the supplier. Follow up any outstanding disputes.
Employee expenses
Confirm that all claims submitted using Concur, have been reviewed and authorised in the same month, at least two days before the AP closure date. Refer to Concur Expenses procedures for approvers.
Run the Concur submitted expenses report to identify outstanding claims and follow up with first line or second line approvers. Note: This report also includes Concur for Visitors claims. Refer to Concur Accessing the reports if required.
Run the Concur benefits report for the month and compare this against the full list of claims approved in the month to identify any missing potential taxable benefits (P11D), this includes corporate credit card claims, not just out of pocket expenses. If any potential taxable items were missed during the claims review or approval process, they must be added to the locally maintained list ready for the tax year end.
Monthly reports are sent from Concur that should help with these tasks. Refer to the Concur Expenses Guidance for details of these burst reports.
Verify the appropriateness of the employee’s expense claims and the consistency and fairness of the approval process. Ensure all expenditure complies with the University’s Finance Regulations and the Employees Expenses Policy (to be carried out by the HoI or assigned staff member with correct delegated authority).
Employee expense advances
Ensure that any advances, less any returns, are fully recovered and correctly accounted for in CUFS. Refer to the Employee Expenses Procedures, Advances webpage, or for detailed guidance, the Training webpage for AP expenses.
Non-employee expenses
Confirm that all expense claims from non-employees, have been reviewed and authorised in a timely manner, ideally in the same month, before AP closes. Input locally using Concur for Visitors or send to Shared Services for processing at least two days before the AP closure date.
Credit card expenses
Cardholders must submit claims using Concur within 15 days of the end of the statement month. Institution finance teams must follow up with any card holders that have not submitted their transactions for approval in Concur for the previous month. For example, at the October month end close, ensure that all September transactions have been submitted, and approved.
Credit card checklist
- Verify the appropriateness of the cardholder’s expenditure and that it complies with the University’s Finance Regulations and the University’s Credit Card Policy (to be carried out by the HoI or assigned staff member with correct delegated authority).
- Ensure all transactions loaded in Concur from the Barclaycard statement have been receipted, submitted, reviewed and approved.
- Confirm all leavers’ incurred expenses are cleared, their cards destroyed, and Accounting Services notified.
Petty cash, research participant imprest systems and other floats
A delegated staff member must check and account for these floats and accounts monthly.
Petty cash and research participant imprest checklist
- Ensure the monthly journals for balancing the petty cash float and the imprest account have been posted.
- Complete independent review of both, ensuring the physical cash has been counted.
Other floats checklist
- Complete independent review of any other floats ensuring the physical cash has been counted.
Accounts Receivable (AR)
Accounts Receivable concerns all income generating activities (refer to External trading, FPM 8a, and Accounting for donations and grants, FPM 14).
Accounts Receivable (AR) checklist
- Ensure you have completed all invoices, credit notes and batch receipts for the month.
- Ensure all invoices, credit notes and appropriate customer statements have been despatched.
- Identify receipts remaining on the Unapplied Register by running the Unapplied Receipts Register. Apply the receipt to the specific invoices or add a comment to your manually maintained institution list where they cannot be applied.
- Ensure debt collection activities have been performed and recorded throughout the month for all due debts, diarising any follow ups required.
- Confirm you have reviewed and returned your responses to the Department Debt Statements issued by Credit Control at the start of each month.
- Ensure any bad debt write offs have been submitted to Credit Control at least 5 working days before the month end close.
Internal Transfers
Internal Transfers refers to inter-institution transactions. The term Internal Transfers will replace Internal Trading over time.
When invoices are disputed, queries should be resolved by referring to Head of Institution (HoI) in the first instance. Final Arbitration is with the Finance Division.
Internal transfers checklist
- Confirm all Internal Trading AR invoices have been raised.
- Ensure all Internal Trading invoices have been reviewed, recoded and approved, and any unresolved disputes escalated.
Banking
It is important to ensure that all monies (cash and cheques) received during the month are banked and receipted promptly and at least weekly.
Banking checklist
- Ensure all receipt batches have been completed for cash and cheques received on or before the last day of the month.
- Confirm banking of all monies received up to the last day of the month (including vending machines, photocopier sales, pay phones, key deposits).
- Claim BACS receipts and bank transfers from the weekly Finance Division spreadsheet.
Inventory and stores
All institutions with stores must ensure an accurate record of stock is maintained and that stock is allocated accurately within the institution.
Inventory and stores checklist
- Verify stock remains physically secure (ongoing).
- Complete all inventory issues and receipts (ongoing).
- Before the month end close, undertake monthly stock take or cycle count, check against records and investigate any differences.
- Confirm stock holdings and values by running appropriate reports.
If you are a CUFS inventory user, and before the Inventory month end closes, confirm stock transactions by running the Material Account Distribution Detail report.
Refer to the Finance Training guidance for details on running the reports.
Fixed Assets (FA)
Institutions are required to maintain the University’s Fixed Asset Register. This requires that institutions tick the Track as Asset box in CUFS, either at requisition, purchase order or invoices stage for any Fixed Asset purchases.
Fixed Assets checklist
- Check fixed assets are secure, maintained and verified (ongoing).
- Review all large (>£5,000) purchases within the month and confirm they have been correctly tracked.
- Check any new additions acquired during the month are accurately reflected in the Asset Additions report .
- Ensure the Fixed Asset Helpdesk has been notified of any fixed asset disposal during the month.
- Review and confirm that Institution Fixed Asset Report is accurate.
Research Grants
Research grants are governed primarily by the reporting requirements of the funder, not necessarily accounting periods (months). However, there are certain tasks that require action at the month end close.
It is important that grant holders are made aware of their responsibilities regarding the monthly reports. This includes ensuring expenditure has been correctly coded, aligns with the funder’s terms and conditions and that all goods and services have been provided (evidence retained).
Review of manual journals
Institutions are requested to ensure that the posting of manual journals have the required segregated duty review. We recommend maintaining a journals log detailing the preparer, approver and the rationale for each journal. Supporting evidence is required to be retained for each journal, this is useful for query resolution or providing evidence to audit.
Grants checklist
- Clear your suspense grant to zero, when possible, by moving expenditure to the correct grant.
- Review and clear funds check failures.
- Release or clear unposted journals.
- Review and update payroll grants coding to payroll.
- Correct VAT errors as advised by the Tax Team.
- Check the status of all grants and, where necessary, contact Research Office to take appropriate action.
- Distribute relevant reports to grant holders, highlighting any areas that require their consideration.
The following reports give PIs an overview of their grants:
- Cognos Project/Award Status Report. This has a selection by PI field. It breaks the expenditure down by task, expenditure category and type.
- Cognos Grants: Listing and Budget V Actual Report. This shows a breakdown at expenditure category and task level and can be run for multiple or individual PIs.
For information at a transactional level, use the Cognos Grants Expenditure Enquiry Report. For detailed guidance on Cognos Grants reports, refer to the Finance Training webpage.
General Ledger (GL)
The General Ledger (GL) is at the heart of CUFS, collating information from the sub-ledgers of all the University’s financial transactions. The GL is used for processing journals, account enquiries and running reports.
It is the responsibility of Budget holders to ensure that expenditure has been correctly coded and that all goods and services have been provided (evidence retained).
Review of manual journals
Institutions should ensure that manually posted journals have undergone the required segregated duty review. We recommend maintaining a journals log detailing the preparer, approver and the rationale for each journal. Supporting evidence is required to be retained for each journal, this is useful for query resolution and for providing evidence to audit.
Accruals and Prepayments
Accruals and prepayments can be used when preparing your institution accounts to reflect your financial position more accurately and to monitor your final position.
At present, Institutions are not expected to accrue their income/expenditure until the year end, however if the amounts are material (i.e., over £10,000), they must be processed monthly. Advice is available from your School team or the General Ledger helpdesk.
General Ledger (GL) checklist
Pre-GL Close
- Process or delete any un-posted GL journals.
- Review, reconcile and clear appropriately any institution suspense accounts.
- Journal or transfer expenditure to match to correct source of funds.
- Correct any miscoded GL transactions.
- Ensure Non-Recurrent grants are not overspent by reviewing expenditure.
- Ensure that Trust Fund postings are accurate and monitor level of expenditure.
- Process journals for Deposit Account movements.
Post-GL Close
- Run the Cognos GL Budget to Actual report or Transaction Code Balances reports to review the institution’s transactions and balances. For detailed guidance, refer to the Finance Training webpage on GL Reporting.
- Review the Institution’s Summary Report distributed by the Finance Division on the sixth working day. This is available from Cognos Reporting for institutions to run themselves.
- Distribute relevant reports to budget holders.
Latest version 21 December 2024