2024 Key notes

Use of Shared Services

To help Shared Services prioritise work for the year end, institutions using Shared Services are asked to:

• submit 2023/24 items for processing five working days prior to the closure of AP (by close of business on 8 August)
• separate items to be processed in 2023/24 from those relating to 2024/25

However, as the deadline for other institutions to raise internal AR invoices to you is 12 August, please continue to send any invoices received as you get them to Shared Services for processing within 2023/24, even if this is after the 8 August deadline. 2023/24 invoices will be prioritised if you alert Shared Services to them.

Other reminders which are especially important over the busy year-end period:

• Some institutions send a large amount of older invoices around year end. Please help Shared Services cope with the tight deadlines by sending invoices in a timely manner throughout the year, and aim to clear any backlog before July. Where possible, sending small, regular batches is preferred to sending large batches weekly/fortnightly.
• Please only flag work as urgent where this is genuinely the case.
• Recoding tasks can be carried out in the institution unless the recoding is required to correct an error by Shared Services. It is unlikely that the team will be able to prioritise recoding requests until after the AP module has closed for 2023/24.

It would be preferable for institutions to hold back items for 2024/25 until after the current year-end deadline. If you do submit them over this time, please clearly mark them as relating to 2024/25, and be aware that they may not be processed until after the 2023/24 work is complete.

Getting postings in the correct period

In prior years the external auditors have found a number of transactions that had been processed in the incorrect financial year. Institutions are asked to review their accounts to make sure transactions are processed in the correct financial year.

Examples for institutions to look out for are:

• Sales Invoices – Review sales invoices raised in the 2023/24 Financial Year to make sure that the related to goods/services were provided in the 2023/24 Financial Year.
• eSales – Check that income received from eSales is in the correct period for the related goods/services provided. The Finance Division will be doing a review of income from eSales to correct transactions that are in the wrong financial year.
• Purchase invoices - Review purchase invoices processed in the 2023/24 Financial Year to make sure that the related to goods/services have been delivered or used in the 2023/24 Financial Year.

Cambridge University Endowment Fund (CUEF) Postings

The postings of the July distribution and the June/July revaluation are as follows:

• July CUEF Distribution

The accrual for July CUEF distribution will be processed into institution accounts on the 21 August. This will allow institutions to review deficits within their accounts before the closure of the General Ledger.

The correction of the accrual for the July distribution will be processed through Adjustment Period 1 after the General Ledger has closed to institutions. This will have no effect on institutions’ July period balances.

• June/July CUEF Revaluation

The June/July revaluation will be posted into institutions’ accounts on the 9 September after the General Ledger has closed for institutions. This will be posted into the July period and will show on your final summary report.

Chest Allocation Holdback

The Chest framework agreed by Planning Resource Committee in May 2023 distributed an initial allocation to institutions for 2023-24 (typically 90% or 95%) as part of the budget upload in August 2023, whilst underwriting the 100% allocation centrally. The framework stated that, if the need is demonstrated, Schools, Institutions and Administered Funds are entitled to their 100% underwritten allocation. Therefore, at July 2024 year end there will be an exercise to assess if there is need for a further distribution up to each institution’s 100% underwritten allocation. This will be done via a SOF specifically for the holdback (ABHB).

The timeline to assess whether there is need for a further distribution up to each institution’s 100% underwritten allocation is:

1. General Ledger will close to Institutions on Friday 30 August 2024

On Monday 2 September 2024

2. Financial Performance and Planning (FPP) will confirm the value of the holdback to be distributed to School Finance Business Partners and institution heads of finance.

Between Monday 2 and Wednesday 4 September

3. Financial Performance and Planning (FPP) will process the holdback budget journals to the source of fund ABHB in Schools and Institutions.

4. The Finance Business Partners and institution heads of finance will process local budget journals to move budget allocations to/from ABHB.

5. Central and Research Accounting will do matching actual income journals to match both 3 and 4 above in the July 24 period.

The Source of Funds that are included in the process, for the vast majority of institutions within the university, are:

Any questions, please direct them to your Finance Business Partner and institution heads of finance.

Nil Net Book Value Assets

An area which is coming under recurrent scrutiny from our auditors is the number of assets on our register with a Net Book Value (NBV) of nil. We currently have circa. 5,500 assets with nil NBV on our Fixed Assets Register, some of which were purchased almost 40 years ago. It is therefore vital that these assets are physically verified to ensure that they remain within the University’s ownership and are still in use.

Concur Barclaycard and Out of Pocket Claims

Please ensure all Concur claims (Barclaycard and out of pocket) relating to 2023/24 have a Claim Date of 31 July 2024 or earlier. From 1 August, any claims going into CUFS with a claim date later than 31 July 2024 will go into the August GL period. Finance approvers can check and change the claim date by going to Details/Claim Header when reviewing a claim. (This is likely to be important for any claims submitted in the first two weeks of August with 2023/24 spend on.)

Please ensure all claims relating to 2023/24 are fully authorised at least two days before the AP closure date (preferably more) and ensure that any advances are fully recovered. If possible don’t mix 2023/24 out-of-pocket expenses with items relating to 2024/25 (August) on the same claim.

Expense claims that are dated before the 31 July 2024 that haven’t been transferred to CUFS will be accrued by the Finance Division on AZZY.FJAQ. The Finance Division will do this by Friday 30th August 2024.