General Ledger (GL)

Module closes at 5pm on Friday 30 August

 

ON THIS PAGE
Summary of tasks Key dates CUEF sales/purchases Process and reconcile petty cash Credit card expenditure Budget Freeze Chest Allocation Holdback Mechanism  Monies on deposit Accruals Unearned revenue	Other debtors Prepayments Accruals/deferrals and internal partners Matching the source of funds for related expenditure and income Clearing deficits VAT Transactions Roll forward Trust funds

Essential Tasks	Final date for completion
CUEF units: last instructions to be received by Treasury & Investment Team for 2023/24	Mon 17 Jun
Process and reconcile petty cash for 2023/24	Mon 5 Aug
Process credit card expenditure before AP closes if using this option	Thu 15 Aug
Movement of monies on deposit	Tue 20 Aug
Clear Trust Fund deficits based on review of 2nd interim statement	Tue 27 Aug
Process any remaining credit card expenditure by journal	Fri 30 Aug
Complete spreadsheets for income and expense accruals	Fri 30 Aug
Code expenditure to same SoF as related income and clear deficits	Fri 30 Aug
Submit year-end certificate(s) to Finance Division	Tue 24 Sep

 

Finance Division key dates for information	Key Date
Carbon Reduction Charge (CRC) journal posted	Mon 19 Aug
EC PI Time adjustment posted	Tue 20 Aug
CUEF distribution July accrual and deposit interest posted	Wed 21 Aug
Indirect Cost Contribution posted	Thu 1 Aug Mon 2 Sep
Trust Fund overheads posted	Thu 1 Aug Mon 19 Aug Mon 2 Sep
Final journal for Jul-24 VAT Adjustments	Wed 28 Aug
Issue Trust Fund statements to institutions	Thu 8 Aug Thu 22 Aug Thu 5 Sep
Chest Allocation	Weekly postings from 1 Aug
Financial Performance and Planning (FPP) to confirm value of chest allocation holdback to be distributed to Finance Business Partners and institution heads of finance	Mon 2 Sep
Holdback budget journals to be processed by FPP, Finance Business Partners and institution heads of finance, and Central and Research Accounting	Between Mon 2 Sep and Wed 4 Sep
Budget field frozen	Tue 27 Aug
CUEF Revaluation posted for June and July (Into July GL period)	Mon 9 Sep
Actual July CUEF Distribution posted into Adjustment Period 1	Mon 9 Sep
Institution summary reports, plus distribution of Year End Certificates on 9 Sep	Fri 2 Aug Thu 22 Aug Tue 3 Sep Mon 9 Sep

 

In case of queries please contact the General Ledger Helpdesk Tel. 39660

 

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Cambridge University Endowment Fund (CUEF) sales/purchases 

There are no purchases or sales of CUEF units at 31 July. The last day for dealing for 2023/24 is 17 June. Contact Treasury if there are any queries.

 

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Process and reconcile petty cash

• The institution’s petty cash needs to be closed as at 31 July. The GL journal (and Grants journal if necessary) must have a July 2024 date.

• Petty cash expenditure for August 2024 must be journaled into August 2024.

• The institution’s petty cash control account balance should reflect the amount of cash held as at 31 July.

NB. It may be that your first visit to the University Cashier after the year end includes two petty cash forms, one for each year. This is expected and acceptable.

 

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Credit card expenditure

Monthly Barclaycard statements will be available to institutions from 1 August. Cardholders using Concur (this is the vast majority) will see transactions in their account as they are incurred through the month.

There are a small number of Barclaycards held by staff not on the UK payroll (who can’t use Concur). Spend on these cards needs to be accounted for using the old process, clearing the invoice postings to AZZY.

See Concur Barclaycard instructions in the Accounts Payable section, 3.4.5 and ensure any remaining transactions are cleared via GL journals before the module closes on 30 August. Ensure expenditure date is 31 July 2024.

Any AZZY balances not cleared before the GL close will roll forward to AZZY as part of the normal year end process.

 

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Budget Freeze

Chest allocation is processed through institutions accounts as actual income.  

Institutions are able to move Chest Allocation by using a budget journal and liaising with your Finance Business Partner and institution heads of finance.

Central and Research Accounting will update the actual income in CUFS on the following dates:

Actual Posting of July Chest Allocation	Wed 3 Jul
2nd Posting of July Chest Allocation	Thu 1 Aug
3rd Posting of July Chest Allocation	Thu 8 Aug
4th Posting of July Chest Allocation	Thu 15 Aug
5th Posting of July Chest Allocation	Thu 22 Aug
Budget field frozen in CUFS	Tue 27 Aug
Final posting of July Chest Allocation	Wed 28 Aug

 

If an institution requires posting of budget journal after the 27 August, please contact your Finance Business Partner and institution head of finance who can liaise with Academic and Financial Planning and Analysis

 

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Chest Allocation Holdback Mechanism

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, via a new 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

2.         On Monday 2 September 2024, Financial Performance and Planning (FPP) will confirm the value of the holdback to be distributed to Finance Business Partners and institution heads of finance.

Between Monday 2 September 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 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:

SOF CODE	SOF DESCRIPTION
AAAA	CHEST NON PAYROLL
ABAA	CHEST STIPENDS
ABHB	CHEST ALLOCATION HOLDBACK
ACAA	CHEST WAGES

 

Any questions, please direct them to your Finance Business Partner or institution head of finance

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 Monies on deposit

20 August is the last date for placing eligible funds on deposit as at 31 July. 

• Institutions are reminded that monies should be taken off deposit to reduce account deficits.
• Deposit Account and CUEF interest will be posted on 21 August.
• Details on eligible SoF, how to place money on or take money off deposit are available in the Investments manual (Chapter 12, Financial Procedures Manual).

 

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Accruals

These are amounts owed by the institution for goods and services that they have received prior to 31 July. Therefore, their costs need to be included in the 2023/24 financial year. This is done by the process of accruals.

Expenditure accruals occur where:

• Goods or services have been received on or before 31 July but no invoice has been received and therefore not processed on UFS; or
• Goods or services have been received on or before 31 July and the invoice has been received after AP module has closed and therefore the invoice will be processed in AP in 2024/25 financial year.

In case of queries please contact the General Ledger Helpdesk.

Accruals must be raised for transactions over £10,000

Instructions

Guidance on creating journals for accruals is detailed in Appendix A

• By using the Auto Reversal journal category these journals should be automatically reversed into the AUG-24 period. Ensure that you post or release the July journal.
• If the journal category Accrual is used then you must remember to manually reverse it in the AUG-24 period using the More Actions button and to post or release both journals.

Sometimes journals need to be reversed in a period later than August. For example, if expenditure has been accrued in July but the invoice is not received until September then the Jul-24 journal should be the Accrual type (not Auto Reversal) and should be manually reversed in September.

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Unearned revenue

Income should be deferred where it has been received by the institution in advance of the goods or services being supplied (e.g. trading, course fees). If income received in advance is not deferred, it will be credited and shown in the incorrect financial year.

Appendix B provides guidance on processing unearned revenue or, in case of queries, please contact the General Ledger Helpdesk.

 

Income received in advance must be deferred for single transactions over £10,000. Where unearned revenue for a single institution totals over £200,000, send supporting details to Central and Research Accounting by 30 August. Detailed supporting working papers must be retained for audit inspection

 

Other debtors

These are amounts owing to the institution for services/goods provided but unbilled at the year end. They are the opposite of the accruals described previously. They will arise from goods or services provided to external customers but not yet invoiced on the AR module.

Appendix C provides guidance on processing accrued income or, in case of queries, please contact the General Ledger Helpdesk

Accrued Income must be raised for single transactions over £10,000. Where accrued income for a single institution totals over £200,000, send supporting details to Central and Research Accounting by 30 August. Detailed supporting working papers must be retained for audit inspection.

 

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Prepayments

A prepayment occurs when a payment has been processed on UFS in advance of the goods or services being received. When this occurs over the year end, the proportion of the payment that relates to goods or services received in the new financial year (August 2024 and beyond) has to be calculated. The expenditure for 2023/24 is then reduced by this prepaid amount.

Appendix D provides guidance on processing accrued income or, in case of queries, please contact the General Ledger Helpdesk.

Prepayments are only necessary for single transactions over £10,000. Where prepayments for a single institution total over £200,000, send supporting details to Central and Research Accounting by 30 August. Detailed supporting working papers must be retained for audit inspection.

 

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Accruals/deferrals and internal partners

If the expenditure or income that is being accrued or deferred relates to a transaction with another institution (e.g. internal trading) please check with the General Ledger Helpdesk before posting the journal. The Helpdesk will be able to check that the other institution is making the equal and opposite accrual or deferral. This is important to ensure that the elimination of internal transactions is correct.

 

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Matching the source of funds for related expenditure and income

Recording expenditure against the same SoF as the related income is an important process for institutions.

To achieve the transfer between sources of funds by a GL journal, the net balance of each type of expenditure by a GL journal is moved/transferred using the original expenditure transaction code for both the debit and credit entries of the journal.

Example:

Initially all your photocopying paper expenditure (transaction code ESFZ) was coded against SoF AAAA.

However, the institution used £100 worth of paper when it was running off posters for an exhibition.

The exhibition is a trading activity with income on SoF GAAA.

Therefore a journal should be raised to match the paper costs with the exhibition as follows:

CREDIT   U. Dept. CC . AAAA . ESFZ   £100 DEBIT     U. Dept. CC . GAAA .ESFZ   £100

This procedure should NOT be used to correct miscoding and applies to movement of expenditure between sources of funds and cost centres only.

If you require clarification, please contact your Finance Business Partner or institution head of finance.

Detailed supporting working papers must be retained for audit inspection.

 

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Clearing deficits

Before clearing deficits, institution accounts must be reviewed and adjustments made to: 

• correct miscoding
• match the SoF coding for related expenditure and income (as above)
• account for accruals, prepayments, other debtors and income accruals (as above)
• remove monies from deposit.

Deficits may then be off-set against surpluses on non-restricted and trading sources of funds by journaling expenditure using the transfer transaction code EZXX.

Care should be taken with this process and the transaction code EZXX must be used on both sides of the journal. Further information and guidance on their use is available from: Your Finance Business Partner or institution head of finance Best Practice Guide - Transfer Codes Online course - Transfer Codes

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VAT Transactions

The central Tax Team posts journals to correct Services Tax (reverse charge), Acquisition or Import Tax and sales correction transactions on a monthly basis.

Services Tax	The amount of VAT you would have paid on that service if you had bought it in Great Britain (GB)
Import Tax	The amount of VAT you would have paid on goods if you had purchased them in the UK
Sales Tax Adjustments	Occurs when a sale has been entered with the wrong tax code

 

In a normal month, any tax adjustments for these items would take place in the month following the original AP or AR entry. However, for the year end, all the July AP services/import tax adjustments are posted in the same month. As the Tax Team are not able to work on the July tax adjustments until AP and AR have closed (15 August), postings to institution accounts in respect of these adjustments will be posted by no later than the end of 28 August. The GL closes to institutions on 30 August.

 

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Roll forward

In accordance with University policy, year-end income and expenditure totals, by SoF and cost centre, will be rolled forward to create the standard brought-forward balances for 2024/25 by the close of business on 5 September. Any institution with specific roll forward requests should submit these to their Finance Business Partner for input into UFS by no later than midday on 9 September. As part of the preparation of the final accounts, adjustments may be necessary. This means that the balances rolled forward may change. Any such adjustments will be communicated to institutions.

Two adjustment periods have been set up on GL for this purpose ADJ1-24 and ADJ2-24. Under certain circumstances, postings into ADJ1-24 are allowed provided prior approval from the Financial Reporting section has been obtained. All year-end postings should be entered into Jul-24, and Jul-24 should be used for all year-end reporting.

 

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Trust funds

Individual statements for all Trust Funds will be sent to institutions as follows:

Date	Statement
Wed 10 Jul	30 June statement
Thu 8 Aug	1st interim statement as at 31 July (will exclude Jul-24 distribution)
Thu 22 Aug	2nd interim statement as at 31 July (will include Jul-24 distribution)
Thu 5 Sep	Final statement as at 31 July

Journals are to be processed centrally to transfer expenditure to Trust Funds relating to appropriations in aid and overhead charges. It is planned that all such journals will be included on the 1st interim statement. All Trust Funds deficits based on a review of 2nd interim statements must be cleared by 27 August.