The General Ledger (GL) collates information from the rest of the system about all the transactions that have been processed. This information is then summarised into various departmental accounts. The information can then be utilised for both management and reporting purposes.

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In case of queries please contact the General Ledger Helpdesk
Tel. 39660 or email UFS_GL@admin.cam.ac.uk

Cambridge University Endowment Fund (CUEF) unit dealing for 2017/18 

There are no purchases / sales of CUEF units at 31 July. The last day for dealing for 2018/19 is 17 June. Contact Treasury if there are any queries.

Process and reconcile petty cash

• The department’s petty cash needs to be closed as at 31 July 2019. The GL journal (and Grants journal if necessary) must have a July 2019 date.
• Petty cash expenditure for August 2019 must be journaled into August 2019.
• The department’s petty cash control account balance should reflect the amount of cash held.

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. 

Credit card expenditure

Monthly Barclaycard statements will be available to departments from 1 August.

See Barclaycard instructions in the Accounts Payable section and ensure any remaining transactions are cleared via GL journals before the module close on 29 August. Ensure expenditure date is 31 July 2019.

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

Monies on deposit

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

• Departments are reminded that monies should be taken off deposit to reduce account deficits.
• Deposit account and CUEF interest will be posted on 20 August.
• Details on eligible SoF, how to place money on or take money off deposit are available in Investments (Chapter 12, Financial Procedures Manual).

Accruals

These are amounts owed by the department for goods and services that they have received prior to 31 July. Therefore, their costs need to be included in the 2018/19 financial year. This is done by the process of accruals.

Expenditure accruals occur where:

• Goods/services have been received on or before 31 July but no invoice has been received and therefore not processed on UFS; or

• Goods/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 2019/20 financial year.

In case of queries please contact the General Ledger Helpdesk, details above.

Instructions
Departments have two ways to raise accruals:

• Identify departmental accruals and allow Central and Research Accounting to process them.
  Once the Central and Research Accounting team receive the details, they will process a GL journal. These journals will be automatically reversed in the August period of the financial year, OR
   
• Departments can create their own accruals by GL journal
  Further 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-19 period. Ensure that you post/release the July journal.
• If the journal category Accrual is used then you must remember to manually reverse it in the AUG-19 period using the More Actions button and to post/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-19 journal should be Accrual type and should be manually reversed in September.

Unearned revenue

Income should be deferred where it has been received by the department 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.

Like expenditure accruals above, departments can choose to defer income themselves (see Appendix B) or identify the deferral and ask Central and Research Accounting to process the journal.

Other debtors

These are amounts owing to the department 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.

As described previously, departments can choose to accrue income themselves (see Appendix C) or identify the accrual and ask Central and Research Accounting to process the journal.

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 2019 and beyond) has to be calculated. The expenditure for 2018/19 is then reduced by this prepaid amount.

Departments can choose to set up prepayments themselves (see Appendix D) or identify the prepayment and ask Central and Research Accounting to process the journal.

Accruals/deferrals and internal partners

If the expenditure or income that is being accrued or deferred relates to a transaction with another department (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 department is making the equal and opposite accrual/deferral. This is important to ensure that the elimination of internal transactions is correct.

Matching the source of funds for related expenditure and income

Recording expenditure against the same source of funds as the related income is an important process for departments.

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

Example:

• Initially all your photocopying paper expenditure (transaction coe ESFZ) was coded against source of funds AAAA
• However, the department used £100 worth of paper when it was running off posters for an exhibition.
• The exhibition is a trading activity with income on source of funds GAAA
• Therefore, a journal should be raised to match the paper costs with the ehibition 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.

Clearing deficits

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

• correct miscoding
• match the source of funds 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 Adviser
• Best Practice Guide –Transfer Codes
• Online course - Transfer Codes

VAT Transactions

The central VAT team posts Services Tax (reverse charge), Acquisition Tax and sales correction transactions on a monthly basis.

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/acquisition tax adjustments are posted in the same month.

As the VAT team are not able to work on the July tax adjustments until AP and AR have closed (14 August), all postings to department accounts in respect of these adjustments will be posted by no later than the end of 27 August. The GL closes to departments on 29 August.

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 2019/20 by the close of business on 4 September. Any department with specific roll forward requests should submit these to their Finance Manager for input in UFS by no later than midday on 6 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 departments.

Trust funds

Individual statements for all trust funds will be sent to departments as follows.

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 1^st interim statement.

Clear any trust funds deficits based on a review of 2^nd interim statements by 23 August.