On this page:
- Payment Procedures
- Trust Fund Overheads
- Payments for occasional academic services
- Prize Funds
- Appropriations in Aid
- Activities supported by more than one funding stream
Payment Procedures
In general, payments from trust funds will be made by the departmental accounts team unless the trust fund is held centrally, in which case the payment requests should be sent to the Trust Funds Assistant in the Finance Division for processing.
In either case, requests for payment should be authorised by a manager of the trust fund, or if authority has been delegated, by the delegated person.
Fund Managers should ensure that there is adequate segregation of duties to ensure that the same person is not performing primary and secondary approval of expenditure. Where Fund Managers have delegated the responsibility for the approval of payments, this should be formally recorded, showing who may approve payments and to what level of expenditure.
To ensure the security of payments by cheque, the full name and address of the payee should be quoted, not just initials.
Trust Fund Overheads
Overheads are charged on trust funds that have been set up since 1995 where the fund is paying for a specific post or posts if the regulations of the fund permit.
Trust funds set up from May 2007 onwards, are charged 30% overheads on staff costs. For these funds, there is no cap on the overheads charged for Professors.
The Trust Funds Assistant, using the transaction code "EZYA" charges the overheads to the funds on a monthly basis.
Payments for occasional academic services
University Payment System (UPS) Payments
These are payments made to adjudicators, examiners, and lecturers etc who are not on the University Payroll. These payments are made online through UPS, and should be input by one person and authorised by an official approver.
The UPS home page can be found via the Finance Division website.
It has a section detailing how to use the system, accessed from the homepage.
BACS payments are made by Payroll fortnightly into the Payee's bank account therefore, full bank account details are required before a payment is input. The Payroll deadline and payment dates are shown on the homepage.
The date of birth, National Insurance number, and full address is also required.
The Payroll Department should be contacted for access to the UPS system if your department is not already set up. They can be contacted by telephone on 39779 or by email payroll.enquiries@admin.cam.ac.uk
CHRIS/82 Payments
These are used for payments made to adjudicators, examiners, and lecturers etc, who are on the University Payroll.
A CHRIS/82 form can be found on the Human Resources website.
It should be completed and sent to the Payroll Section in the Finance Division for processing. The details required for the form are the payroll number of the payee, the trust fund account code, and a description of what the payment is for.
Chris 82 forms are processed monthly by the Payroll Section. The payee's payment will be added to their monthly salary, and the details will appear on their payslip.
Prize Funds
A significant number of the University's Trust Funds are prize funds. The detail of each prize is listed annually in November each year, in a special edition of the Reporter. Many prize funds have the annual income as the value of the prize. The Trust Funds Assistant will advise on the prize value if the managers are uncertain.
A majority of prizes are awarded on the results of the class lists in June each year. It is therefore important for departments to make sure that cheques are raised before the year-end deadline in August, so that the payments are shown in the correct financial year.
Closing dates for each award are listed in the back of the special edition of the Reporter.
Appropriations in Aid
An appropriation in aid is a transfer of income from a trust fund to a departmental account, and is therefore a saving to the University Chest. These appropriations come under the following main categories.
Clearance of "C" sources of funds
Occasionally, separate salary accounts for trust funds are set up within departmental accounts under the "C" source of funds. The Finance Division clears these monthly, by transferring the salary costs to the relevant Trust Funds.
Appropriations in aid of stipends/wages
Some trust funds have part or all of their income appropriated in aid of chest stipends/wages within the relevant department. This is because either the income of the fund is not sufficient to fund a full post, or the income is used to offset general stipend costs within a department. The Finance Division performs these transfers monthly.
Appropriations in aid of other charges
Some trust funds have part or all of their income appropriated in aid of "chest other charges" within the relevant department. This is because the regulations of the fund are not specific in terms of the type of expenditure incurred, so the department can choose to support general expenditure. The Finance Division performs these transfers monthly.
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All appropriations in aid are transferred by day 4 of the month end schedule. |
Other Appropriations in Aid
Sometimes Trust Fund managers may wish to appropriate (transfer) funds from:
- Their department to another department; or
- Where the fund expenditure is large and needs to be broken down into separate budgets for easier reporting.
In either case a written request should be sent to the Central Accounting Section (email: UFS_GL@admin.cam.ac.uk) in the Finance Division, who will set up the new account.
How will this work?
If the transfer needs to be done to another department, the Trust Funds Assistant will transfer the amounts requested to a unique Source of Funds, beginning with "L" followed by three characters representing the fund itself. For example, an appropriation from trust fund KABC would be transferred to LABC.
If the "L" source of funds is set up within your own department, the departmental accounts person can journal the funds themselves.
You must ensure at year end that no "L" source of funds is overdrawn.
Activities supported by more than one funding stream
Often departmental activities will be funded from a variety of sources that may include income for a trust fund. In order to make the best use of the various funds available, a Department should in general seek to charge expenditure against funds in the following order of priority, subject of course to eligibility and the extent of available balances.
| First charge to | Restricted Funds
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| Then | General Donations |
| Finally charge to | Other balances available to the Department e.g.
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Responsibility for ensuring that Departmental procedures achieve this order of priority rests with the head of Department. We have a duty to spend any restricted money first and the key factors affecting the order of spend are likely to be a combination of:
- Order of receipt - we have a prior duty to spend earlier funds first (and this should affect our decision to accept subsequent restricted gifts);
- Relative restriction - if fund A's purpose are wider than fund B then it may make sense to spend fund B first in case its purposes "dry-up" in the future.
- We have a moral and charitable obligation not to avoidably accumulate balances in trust funds.