The University of Toledo

SECTION II: MONTHLY BUDGET RECONCILIATIONS 

PURPOSE

The purpose of this section is to provide the policy background, an understanding on the monthly budget reconciliation process and information as well as tools to Unit Administrators and others responsible for managing their unit’s financial resources (financial stewards). In order for the University to be fiscally responsible, it is imperative that departmental employees prepare monthly reconciliations. The review of a unit’s budget is important to ensure transactions are tracked as well as accurate. Budget reconciling is to occur at the beginning of each month and is expected to be completed by the 10th of that month for reconciling the prior month. The responsibility rests in the person(s) in charge of reviewing, verifying and reconciling the budget for their respective unit. This process includes reviewing and verifying actual expenses, reconciliation of Human Resources, Payroll, General Ledger and Internal Controls. The monthly reconciliation is to provide a procedure for instructing the University how to adopt and manage their respective budgets and the proper handling of all expenditures or funds received by and deposited with the University. If you have questions or need assistance as you prepare monthly reconciliations, a list of web sites and links to help you locate information is attached under the “Links to Sites for Forms” section XI or under “Account Reconciliation Assistance” section II.

TOOLS FOR MONTHLY RECONCILIATION

EXPLANATION OF BANNER

SunGard Higher Education's entire Banner administrative suite of student, financial aid, finance, HR, and advancement systems supports institutions of all sizes and types. Banner is a tightly integrated suite of proven, capable applications on a single database. The Unified Digital Campus combines a premier administrative solution with portal, integration, information access, content management, and academic solutions. Internet technologies allow for a personalized user experience and the architecture supports interoperability across disparate systems within the institution and beyond.

The University uses Banner Finance as a repository to store financial records. The University also uses two other Banner modules, HR and Student. As a reconciler, you will be primarily concerned with the records housed in Banner Finance. Using Banner terminology, individual accounting units (for example, Controller, Psychology, Math, Engineering Technology and UTLC) are assigned index numbers (see section IV for more information). Within a given index, there are account codes for different types of revenues (for example, sales and services) and expenses (for example, various salary and benefit lines and operating expenses such as supplies, subscriptions, travel, etc.). Accounts Payable, Purchasing, inventory control and fixed assets transactions are processed in Lawson. Charges departmental employees put on their Purchasing Cards are processed in PaymentNet. Lawson and PaymentNet are then interfaced into Banner, with the end result being that all financial records are stored in Banner.

Available through the MyUT Portal, ODS Self Service is an easy-to-use query tool that will allow for quick querying of important Banner information. The ODS Self Service stores information from all of the Banner modules (Finance, Human Resources, Student, and Financial Aid). Self Service has pull-down menu’s that allow for users to select and filter pre-defined data in a fast and efficient environment. Queries developed may then be saved and/or exported to Microsoft Excel.

ACCOUNT RECONCILIATION ASSISTANCE

Unit administrators may encounter questions on expense(s) during your monthly account reconciliation. The person responsible for reconciling a department’s budget may begin by contacting the “Budget Resource Analyst” or any one of the below listed individuals to obtain further information depending on the type of assistance needed.

• General expense questions: Sami A. Boraby (Budget Resource Analyst)
• Specific expense questions: Alison R. Carpenter (Accounting & Reporting)
• Accounts Payable: Email address: # Accounts Payable@utoledo.edu
• Payroll questions: Payroll Department
• Telephone questions: Mary Kurtz (Telecommunication Analyst 2)
• Photocopy charges: Julie A. Graham (Senior Financial Analyst)
• Print Shop charges: Fred M. Reese (Manager of Print Services) x7351 or Carol Davis (Account Clerk 1) x3875.
  
  

REPORTS TO REVIEW

 

SYSTEM	REPORT NAME	PURPOSE
Web Report Library	Transaction Detail for Income Statement Accounts (SL) With Drill Down	Report displays details of each transaction as of the entered date range, index, fund, organization, expense account and/or rule class. This report mimics FGITRND (Detail Transaction Activity) in the Banner Finance System with Subreport. The subreport provides additional information for transactions interfaced from Lawson.
Web Report Library	Budget Statement Summary with Obligation Drill Down	Report displays current available budget by index. Data displays: Adjusted Budget, Actual Expenses, Encumbrances, Available Balance, and Balance % remaining for the selected input parameters. Percent Remaining is highlighted when it is less than 10% or if the budget is zero and expenses exist. Input parameters include Fiscal Year, Index, or Organization Code.
Reports to Review Quarterly
Web Report Library	Index by Organization	Report displays: Code and description for your organization, index, fund, and program. Report is grouped by organization. User inputs include: AVP/Division level and Organization.
Web Report Library	Income Statement Summary by Index	Use for a high level review of activity and balances in all accounts. Review activity and balances at highest level (#1) to verify the revenue and expense accounts to ensure proper use. Identify expense accounts with large balances or deficits that require clean‐up.
Web Report Library	HR Labor Expenditure Detail	Review HR Labor report to ensure that the correct people are identified as those being expensed out of your index and are accurate for each expense account.
Reports to Review Annually
Web Report Library	Budget Statement Summary with Obligation Drill Down	Use for an annual review of your indices and related activity as it relates to your area for each fiscal year.
Web Report Library	Auxiliary Income Statement Summary by Organization	This report displays adjusted budget, current month, year-to-date, available balance, prior year month, prior year year-to-date, actual-to-actual variance, actual-to-actual percentage, percent-of-budget current year, and percent-of-budget prior year. User input includes fiscal year, month, fund, organization code at any hierarchy level, index, revenue summary level, expense summary level, transfer summary level, and report summary level.