IT Policy Library: Financial Policies

Account Reconciliation and Verification

Account managers, principal investigators or staff members with programmatic knowledge should verify all financial transactions each month for accuracy and allowability. Verification can occur when the transaction is processed, upon review of source documentation or when reviewing a month-end report of account detail. For most transactions, the verification will occur throughout the month leaving small number to be reconciled after soft close. Most often another unit in the University will have generated the outstanding transactions.

Please note: Proper reconciliation does not necessitate matching each financial transaction with a paper document at month end.

EXAMPLES:

Financial Forms Nirvana: Local data entry and approval is sufficient.

File transfer documents: These are documents posted to the financial system by electronic file transfer. They are most often charges from University-wide service units and are easily identified by the alpha characters in the first three spaces of the document number. Since the data source used to print or display the documentation is the same source used to post transactions to the financial system, review of the source documentation upon receipt is adequate.

Payroll transactions: All payroll and fringe charges generated by the unit are verified through the payroll process, effort certification, and monthly reporting. There is no need for accounting staff members to reconcile these transactions at month end.

Automated transactions: All automated transactions (e.g. IDC, Enterprise tax) based on source transactions (e.g. sponsored expenses, payroll charges) do not need local reconciliation.

For more information:

College contact
Madonna Monette, finance director
624-6854