Finance, Operations, and IT

Fiscal Year Closing

I. Review your departmental accounts as a whole

• Project How the Year Will End. Project what revenues and expenditures you expect through the end of the fiscal year. 
• Examples of things to look for:
• Revenues
• Gift deposits you are expecting; be aware of the Important Closing Dates as distributed by this office.
• Endowment income for the 4th quarter (June 30).
• Faculty bill-backs yet to be made; e.g., copying, postage.
• Arts and Sciences reimbursements yet to be submitted and/or processed.
• Other Transfers In to be received; e.g., from the Provost.
• Expenditures
• Accounts payable invoices yet to post.
• Open commitments, for purchase orders, salaries, etc.:  Clear any closed or outdated commitments.
• Interdepartmental invoices (IDIs): Facilities, Faculty House, Printing Services, etc. Check that all IDIs charged are correct, and scan for any incorrect IDIs.
• Other Transfers Out to be made; e.g., facilities project bill-backs.
• Calculate the ending General Ledger (GL) or Subsidiary Ledger (SL) balance in each account based upon these projections. 
• If possible, create a spreadsheet on which you can track your balances. 
• Reconcile all your Financial Accounting System (FAS) statements to your projections. Monthly reconciliations should be done throughout the year, but it is recommended that, for year end projections, you use April’s or May’s statements. Although there is a year-end adjustment period, please make every effort to post all expenses by May 31 or June 30.
• Re-budget your accounts in FAS to match your projections. It is extremely important to consider the GL fund balance when re-budgeting. Your budgets should not exceed the following:
• The account’s beginning fund balance (remember: surpluses are negative amounts in FAS; deficits are positive),
• Plus anticipated receipts,
• Less anticipated expenditures,
• Plus/less anticipated adjustments.
• Budget the accounts with subcodes and amounts that are appropriate for your planned spending. 
• For government and non-government grants, budgeting is done by Research Administration (RA). If RA has not properly budgeted your accounts, contact them as early as possible.
• All ledger 2 (general income) accounts are budgeted by the Arts and Sciences. Please contact Ellen Binder, Assistant Vice President for Budget and Finance, at [email protected] or at (212) 854-6107 if you believe your budget is incorrect.

II.  Guidelines for specific account types

• General Ledger accounts (GLs) (0-Ledger). Fund balance overdrafts must be cleared by fiscal year-end. 
• If you have any overdrafts, how do you plan to cover them? Are there expenses that you can move to another account that has sufficient resources? Are you expecting any transfers in or any further transfers out? 
• If there is an overdraft in an endowment income account, remember to add to your calculations the final quarter’s income, which appears on the June 30 statement. The final quarter’s income usually posts mid-June, so check the fund balance activity on DARTS first so as not to double-count the income. For comparison purposes, you can also find the full-year’s budgeted endowment income in the Budget Tool.
• If additional funds that might clear an overdraft will not be received or cannot be posted until after FAS closes, but knowledge of its receipt is known before closing, then a copy of an award letter, the cashier’s validated voucher, or other approved document should be forwarded to the Controller's Office so they can create a receivable.
• Overdrafts on endowment and grant accounts must always be cleared by doing an Expenditure Correction to another account with a sufficient fund surplus. 
• For gift accounts, Expenditure Corrections are also preferred, but not mandatory, unless the terms of the gift restrict the use of funds.

• General Income accounts (2-Ledger). 
• Surpluses in your 2-ledger accounts must be spent or you will lose the balance, except for surpluses in your Support Service (SS) account.  Before transferring any balance in your SS account the following will be deducted: 
• One-Time Only (OTO) funding,
• Unspent salary and fringe,
• Substitutional funding.
• If you need to move Other Than Personal Services (OTPS) expenses, you have to do an Expenditure Correction on Financial Front End (FFE).   
• No OTPS expenses are permitted on 2-ledger instructional accounts (Full-time Instruction, Part-time Instruction, and Director of Instruction accounts). The department is responsible for clearing off these expenses.
• Salary overdrafts should be cleared immediately, except for the following two accounts, which are cleared by Arts and Sciences:
• Full-time Instructional Faculty accounts, and
• Director of Instruction accounts.
• Double-check that everyone appearing on your Payroll Account Distributions (PAD) should be on there and, if so, is paid correctly. If there is a discrepancy, compare the Salary Action Form (SAF) to the PAD detail and submit the correction to Joseph Werst, Manger, Academic Appointments, at [email protected] or at (212) 854-6110.
• If you are moving salary expenses, you must use an SAFor Payroll Account Transfer (PAT)form. The SAF form is for current year salaries, and the PAT is for prior year and OTO payments, such as ZT’s and belated additional compensation. Please contact Joseph Werst at [email protected] or at (212) 854-6110 with any questions.
• Government and Non-Government Grant Accounts (5-, 6A-, and 7A- Ledger). Are the budgets for these accounts correct? If not, you should contact Research Administration (RA) to update them. If you project that these accounts will be in overdraft, you must transfer expenses onto an account that has a sufficient fund surplus. 
• General rules for government grants (5A): 
• Any overdraft on a federal grant that expired prior to September 30 of the current fiscal year must be cleared for the fiscal year-end close. Overdrafts on federal grants that expired after September 30 of the current fiscal year do not have to be cleared for closing. The Controller's office (PDF) dictates and manages this policy.
• When moving expenses off a grant to clear an overdraft, the expense can only be moved to another grant if it is less than 90 days old. If the expense exceeds 90 days, the department must fund this overdraft from a non-grant account. Note: The 90-day rule for moving expenses onto grants applies regardless of whether the account is in overdraft.
• The continuation of a grant is an important factor in determining how to cover an overdraft. As mentioned earlier, only expenses that are aged 90 days and earlier may be moved to a continuing grant. Please contact Restricted Funds (Nancy Alvarez at [email protected] or at (212) 854-1072) to confirm the situation with your grant, as there may be special conditions for compliance. 
• Note that the SL budget is the measure of overdraft, not the GL fund balance.
• General rules for non-government grants (6A and 7A):
• The GL fund balance is the measure of overdraft, not the SL budget.
• If additional funds will be received, a receivable should be set up by the Controller's office by giving them a copy of the award letter or cashier’s validated voucher.
• If no additional funds will be received, your department must fund the overdraft in its entirety.
• Gift Accounts (6B). The preferred means for covering overdrafts on gift accounts is to move expenses via an Expenditure Correction on FFE rather than moving funds via a GL fund transfer.  If a gift is completely unrestricted, a GL transfer may be done. 
• Endowment Income Accounts (6C). No money should be moved via a GL fund transfer. Instead, move expenses via an Expenditure Correction. Remember to account for fourth quarter endowment income when determining if an endowment account is in overdraft. The final quarter’s income usually posts mid-June, so check the fund balance activity on DARTS first so as not to double-count the income.

III.  Guidelines for specific transactions

• Open commitments. Review any open commitments to see if they should be rolled into the new fiscal year or cleared in this year. All outstanding purchase orders that are not cleared or cancelled will be expensed in the current fiscal year and credited in the new fiscal year.
• If an invoice has been processed that should have cleared the commitment, you should send a copy of the FAS statement on which the invoice was charged to Accounts Payable.
• If you need to cancel a purchase order or any balance remaining on it (e.g., contract purchase orders that will not be completely spent by the end of the year), you must send a Change Order to Purchasing in order to make the necessary reduction. For EZ-PO’s, first try the “EZ-PO Encumbrance Liquidation” function in FFE. If you are unable to clear the EZ-PO commitment this way, please contact Audrey Rosenblatt, Associate Director for Budget Operations, at [email protected] or at (212) 854-6108 for assistance.
• There is a special due date for the cancellation of purchase orders. Please check the Controller’s Web site (PDF), or contact Audrey Rosenblatt at [email protected] or at (212) 854-6108.
• If you need to cancel a purchase order or any balance remaining on it (e.g., contract purchase orders that will not be completely spent by the end of the year), you must send a Change Order to Purchasing in order to make the necessary reduction. For EZ-PO’s, first try the “EZ-PO Encumbrance Liquidation” function in FFE. If you are unable to clear the EZ-PO commitment this way, please contact Audrey Rosenblatt at [email protected] or at (212) 854-6108 for assistance.
• Suspense charges and salary transfers. You should start clearing charges on your suspense account as soon as they appear and process any salary transfers as soon as possible. Be aware of payroll entries moving off one account and onto another, such as those that have cleared suspense or are being credited by another department. These may cause unanticipated overdrafts if they are not accounted for. If you have questions, please contact Joseph Werst at [email protected] or at (212) 854-6110.
• 387 reimbursements. These include searches, moving, memberships, honoraria, etc. Please also make sure that your reimbursements are all in by the due date, which is always the first Friday in June. If you have any questions about 387 reimbursements, please contact Audrey Rosenblatt at [email protected] or at (212) 854-6108 or Marisa Nunez, Financial Assistant, at [email protected] or at (212) 854-6080.
• Pending charges. Follow-up on any charges you are expecting but have not yet received; e.g., from Printing Services, Faculty House, and Facilities. Again, adjust for payroll entries coming off suspense and onto an account. This should be done as soon as possible, so there will be time to reverse any charges made in error.
• Erroneous charges. It sometimes takes a while to correct erroneous charges on your accounts.  If you do find an error, you should contact the relevant department as soon as possible about making corrections.