If expenses need to be transferred, and kept in the 2011 fiscal year, now is a good time to take action.  After Deans’ Day, no transactions will post to the 2011 fiscal year.

Key Cutoff Dates:

July 16th: (recommendation) Submit expense transfers that require Central Office review. This allows time for rejected transfers to be corrected so they can still be submitted to FAS on time.
July 20th: absolute LAST DAY to submit expense transfers that require Central Office review
July 23th: absolute LAST DAY for campus and central office users to submit expense transfers
July 24th:  Deans' Day – users who have the Astra action of “Biennium Close Transfer (Deans/VPs)” may submit expense transfers through MyFinancial.desktop (MyFD).  This should be used as a last resort.  Every effort should be made to process expense transfers before July 23th for proper posting.

Central Offices, including MyFD, send out several notifications relating to deadlines for fiscal and biennial close processes.  You can view the deadlines for MyFD on our Fiscal Year Crossover Calendar. 

What is a Fiscal Year and Biennium?
A biennium is made up of two fiscal years:

• Months 1 through 12 encompass the first fiscal year.
• Months 13-25 (25 represents the additional accrual period) encompass the second fiscal year.

Washington State Legislature defines a biennia as the two year period (made up of two fiscal years) running from July of an odd year through June of the next odd year (e.g. July 2011 - June 2013). University State Funds are budgeted, accounted for and reported to the State for the fiscal biennium. The process of closing a biennium is referred to as “Biennium Close.”  The University of Washington generally plans and budgets funds for State Budgets on a fiscal year basis. They also generate an Annual Report on a fiscal year basis that presents an annual statement of the University of Washington’s Finances.

How will my budget be impacted by Fiscal Year and Biennium?:
All budgets are affected by biennium and fiscal year close processes. However, the biggest impact is to state budgets.  It is important to understand the unique nature of each system and the processing times of each.  The following information is supplied to help highlight recommendations and unique charateristics of MyFD.

Budgeted and Transaction Amount Availability

• During Biennium Crossover periods, MyFD may not display budgeted or transaction amounts.  Budgeted amounts are not available in the University’s financial systems, including FIN/FAS and the Budget System (BGT) for any budget type until late August, after all final calculations for the closing biennium are complete. 
• When budgeted amounts become available, they are uploaded to the Budget System and Financial Systems; this generally occurs in late August.  There is a one day delay between the upload to FAS and then to MyFD.

Expense Transfers (Learn more)

• MyFD is the only system for which you can process salary expense
• Campus individuals may only submit expense transfers for processing when processed by an individual with the access role and action of ‘User/Expense Transfer’ in ASTRA.

Reconciliation (Learn more)

• We highly recommend that transactions be reconciled frequently during the biennium crossover period. This will provide the opportunity to correct any errors you might find in order to meet processing deadlines.

Final Close Communications (Biennium)

Final reconciliation notices are displayed on the MyFD (application) homepage and sent in email notifications to our listserv. These messages usually appear, or are sent, sometime in late August and indicate that all transactions have been processed and posted and that reconciliation activities may be completed (no further transactions will post).

More information and schedules:
Procurement Services hosts a website which is robust with Biennium Close information: http://f2.washington.edu/fm/ps/bienniumclose