The Reconciliation report leverages the Transaction Summary report, enabling users to monitor and perform real time reconciliation of transactions as they post to a budget (for which they have access).

What is reconciliation?

According to the University of Washington’s Internal Controls website, “reconciliation is the process by which departments verify that their source documentation matches a fiscal report from the central accounting system.  Further, reconciliation involves resolving any discrepancies that may have been discovered.”

The purpose of regular reconciliation of budget activity is to ensure:

• All charges are for the correct purpose and amount, and allowable
• Errors are detected, investigated and resolved
• All required documentation is maintained

For more information about reconciliation and reconciliation guidelines, refer to the Budget Activity Reconciliation Process Guidelines.

Why use the Reconciliation Report to reconcile online?

Create notes, flag items for follow-up or check items as they post to a budget in ‘real time’ to reduce the UW’s reliance on paper based reports and increase department or school/college visibility to reconciliation information. See where in the process the budget/month is at with the Status Bar. Easily share this report with others* so they may review/perform reconciliation duties. Additionally, this report provides a convenient means to electronically record fiscal oversight by using the Reconciliation Status. (Often referred to as budget ‘sign off’.)

*NOTE:  Access to Reconciliation Reports is governed by ASTRA authorization for a budget, or organization code. If you have ASTRA authorization you can perform reconciliation duties. All information entered on the reconciliation report is kept according to the UW’s Record’s Retention policy with a full audit trail.

Working with the Reconciliation report:

1. Select Reconciliation from the Reports drop down menu.
2. Input a budget number in the View Budget # field, select a time period, and click Go.

Three Views:

There are three views of the Reconciliation report for managing reconciliation activity.

1. Read-Only View:  Primarily used for monitoring transaction reconciliation activitiy.  No actions may be taken while in read-only view.
2. Update View: Allows the report to be edited / updated with comments, flags check marks, and more notes.  Users can only update items if they:

a)  have been granted access to the budget.
b)  switch from Read Only view to Update view.

3. Expense Transfer View: Provides a convenient way to initiate an expense transfer directly from the Reconciliation Report.  While in Expense Transfer View, notes, comments and flags may be applied.

Reconciliation Status:

The Reconciliation Status Bar provides an implied process flow for a budget/month’s status.  While each must be set in a sequential order, there are no requirements that each status must be used.  The status in bold indicates the current status of the budget/month being viewed. The status may not be changed until after a month has closed. MyFD does NOT send notifications when a status changes. To see a full table of status definitions see the Reconciliation Status Report page.

The ‘Change Status/View Audit Trail’ button is where a status is set / undone.  This is also where to  find status change notes  / identify who made a status change.  Each time a status is changed, the Reconciliation Status Report will be updated to reflect the current state and next step.

Share a Link:

Provides a direct link to that specific budget and month that can be emailed or copy and pasted into another document. The person receiving the link must also have ASTRA authorization for that budget information sent.  If they do not they will not be able to view the information.

Filtering:

The ‘Enable Filter and Sort’ checkbox allows the transactions visible on the Reconciliation Report to be narrowed down/sorted. This is useful for large budgets or when you only want to reconcile a specific set of items. Filtering is also helpful when searching for specific transactions.  Eg. Travel, Salary, etc.

Filtering allows large budgets (over 5000 transactions in a given month) to more easily manage reconciliation activities.

Budget Revision Reference Codes:

The Budget Revision code located to the right of the Transaction Date reflects the amount allotment type for State budgets.

Links to Online Source Documents (Available February 8, 2012) 

Source Documents are documents that initiate activity in FAS and can be either electronic or paper. MyFD facilitates the linking to online source documents for various billing systems.  MyFD does not store the source document but rather provides a way for report users to access the information needed to perform budget reconciliation.

The systems MyFD links to have various record retention periods.  We highly recommend you acquaint yourself with the table below.  Departments should continue to store original source documents within the department (whre required to do so) and according to record retention guidelines.

Locating Source Documents

1. Login to MyFinancial.desktop
2. Select the Reconciliation Report option from the "Reports" drop down menu
3. Enter a budget number, select a time period and click the "go" button
4. Look in the "Amount" column for blue text.  The blue text will hyperlink to the system containing the source document
   • Exception: Expense transfer documents can be viewed by looking at the blue date linked in Reference Field 3.

See a PDF walk through for retrieving source documents.
 

Additional MyFD Learning Opportunities:

• Take a look at our eLearning opportunities including an overview of reconciliation
• Quick Guide Reference for the Reconciliation Report
• How to "Sign Off" on Budget Activity with the Reconciliation Report

Other Resources:

• Review the University’s General Records Retention Schedule (UW-GS6 for Financial Records)
• Consider opting out of receiving your paper Budget Activity and Budget Status reports (BAR/BSR)
• Review Financial Management's Internal Controls website
• Review your departmental reconciliation process and procedures, and update as necessary
• Register for one of our classroom and/or e-learning training options