Fiscal Year Spending Guidelines and Information

What is the Fiscal Year (FY)?

A fiscal year is a set one year accounting period used for financial reporting and budgeting. The UA Little Rock fiscal year is from July 1 through June 30 each year.

What happens during the fiscal year end?

The fiscal year end processes and deadlines are in place to appropriately allocate funds to the appropriate financial period (e.g., current year spend should be reflected in the year it is completed). During the fiscal year end, Financial Services and Procurement Services will communicate deadlines, finalize spend, and work with the campus to smoothly transition to the next fiscal year.

What is a Roll Forward?

During the first few weeks of July, UA Little Rock processes concurrent fiscal years to allow final payments of invoices and accounting adjustments that may be needed. Once finances have been finalized procurement will complete a roll forward liquidating, or reduces, open spend from the previous fiscal year and recommitted using the new fiscal year’s budget. Spend Authorizations do not roll forward and will be closed before the roll forward is completed.

UA Little Rock uses three book codes, or ledgers, to recognize spend as it is created throughout the fiscal year: commitments, obligations, and actual expenditures. These tell us where in the general ledger the spend is currently “living”. However, each type of spend transaction impacts the ledger in different ways.

The following is a breakdown of each spend type and how it will affect the ledgers.

Purchasing:

• An approved requisition creates a commitment to the department’s budgeted funds.
• Once the requisition is sourced into a purchase order the requisition is liquidated and those funds are then turned into an obligation. Canceling or closing a requisition will also liquidate the commitment releasing the balance back the budget.
  • If a PO is canceled the obligation will reopen the requisition and revert back to a commitment.
  • A change order to a PO will either increase or decrease the obligated funds for the line item that is changed.
• A supplier invoice created from a PO will liquidate the obligated amount from the associated PO lines and those funds are then recognized as actual expenditures, or accounting activity. A canceled or closed PO will liquidate the obligation and release any remaining obligated funds back to the budget.
  • Supplier invoice adjustments will either increase or decrease the actual expenditure.
• Supplier Invoices that are not paid from a PO do not obligate or commit but once approved will be recognized as actual expenditures.

Credit Cards:

• Credit card verifications will create an actual expenditure once it has been fully approved. A verification in draft, in progress, or unverified transactions will not be reflected in the budget.

Travel:

• An approved spend authorization creates a commitment to department funds.
• When an expense report is created against the spend authorization the commitment liquidates and becomes an actual expenditure. Closing or canceling a spend authorization will liquidate the commitment back to the budget.
• An approved expense report submitted without a spend authorization will only be reflected as actual expenditures. The funds will not be reflected in the budget until it has been fully approved.
  • An accounting adjustment to an expense report will either increase or decrease actual expenditure.

Available Remaining Balance:

To find a department’s remaining funds balance follow this equation:

• Budget – Commitments – Obligations – Actuals = Remaining Available Fund

Who should be reviewing spend?

Departments, cardholders, and travelers should actively monitor spend throughout the fiscal year.

Why should spend be reviewed all year?

This will aid in early fraud detection, identify transactions or processes that have not been completed, and provide up-to-date information pertaining to spend. It will also lower the risk of having to allocate next year’s funds for this year’s spend.

How do you monitor spend?

Workday has dashboards, hubs, and reports that help keep you informed and up to date on spend.

• Check out our Workday Resources Page for helpful tips, including a list of spend reports that can help keep you informed.
• Set up and monitor the following dashboards and worklets in Workday:
  • Buyer Hub
  • Processes Awaiting Me
  • Authorized Travel
  • Expenses
• Schedule reports to run automatically in the future.

Departments can prepare for the fiscal year end and roll forward by completing the following steps:

• Plan ahead, Procurement Services and General Finance have heavier workloads at the end and beginning of each fiscal year. Monitor spend and needs throughout the year and not just in June.
• Run weekly reports to identify business processes that are in a status of “Draft” or “In Progress.”
• Communicate any issues, complications, or expected delays with Procurement Services or Finance Services in a timely manner.
• Resolve, close, or process all requisitions, purchase orders, receipts, credit card verification, expense reports, and submit invoices well in advance of communicated deadlines.
• Reserve the month of June for urgent or emergency spend so that central finance has plenty of time to process and review before June 30th.

Important Considerations: Please note that this does not guarantee spend will be processed using this year’s funds, as it is dependent on transactions being fully approved, received, invoiced, and paid by June 30th.  Travel and credit card verifications must be submitted and fully approved in Workday by June 30th.

Please use the following timeline for fiscal year-end spending deadlines:

Requisitions and Purchase Orders

P-Card

Travel & Reimbursements