1. Review of pre-award and project suspense
The pre-award and project suspense accounts should be reviewed monthly and cleared to zero where possible.
These can be accessed via project reports, reports issued by Research Accounts, or the Month-End Dashboard.
2. Internal trade, commonly Small Research Facilities
Regular recharges for goods/services can be dealt with via journals.
Where the quantity and price is the same or non-negotiable each month for at least three months (i.e. due to external recharging for e.g. telecoms, utilities), internal trade should be managed via journals.
These journals can be initiated by either the selling or buying department depending on the nature of the transaction.
Research facilities (directly incurred costs) will always require journals for the recording of costs. Buying departments need to ensure that the correct rates have been applied and that the selling department maintains audit records.
Journals should not be used for the positing of general laboratory (or other) consumables that have not been directly incurred by the project.
3. Accruals and prepayments
Further details of the process can be found in the guidance notes on the year-end website.
Note: Accruals and prepayments are posted to projects at year end only
4. Correcting journals
Keep correcting journals to a minimum by posting to the right place first time wherever possible. Corrections should always be identified promptly as part of the month-end process and correcting journals posted promptly.
- Payroll – review costing reports to identify any payroll costs that need adjustment
- Project status and activity report – enables review by project to check that all transactions are relevant to, and legitimate for, that project. Recommended for use by Principal Investigator (PI)
- Project actual expenditure report – enables detailed transaction review
Note: If you did not achieve the deadline for submitting credit card reconciliations, these transactions will need shifting off the default account
