Month End Process

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Carry out month-end activity

It is important that all transactions are processed appropriately prior to the month-end. Refer to the Departmental Checklist and Timetable for Key Tasks for guidance. This includes:

  • Receipting
  • Raising purchase orders
  • Review of donations deferral
  • Review of posting of ‘goods received not invoiced accruals’ etc

The Finance Bulletin email issued monthly by the Finance Division includes a reminder of the activities required and the associated deadlines. Please contact the Finance Administration Team if you wish to be added to the distribution list for this communication.

Run pre-month-end reports

As per the Reports Library: Monthly Reporting it is important to run a number of key reports including:

Adjust transactions

Where the reports identify incomplete transactions it is important to manage these transactions appropriately and where necessary generate correcting journals. You should maintain a full audit trail and supporting documentation for such journals. This can be done by running and filing a Print an Audit Report in the General Ledger, or by completing a Journal Log.

If you are unclear about how to handle any of the incomplete transactions please contact the Financials Helpdesk (financials@admin.ox.ac.uk).

Identify accruals

Accruals are required, as a minimum, for committed values over £5k at year end. Monthly Accruals accounting has been introduced in 2018/19. Refer to the Accruals process documents for further detail on the accrual requirements and how to manage these. Your Divisional Financial Controller can also provide advice.

Month-end close

The closure dates for each module are provided in the Finance Month-End Timetable . Month-end deadlines are also included in the monthly Finance Bulletin email. Departments should ensure that all necessary transactions are processed in that period ahead of the scheduled closure time. A new period will be opened at the beginning of the month and the Oracle Financials home page will be updated to reflect this.

Income and Expenditure (I&E) reports

Mid-level Income and Expenditure reports (providing analysis of the main income and cost categories) are generated by the Financial Reporting Team and issued via email to Departmental Administrators on working day 8 of each month.

More detailed Income and Expenditure reports (see General Ledger: FSG reports) should be run within departments. It is important that these and any other reports generated for month end should be reviewed by the Head of Department. Major mis-postings and other such errors should be flagged to your Divisional Financial Controller.

Month-end reconciliation

Following the implementation of monthly accruals accounting the departments should review balance sheet codes 19151 Income accrual, 22100 Expenditure accrual, 14000 Prepayment and 26900 Income received in advance. Quarterly reconciliation and supporting documents should be maintained by departments or divisional offices. Reconciliation of the remaining balance sheet codes will continue to be done centrally on a monthly basis. The auditors will request to see reconciliations and backing documents at year end.

Documents


Contact Us


 : Financial Reporting Team
       Finance Division
       University of Oxford
       23-38 Hythe Bridge Street
       OX1 2ET

 financial.reporting@admin.ox.ac.uk