BEST PRACTICES CHECKLIST
FOR GRANT MANAGEMENT

UCSF - Accounting Office

June 12, 1998

Best Practices Check List for Grant Management

Monthly Ledger Reconciliation of Funds

1. When Payroll ledgers are received, print your financial ledgers in WebLinks. Click GL Transaction Detail located under Detail Financial Reports. (Note you may also use the hard copy report GL Budget and Expenditure Detail to reconcile. If you want to export your financial ledgers to Excel, use WebLinks to create your financial ledgers.)
   • "Begin Date" and "End Date" should default to the closed period you are reconciling.
   • Change the "Sort/Total" to sequence by Fund/DPA/NCA Group. (Note the default is DPA/Fund/NCA Group. If you want to see subtotals by NCA, select Fund/DPA/NCA Group/NCA; however your report size will grow and you may find it more cumbersome to review because of the additional subtotals.)
   • Select the "Fund" and "DPA" you are reconciling. (Note: To print more than one ledger at a time, build a list of Fund/FundYear/DPA by Principal Investigator (PI). See the section called "List Maintenance" in this document to learn how to do this.) If you have built a list, click on the list you wish to select from the lists at the bottom of the selection page, and you will not need to select Fund and DPA.
   • Click the Start button. If the selection criteria output page displays, click Run Report.

2. Verify payroll information for accuracy. It is important to note that the payroll ledger information should be verified/reconciled by an independent person to employee time records, appointment information and other supporting payroll transaction documents.

3. Verify ledger non-payroll expenses against your record of expenditures for the Fund/DPA. Verify budget increases as well. (For example, some departments keep a PI expense log in Excel, Access or other types of databases where they record expenditures). It is important to note that the general ledger transactions should be verified/reconciled by an independent person to properly approved invoices matched with receiving information and other supporting documentation.

4. Enter ledger date on the PI expense log or other record of expenditures that you keep.

5. If you use an Excel spreadsheet to summarize expenditures for a PI, enter all (payroll & non-payroll) expense information from the ledger (GL Transaction Detail for your Fund/DPA) to your Excel report. You may export your ledger to Excel. See the section called "Downloading Excel" in this document to learn how to do this.
   • If you want to download payroll information, use LedgerLink. The LedgerLink DPE report contains the Rate Percents and Distribution of Effort Percents you will need.
   • Obtain HSC benefit information from your WebLinks report (NCAs 411390, 411400 and 411410) since they are not included in the LedgerLink report.

6. Enter all projected expenses to your Excel report.

7. Attach the Excel report to the expense ledger (WebLinks GL Transaction Detail report) and the Payroll ledger (hard copy or LedgerLink Distribution of Payroll Expense report) and give to the PI.

8. If errors are found in any category, take steps to correct them. (See "Solving Problems" section below).

9. Print a Fund Summary (by NCA Group) under Summary Financial Reports for the period, Fund, and DPA to obtain a year-to-date picture of the Fund. Note that this report will not show the Prior Year, Carry Forward, and Balance Forward information.

10. If a department or division manager wants to see a summary report for their department, print a DPA Summary (by NCA Group, or by NCA) under Summary Financial Reports and select the appropriate Department Code. This report will be sequenced by DPA first and then Fund, and subtotals will be by Fund within DPA.

List Maintenance

To print more than one ledger at a time, you can build a list of Fund/FY/DPA combinations.

1. To add a new list or to edit an existing one, select List Maintenance from the options listed below Maintenance. Click the Add New List button. Select a "List Type" of DPA/Fund/FY or Fund/Fund Year. Enter a "List Name" of up to 20 characters. Use a name that will help you identify it easily when you want to select it for a report. Click the Continue button, and create a list of all DPA/Funds which you want to print. Type in a DPA, Fund, FY combination and click the Add button. (You can also click the Search button to bring up a list of DPA/Fund/FY combinations. Then you can check the ones you want in the list.) This list can be used again and again. You may create more than one list. So, for example, you might want to create a list of DPA/Funds for each Principal Investigator.

2. To update WebLinks Lists for Fund/Fund Year or DPA/Fund/FY to include any new Funds or DPA/Fund combinations that were added during the month, select List Maintenance from the options listed below Maintenance. You will see all of the Lists for your WebLinks User ID. Click on the list you wish to maintain, and add or delete DPA/Fund/FY combinations as appropriate.

Solving Problems

Journals Do Not Contain Invoice ID or PO ID

On occasion, there are errors when posting AP entries (source code 426) to the General Ledger. When this happens, Accounting creates a manual financial journal (source code 530 or 535) to correct the posting entries to the ledger. When the manual "correcting" entries are created, Accounting personnel put the PeopleSoft "Voucher ID" in the "Reference" field on the journal line. You can then use the "Voucher ID" to look up the "Invoice ID" in WebLinks Accounts Payable Search.

1. Determine if a source "530" or "535" journal line on your ledger (GL Transaction Detail report) might have been an AP entry. For example, the description is a Vendor Name or "Supplies & Material" or other description that sounds appropriate for AP.

2. Write down the value in the "Reference" field. Go to the WebLinks Accounts Payable search under Inquiries. Enter the value you wrote down (from the "Reference" field) in the "Voucher ID" selection box, and click the Start button. You should receive a listing of the voucher, which shows you the Invoice ID.

3. If you receive a message "Zero Records Found," contact the person who created the manual financial journal. Go back to your GL Transaction Detail report and look at the "Journal ID." The three characters in positions 3-5 are the initials of the person who created the journal. For example, with Journal ID "10MMS0002," "MMS" are the initials of the person who created the journal. Look at the Accounting web site to obtain a list of initials of persons authorized to do Inter-department Transfers or contact Noli Cruz at 6-2636. After you find the name of the person whose initials are shown in your Journal ID, contact the person to discuss the source of the journal information.

Printing Weekly Detail

After you have reconciled your monthly ledgers (either from the hardcopy G/L Budget and Expenditure Detail or WebLinks GL Transaction Detail), you can print a report to see your current month General Ledger activity.

1. Select GL Transaction Detail from the WebLinks Main Menu under Detail Financial Reports.

2. Change Begin Date to the current month (for example, 06/1998). Change End Date to the current month (for example, 06/1998).

   Note: Since Begin Date and End Date default to the last closed month, you need to click on the arrow to select the current month.

3. Complete DPA field (for example, 444XXX).

4. Complete Fund/FY field (for example, 57XXX-0X)

5. Click Start at the top of the screen. (You may receive the selection criteria screen, which has a Run Report button at the top. If this happens, click Run Report. See "Define User Settings" in this document to learn how to stop receiving the selection criteria screen.)

6. You should see all entries since your last ledger run date.

Verifying Payment Status

1. Use the WebLinks Accounts Payable Search under Inquiries to determine the status of a payment (for an invoice, Form 5 check request, or reimbursement). If you are looking for a specific payment, enter:
   • Vendor ID (or search on Vendor Name to look up the ID)
   • PO ID or Invoice ID
   • Any of the chartfields or combination of chartfields (DPA, Fund, NCA)

2. Verify if the PeopleSoft voucher has been paid ("Payment Date" has a date and "Payment ID Reference" has a check number) or if it is scheduled for payment ("Schd Pay Date" has a date). If "Payment Clear Date" has a date, then the payment has already cleared the bank and been reconciled in A/P.

3. If you do not find the voucher you are seeking, change your selection criteria. For example, if you entered an "Invoice ID" as your search criteria and WebLinks does not find the invoice, enter vendor information and obtain a list of all vouchers for that vendor. Then, review the list to determine if the invoice is on the list.

4. Visit the Accounting web site http://acctg.ucsf.edu/ to obtain standards for processing invoices, check requests, travel advances, and meeting and entertainment reimbursements. Click OLFS Documents, and on the next page, click OLFS Processing Standards.

Looking up Purchase Order Information

After you receive a purchase order back from Materiel Management, use WebLinks Purchase Order to obtain or verify the NCA/Fund/DPA/FY charged on a purchase order line.

1. Select WebLinks Purchase Order List under Inquiries to obtain information about the order. Enter the Purchase Order Number in the box beside "PO Number," and click the Start button.

2. You will receive a listing of the PO. Click on the underlined number in the column labeled "PO ID." This will be your purchase order number.

3. WebLinks will display more detailed information about your Purchase Order. You may have to scroll down to see the purchase order lines, including the DPA/Fund/NCA that were charged.

4. Print a GL Transaction Detail report for the DPA/Fund/NCA that were charged (for the date of the purchase order). There will be a "PO" journal with a debit in the "Lien" column for this order.

5. To determine if the invoice has been paid for this order, follow the instructions above for "Verifying Payment Status."

6. If the incorrect NCA/Fund-FY/DPA were charged with a lien, you will need to create a manual journal to reverse the lien. If the invoice hasn't been paid, be sure that the correct NCA, Fund-FY, and DPA are noted on the invoice or check request.

Indirect Costs (NCAs charged/not charged overhead)

The new PeopleSoft system provides a more complete and accurate calculation of overhead costs. A table of information is used to keep track of NCAs that are charged overhead and NCAs that are excluded from overhead charges. For various reasons you may want to verify the calculations. The following are the steps to follow to verify the indirect cost (NCA 490XXX) for a fund:

1. Once reconciliation is done, note the difference between the GL Expense totals for Direct Costs (DC) and Indirect Costs (IDC) on your WebLinks GL Transaction Detail or hard copy central report, and your report total for Directs, and Indirects.
   • If the ledger total is less than the report total, one of your direct costs was not charged OH.
   • If the ledger total is more than the report total, one of your direct costs was charged OH that should not have been.

2. Take the difference between report and ledger. Divide by the overhead rate. This equals the Direct Cost.

   Example:	Report DC + IDC	=	$141,560.31
   	Ledger DC + IDC	=	$141,552.09
   	Difference	=	8.22
   	Overhead Rate	=	47%
   	8.22 / .47	=	17.49	(This is your Direct Cost.)

   
   

3. Look for this Direct Cost amount (17.49 in the example) in your GL Transaction Detail by NCA.

4. Note the NCA Group, and the NCA that you believe had OH incorrectly applied.

5. Go to the Overhead Base Code Table (http://www.acctg.ucsf.edu/emf/ohbase1.htm)
   • Find the Base Code that relates to the grant you are working on. The table has two areas: Inclusion (overhead is charged), and Exclusion (overhead is not charged).

   • Within that table, click on the hyperlink of the NCA Group for the NCA that you believe had OH incorrectly applied.

   • You now have a listing of the NCAs that are currently having overhead applied. See if your NCA is in the list. If not, you have just identified an NCA that has not been correctly coded.

6. Make a note on your report, for correction at closing, and notify your contact in Accounting of the NCA discrepancy, so that it will be corrected for the next ledger cycle.

Downloading Excel

1. Perform a one-time configuration of your Web Browser (if you are a PC user) to indicate that Excel Files that are exported need to be ".csv" files. (Instructions can also be found on OLSF Homepage. Go to the Accounting website (http://acctg.ucsf.edu/); click OLFS Homepage, and then click WebLinks Technical Information.)
   • For Internet Explorer (IE) 3.x users,
     
     1. To disable the automatic launch of Excel from IE, go to "View," select "Options," then select the "Programs" tab, click on "File Types," scroll down to "Microsoft Excel Worksheet," click "Remove," and say yes when asked if you are sure. Click "Close" and "OK" to close the settings windows.

     2. To prevent "JavaScript" errors, go to "View," select "Options,", then select the "Security" tab. Down at the bottom of the window, UN-check the "Run ActiveX Scripts" box, and click "OK." (Note this will also disable a few small features of certain web sites, like the stored username that pops up when you click on the WebLinks login box, or certain buttons on other web sites that light up when you move the mouse over them.

   • For Internet Explorer (IE) 4.x users,
     
     1. To disable the automatic launch of Excel from IE, click on your "My Computer" icon. Go to "View," select "Options," then select the "File Type" tab. Scroll down to "Microsoft Excel Worksheet," click "Remove," and say yes when asked if you are sure. Click "OK" to close the settings windows.
        
     2. You may not receive "JavaScript" errors after you upgrade to IE 4.0. If you find you still receive some "JavaScript" errors, go to "View," select "Options," then select the "Advanced" tab. Scroll down until you see "JAVA VM", and UN-check the "JAVA JIT Compile enabled" box, and click "OK." (Note this will also disable a few small features of certain web sites, like the stored username that pops up when you click on the WebLinks login box, or certain buttons on other web sites that light up when you move the mouse over them.)

   • For Navigator 4.x users and 3.x users, go to the OLFS Homepage (check instructions above to get there from the Accounting web site) and click WebLinks Technical Information. This will show you how to configure Navigator to allow Microsoft Excel Comma Separated Value files with extension CSV.