Accounting Best Practices

Frequently Asked Questions
Department Head Reference Guide
Monthly Reconciliation best practices:
  1. Run My Finance Query through Finance Dashboard periodically through the month to look at revenue, expense and transfer transactions. Verify that the activity is what you expect to see.
  2. Run Payroll Expense Detail under My Finance Query from Finance Dashboard to view payroll information. Access may be restricted to certain individuals. Contact your budget analyst to get approval and forward the approval email to BannerFinance@MissouriState.edu to get access.
  3. Enter or Approve Requisitions for services or products not yet invoiced. Payment Requests must be used for all products or services already received and invoiced by Vendors.
  4. Run Encumbrance Queries under My Finance Query from Finance Dashboard to see outstanding Purchase Orders.
  5. View Document in Finance Dashboard will display backup documentation on Requisition, Purchase Orders, Invoice and Checks. Some backup to Journal Entries might be visible based on access.
  6. Run Bear Finance Argos reports at the close of the month to make sure you see expected activity.
  7. Follow P-Card procedures on monthly activity and required documentation.
  8. Contact Financial Services Analyst for questions at anytime for outside university reporting, interfund transfers, and other questions.
  9. Sign up for the Financial Services blog at https://blogs.missouristate.edu/financialservices/for month close and other announcements from Financial Services.

Administrators:

1. Bear Finance Argos Reports:

  • Reports include Budget - to - Actual comparison for various funds.
  • Category Summary and Account Summary reports provide high level overview of budget.
  • Reports include Prior year Actuals as well as percent of budget expended.
  • Year to Year comparison reports include multi year comparison.

2. Run Queries in Finance Dashboard

  • My Finance Query provide real-time information.
  • links can be clicked on to provide more information.
  • Backup documentation of Invoices and Checks are available to print or view.
  • Payroll Expense Detail query is available through My Finance Query if you are granted with such access. 

3. Requisition Approval: Ensure all requisitions are approved before the month closes. Failure to approve open requisitions within the month will encumber funds and restrict further activity from happening on the Fund.

Originators/Support Staff Reconciliation:

1. Transaction Detail Reports:

  • Reports can be run in .pdf(adobe) or .csv (excel) formats for easy reconciliation.
  • Monthly reports need to be run to reconcile anticipated expenses. If there are expenses or activity that should not post to your FOAP, contact your Budget Officer or Financial Services Accountant/Analyst for correction.

PDF:

CSV:

CSV

 

2. Ensure access to all accounts you should be tracking. If you need to review access to accounts your approver is managing, you can run the Fund - Organization (Budget) Access Report below for that information. 

Fund and Organization (Budget) Access Reports are designed to provide fund and organization access and approver information for both University and Foundation charts to authorized individuals who help manage this access.  All users with Finance access should be able to run these reports and If you run into any issues or questions when running them, please email us at BannerFinance@missouristate.edu.

  • Fund and Organization Access by Person includes lookup capabilities for an individual in terms of current Finance SSB access, Fund and Organization authorization, and any established Approver authority. An individual must be specified.
  • Budget Access by Fund and Organization includes lookup capabilities for a Fund and Organization in terms of individuals and their authorized access along with any current Approvers over the specified budget. The Chart of Accounts (COA) and a Fund and Organization code must be specified.