Responsibility of Activity or Reporting Unit Manager

Overview

Each financial transaction is associated with a segment of the GL Account called the activity and has a person designated as the finance or activity manager. This individual has certain responsibilities for the financial management of the activity.

Responsibilities

The following are certain key responsibilities of the finance manager:

A. To expend funds only within budget availability limits

The university has budget guidelines which are issued at the beginning of the budget process for all activities and restricted funds. It is the finance manager's responsibility to know what the guidelines are and to spend only funds within those guidelines.

B. To approve all charges made to the activity

It is the responsibility of finance managers to approve all expenditures made to the activity. Some responsibilities may be delegated to administrative support personnel. Any delegation should be reviewed regularly. If you have any questions regarding our record of your activity's authorized signers, please contact Accounts Payable.

C. To review expenses charged against the activity

The finance manager or his/her delegate must review the expenditures charged against the activity. This review should be done immediately upon receipt of monthly budget reports.

The accuracy of the expenditure records is as much the responsibility of the finance manager as it is the Controller's Office. Most of the time the finance managers are in a much better position to spot an error due to their familiarity with the operation of the activity.

All the accounting records, including your monthly budget reports, are the official records of the expenditures of the activity. These records are used for management analysis and decision making, industry statistics, regulatory reports, and other purposes. It is important that they be accurate.

Although some reporting units maintain duplicate or supplementary records, they do not have the authority of the accounting records in the Controller's Office. If you do keep separate records, they should be viewed as a supplement to and not a replacement of the official accounting records.