Automated Accrual Process

Many transactions that record accrued expenditures, with or without commodity information, contain dates for Service From and Service To that allow users to enter a period of time where goods or services were received. That period may be just one day for goods. However, for services the period is likely longer. There are no set controls for requiring any span of time for a particular commodity Line Type. Service date entry is strictly a user responsibility with only a Transaction Control, called Service Date Severity, for requiring data entry verses defaulting to the Record Date of the transaction.

Accurate accrued expenditure accruals into a prior year on a payment requests can be done with users entering the portion attributable to the prior year on an accounting line with that prior fiscal year and an accounting period, while entering the portion attributable to the current year on a second accounting with the current fiscal year and accounting period. Such data entry is only feasible when there are one or two accounting lines on the payment request to split. Use of service dates and the Automated Accrual batch process is an approach that requires less work of the user. For payment requests generated by the Matching system process, use of the Automated Accrual process is the only option.

The Automated Accrual batch process will select accrued expenditure journal records with a Service From date prior to the start date of current accounting fiscal year and create Automated Accrual transaction using the delivered ACCA transaction code to move the appropriate accrued expense amount from the current budget and fiscal years to the prior years. Selection is not restricted to just the first transaction version but subsequent modifications and even a cancellation will be selected to adjust accruals as necessary. Modifications of amounts down or up, changes to move the Service From date forward, and cancellations will result in accrued expenditures being reduced in the prior year, which is the opposite from normal accruals.

One Automated Accrual (ACCA) transaction will be created for each service date range found on a payment request (for example, GAX, PRC, PRM, and so forth). Transactions created will memo reference the payment request to tie the two transactions together for reporting and querying by the Accrual Inquiry (ACRI) page. The ACCA will also update the referenced payment request accounting line with the percentage accrued into the prior year.

Two accounting lines are required to perform the accrual, one for the prior year and one for the current year. The sum of the two lines will always be zero, so all ACCA transactions should sum to zero. As the payment request is in the current fiscal year, the batch process can use the Chart of Accounts Crosswalk (COAX) page to determine COA for the prior year. A special Process ID on COAX must be used – ACC.

The process uses the Automated Accrual/Accrual Clearing Exceptions (ACRE) page to exclude activity that should not be accrued. One record delivered on the ACRE page should be left on the page for accurate accruals: Exclusion of transaction code GAE as there is an accrued expenditure event type available for that transaction code.