Flexgen General Ledger

Transcription

1 Flexgen General Ledger REFERENCE MANUAL REV. 01/26/2018 Version 7 LOCAL GOVERNMENT CORPORATION ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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3 Table of Contents Title Page... 1 Release Notes... 2 Release Notes Overview Positive Pay... 3 Customer Summary Notes AC Reconciling by Excel File Customer Summary Notes AC Customer Summary Notes Release Tennessee Chart of Accounts Revisions Moving Around In Your Software Moving Around In Your New Software Summary Initial Setup Initial Set Up: Set Up Accounting Control System Summary Initial Set Up: Add Funds and Control Groups Summary Initial Set Up: Enter Beginning Balances Summary Initial Set Up: Enter Budget Summary Initial Set Up: Add Outstanding Checks Summary Enter Process Transactions Enter/Process Transactions: Kinds of Transactions Summary Information To Enter Transactions Summary Enter/Process Transactions: Transaction Maintenance i

4 Table of Contents Summary Enter/Process Transactions: Pre-Posted Transactions Summary Enter/Process Transactions: Posting Transactions Summary Enter/Process Transactions: Errors Summary Print Posted Transactions Summary Reports Reports: Reports Available Summary Budget Analysis Budget Analysis: Enter Budget Entries Summary Budget Analysis: Entries on Electronic Worksheet Summary Budget Analysis: Using The Budget Projection Summary Budget Analysis: Available Reports Summary Budget Analysis: Budget Roll Over Summary Account Inquiry Inquire On Accounts For Balances: Where To Get Summarized or Detailed Balances Summary Maintain Records for Audit Maintain Records For Audit: Copying Audit Files Summary Month End Month End: What Needs To Be Done Before Closing Summary Month End: Month End Process Summary ii

5 General Ledger Year End Year End: What Needs To Be Done Before Closing Summary Year End: Checking After The Close Summary Year End: Year End Process Summary School Financial Reporting School Financial Reporting: Report Definition Summary School Financial Reporting: Function Roll Chart Summary School Financial Reporting: Object Roll Chart Summary School Financial Reporting: Classroom and Non-Classroom Accounts School Financial Reporting: Report Processing Summary City Budgeting County Budgeting Support and Navigation Contacting Tech Support Navigating a Help Screen Table of Contents Document Glossary Search iii

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7 Title Page Flexgen General Ledger REFERENCE MANUAL The latest release notes include: City and County Budgeting documentation Click here to view the Latest Release Notes If you prefer to use the General Ledger PDF documentation format it is available by choosing the link below. From this link you may save a local copy of the documentation as well as print a copy for your own use. General Ledger Reference Manual PDF REV. 01/26/2018 Version 7 LOCAL GOVERNMENT CORPORATION ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

8 Release Notes Release Notes Overview Summary The notes for each software release are listed below. Please refer to this page for details on changes for each release. A new link will be added for each software release. Topics available in this section: 2015 City Budgeting County Budgeting documentation documentation 2012 Reconciling by Release Excel File Summary AC33 02/09/12 05/03/2012 Positive Pay - Creating separate files for each Bank Account 10/24/ City Budgeting County Budgeting Import/Export MRS Receipts - AC Customer Summary Budgeting Module City Budgeting Release Notes Power Point Tennessee Chart of Accounts Revisions County Budgeting (Rev. 03/16/2015) 2

9 General Ledger 2012 Positive Pay Creating separate files for each Bank Account 10/24/2012 New control parameters: File For Each Bank Account: YES/NO defaults to NO. When set to YES, separate positive pay files will be created for each Bank Account. Files created will not be copied to diskette, but will use the new Multiple Files Path. Multiple Files Path: Used only when File For Each Bank Account is set to YES. This path, including drive and folder is where the files created will be placed. This path must already exist. The create check rec file process works the same, except you are not prompted for a diskette. The files to be transferred to the bank are created in the directory defined in the Multiple Files Path control using the Positive Pay File name from the controls with the last 4 digits of the bank account number as a suffix. (example:) 3

10 Release Notes All other processes work the same. Rev. (10/24/2012) 4

11 General Ledger Customer Summary Notes AC33 05/03/2012 Change to Accounting Parameter Maintenance for use in sites where E911 uses a different chart of accounts, added date field for support staff to indicate the last time the GASB54 GL accounts option was run, and change to Accounting Parameter Maintenance for NextGen sites. Release AC33 Customer Summary Notes SR14046 Change to Accounting Parameter Maint to include a flag for E911 Site - Yes/No. E911 sites that use a special COA format or different COA from county approved chart of accounts should set this flag to YES so that no COA changes will be made when any update is loaded with COA changes. SCL ACX078 sets this flag to NO as the default. SR12668 Added to ACF011A for Support staff the GASB54 Date. This field reflects the last date that the Close BASB54 GL Accounts option was run in the GASB54 files. SR14027 Change to Accounting Parameter Maint when the NextGen Interface Flag is set to NO those following fields related to NextGen are output only. Rev. (5/23/2012) 5

12 Release Notes Reconciling by Excel File 02/09/2012 The below six steps are the summarized version of instructions. For more detail on each of these steps, please see detailed instructions beginning on the next page. Enjoy! 1. Open Excel file provided by Bank Note which column is check number and which column is check amount Make sure check numbers have no decimal places, and check amounts have amounts to the penny displayed Save as tab delimited file, the name of file is up to you 2. If file not on server, please transfer saved file to the server, and place file on the L-Drive Once on server, you can find the L-Drive by going to start, My Computer, then double-clicking the L-Drive 3. Within Flexgen, run Check Rec File option within Bank Services Menu Use the previous month s beginning and ending date 4. Choose Create Spread Sheet Rec File and fill in corresponding info The file path will be based on your filename and its location on the L-drive 5. Choose Reconcile Checks by SS File, which will reconcile the file noted in Step 4 If errors found, please print report and address errors 6. Check Reconciled by Date Report, using your current login date to generate report Please verify the total reconciled amounts agrees with the total cleared checks according to the Bank Note: For those setting this process up for first use, please refer to Appendix at bottom of Report. The Appendix includes initial setup steps, and will likely be something a Local Government Representative can help you with. Detailed Instructions 1. First, open the file provided by the bank. This will most likely be in an Excel format, as seen in example below. The only two fields needed are the check amount and check number, represented in Columns A and B. Please notice that Column A (Check Amount) is carried out two decimal places, to account for any un-whole dollar amounts. Column B (Check Number) has no decimal places. If your Excel file does not match this setup, please change to ensure that Flexgen can properly import the file. 6

13 General Ledger Once Excel file matches the need format described above, please save the Excel file as a tab-delimited file as seen below. 2. You can save this file wherever is convenient, but it is recommended you save this file in your files directory (Please notice the Save in field in screenshot below), which for many customers will be located on your L-Drive under My Computer on server. The File name itself is not critical, and can be anything that you prefer, such as a dating sequence, etc. 7

14 Release Notes 3. Now that your Excel file has been checked and saved in the proper format, you are ready to enter Flexgen and navigate to your Check Reconciliation menu. From your Check Reconciliation menu, please choose Banking Service Options under the Bank Service option as seen below. Now, under the Positive Pay option, please choose Check Rec File. 8

15 General Ledger Now, you will build the Check Reconciliation file. This file will be used to cross reference the Excel file you will import from the bank. Unless this is the first month you are running this process, please use the beginning and ending dates for the previous month you are attempting to balance. 4. Now, please choose the Create Spread Sheet Rec File option as seen below 9

16 Release Notes In Load File Path, add the correct path to the file created in Step 1 above. The Check No Column in our example above was located in column 2. Check Amount Column in our example was located in column 1. Bank Acct Column will be left blank in our example, as our original file created in Step 1 had no Bank Acct Column listed (if bank account number is found in file, but the column number it appears in here). Bank Acct No file will be 501, as we set up in Bank Account Cross Reference above. After above data is entered, enter through and select Yes to Is this screen correct message. 5. Next, you will select the Reconcile Checks by SS File below. 10

17 General Ledger You will be prompted to view a report. Please scroll down to the bottom of report and check the total check amount to be reconciled, as seen highlighted in red below. If this total matches the cleared check total on your bank statement, things are looking good! Please print for reference, and exit. After exiting the Positive Pay file as seen below, you may be prompted to print an error report. If you are, open that error report, print, and determine what the exact errors are to be fixed. Please Note: If the check is showing on the error report, it will NOT be automatically reconciled. 6. We will run one more report to ensure the checks were in fact reconciled as needed. Within the main Check Reconciliation menu, please choose the Check by Reconciled Date report. 11

18 Release Notes The beginning and ending dates should both be the date you were logged in when running the above steps. In our example, we were logged into Flexgen on 12/31/2011. Please scroll down to the bottom of the report, and verify that the total reconciled amount does match the total cleared checks amount seen on your bank statement (and on the Positive Pay File in above step). If total does match, CONGRATULATIONS-You re Reconciled! 12

19 General Ledger APPENDIX Please Note: These next two steps will only need to be completed during initial setup, not every subsequent import. We need to set up the reference files that will be used when creating the Positive Pay Check File. Please choose the Check Reconciliation File as seen below. Within the Type field, please select Lookup-F2, then choose Key Groups on Check Rec File as seen below. Please select one of the displayed Check Types. Those with a blank Stock/Fct field will not need to be selected, at least in my testing. 13

20 Release Notes You will now fill in the Bank Name and Bank Account Number. You will update, and then move on to the next Check Type. Assuming there is only one bank account to be dealt with, every following check type will have the same bank info. Rev. (03/08/2012) 14

21 General Ledger 2011 Customer Summary Notes AC21 New process to create extract file for MRS receipts imported from Trustee office to file for NextGen processing. It is added to the menu option in FlexGen General ledger: File Handler, Import TR MRS Receipts. New option: NextGen Extract. Release AC21 Customer Summary Notes SR12928 SR12928 new process to create extract file for MRS receipts imported from Trustee office to file for NextGen processing. Process: For trustee office same process. Export MRS file For Finance office same process. Import TR MRS Receipts. After selecting Import file path, process as before including Create GL Transactions step. After creating the GL transactions, run the NextGen Extract option. This will create ACTR.FLE in the files directory. This is the file to be imported into NextGen. Rev. (9/7/2011) 15

22 Release Notes 2010 Customer Summary Notes Release The enclosed release contains enhancements and changes to our Purchasing software package. After the release is properly loaded, you will notice some changes to some of the menu options and processes. Some of the changes are to correct how processes currently work and other changes may be enhancements. The changes below will only apply to the current software you now have. Accounting Release Customer Summary Notes SR9602 Revenue Reports blank lines added between items for easier readability. SR9451 Import Check Rec Error Report errors added when the following fields are blank: Check Status, Check Date, Paid to and Amount SR10113 Legacy Budget Reports corrected page breaking so information is not split across pages. SR9340 Delete GL Record changed to not allow deletion if Encumbrance amount exists on GL 16

23 General Ledger Tennessee Chart of Accounts Revisions Summary This is a listing of the Tennessee Chart of Accounts revisions for The Tennessee chart of accounts is updated yearly. This release will update your software to the most recent revisions. GENERAL LEDGER EQUITY ACCOUNTS This section has been completely revised to comply with Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statement 54. All reserve and designation accounts have been deleted. Fund balances are now classified as nonexpendable, restricted, committed, assigned, or unassigned. DETAILED REVENUE ACCOUNTS New Accounts Acct. No Energy Efficient School Initiative This account should be used to record the collection of excess lottery funds awarded to the county by the Tennessee Department of Education Race to the Top ARRA This account should be used to record the collection of Race to the Top funds obtained through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Tax Credit Bond Rebate This account should be used to record the collection of federal rebate funds associated with Build America bonds. Change Acct No. Description Changes for Statement No. 54 EQUITY delete Fund Balances Control Account 17

24 Release Notes Encumbrances (new account) Description Account Encumbrances - Current Year (renamed) Encumbrances - Prior Year (renamed) (These are non-reporting accounts for internal purposes only) Nonexpendable Description Account Endowments Inventory Long-term Notes Receivable Prepaid Expenses (Added all new accounts for nonexpendable category) delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete (moved to nonexpendable category) delete (moved to nonexpendable category) (moved to nonexpendable category) delete delete delete delete 18

25 General Ledger delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete to delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete to delete delete (deleted all prior reserve numbers) Restricted Description Account Restricted for General Government 19

26 Release Notes Restricted for Finance Restricted for Administration of Justice Restricted for Public Safety Restricted for Public Health and Welfare Restricted for Social, Cultural, and Recreational Services Restricted for Agriculture and Natural Resources Restricted for Other Operations Restricted for Highways/Public Works Restricted for Education Restricted for Instruction Restricted for Support Services Restricted for Operation of Non-Instructional Services Restricted for Capital Outlay Restricted for Debt Service Restricted for Capital Projects Restricted for Other Purposes (deleted all prior designated numbers and replaced with restricted) Committed Description Account Committed for General Government Committed for Finance Committed for Administration of Justice Committed for Public Safety Committed for Public Health and Welfare Committed for Social, Cultural, and Recreational Services Committed for Agriculture and Natural Resources Committed for Other Operations Committed for Highways/Public Works Committed for Education Committed for Instruction Committed for Support Services Committed for Operation of Non-Instructional Services Committed for Capital Outlay Committed for Debt Service Committed for Capital Projects Committed for Other Purposes (new category for committed fund balances; aligns with restricted and assigned category) Assigned Description Account Assigned for General Government Assigned for Finance Assigned for Administration of Justice 20

27 General Ledger Assigned for Public Safety Assigned for Public Health and Welfare Assigned for Social, Cultural, and Recreational Services Assigned for Agriculture and Natural Resources Assigned for Other Operations Assigned for Highways/Public Works Assigned for Education Assigned for Instruction Assigned for Support Services Assigned for Operation of Non-Instructional Services Assigned for Capital Outlay Assigned for Debt Service Assigned for Capital Projects Assigned for Other Purposes (new category for assigned fund balances; aligns with restricted and committed category) Unassigned (renamed) Net Assets Control Account Invested in Capital Assets, Net of Related Debt Invested in Capital Assets Net Assets Restricted Description Account Restricted for Purpose No Restricted for Purpose No Restricted for Purpose No Restricted for Purpose No Restricted for Purpose No Restricted for Purpose No Restricted for Purpose No Restricted for Purpose No Restricted for Purpose No Restricted for Purpose No Restricted for Purpose No Restricted for Purpose No Restricted for Purpose No Restricted for Purpose No Restricted for Purpose No Net Assets - Unrestricted (Rev. 07/26/2010) 21

28 Moving Around In Your Software Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Moving Around In Your New Software Summary LGC has further improved the movement within screens with the implementation of the GUI version of the G/L software package. The user can chose to use the mouse to select options and move to different fields. At the same time, the user still has the option to use alternate keys (i.e. F4(update), F2(Lookup)) to perform different functions. This gives the user the capability to use whichever method they prefer. The Buttons seen below are available for use with a mouse or simply press the key in parenthesis to perform the action. The Process: Menu Movement Moving around the menu is most easily accomplished by selecting the option from the top menu panel you want to choose which option you would like to perform. You can also use the Alt button to toggle between using the mouse or keyboard to make selections on the screen. When using the keyboard, the user can punch the first letter of the option they wish to select from the top menu and each subsequent menu. When using the mouse, simply click the options. Option Keys Some of these keys remain the same. The F1 key is for 'Help'. By pressing this option key, you are able to see help on the screen relating to an option or field. The F2 key is for 'Lookup'. In various fields, by pressing this option key, you are able to review user defined codes and information relating to various historical data. By pressing this option key, you are able to bypass defaulted information that does not need to be changed. The remaining option keys appear only when needed for a certain option. By paying attention to these option keys, you can gain access to many features. 22

29 General Ledger Movement In Screens Movement is now easier than ever with the ability to use the arrow keys to go back or forward to specific fields. When using the arrow keys, you may see an error box appear in the lower right hand corner of your screen. Do not be alarmed! You may be required to key information into the current field before you are allowed to move back to a previous field. Within the lookup boxes, you can also use the arrow keys to make your selection. This is done by 'arrowing' up or down to highlight the item you want to choose and then press the <enter> key to select your choice. You can also use the Page Up or Page Down key to move within the lookup boxes. Movement within these lookup boxes can also be accomplished by entering pertinent information and allowing the computer to find your selection. Pertinent information changes depending on the type of Lookup you are performing. This may be a user defined code, a name, an address, etc. NOTE: You can also click in a field to jump to that field. Moving In Reports Reports are new and improved. Most of the reports offered in LGDPC's new software are able to be displayed on your screen. Reports can be displayed on the customers screen, printed or sent to a file. While displayed, the user has many options available at the top of the screen. pages. information. report. help options. File - Page\Uppage - Next\Previous - Search - Text Size - Help - Will give the option to exit or print the report. Will scroll between pages if the report has multiple Same as Page\Uppage. Allows user to search the report for specific User can change the size/style of the font on the Gives the user access to a help search and other Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 23

30 Initial Setup Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Initial Set Up: Set Up Accounting Control System Summary The System Control File contains indicators and controls that will be used throughout the General Ledger System. The Process: Select: File Handler, File Maint System Maint Accounting Parameter Maint Field Definitions User Name Terminal Number Last Updated By Accounting Date Budget Cap Percent This is the name of the user who is currently logged into the computer. The number assigned to the computer from which the change was made. Name of the user that last changed the parameter. The first day of the current account month. This date will automatically increment itself to the next accounting month during the month-end process. This is the percent of budget available to be used per account number. Budget Encumbrances If yes, the encumbered amount will be added to the total in some of the budget reports. 24

31 General Ledger Separate? Encumbrances on RPT Update Budget File at Year-End Number of Months to Future Post Posting May Not Be On Or Past Block Transactions Year-End Complete Month-End Reports Summarized Month-End Report Order If yes, the Budget file will be updated from the GL file when the Year End Closing process is run. Number of months available for user to future post a transaction. This date is calculated from the current Accounting date plus the number of months to future post. This is the date that posting may not be past This indicates if a period end (month/year end) process is being processed. The budget cannot be rolled to the General Ledger unless this is Yes. When the budget is rolled, it is set to No. At yearend, it is set to Yes. This indicates in which order the month-end reports are summarized or detailed. This indicates in which order the month-end reports will be printed (fund or fund and sub fund). Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 25

32 Initial Setup Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Initial Set Up: Add Funds and Control Groups Summary Enter the additions or changes to the accounts as needed. These accounts reflect the active accounts on the General Ledger File. The Process: Select: File Handler File Maint Acct Maint Then select ONE of the following: Add New G/L Account Number Fund Control Fund Control Group Sub Fund Cost Center Sub Object Note: When performing initial setup, action buttons and keys are available. Example: Lookup(F2) Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 26

33 General Ledger Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Initial Set Up: Enter Beginning Balances When initially setting up a General Ledger system, the account balances must be entered. The beginning balances for assets, liabilities, and equities are entered on the Support Staff Menu and the expenditures and revenues are entered through Budget Transaction Maintenance. Summary The Process: Assets, Liabilities, Reserves Run ACM900 Accounting Support Staff To get to the Support Staff Menu: Go to the 'FlexGen Master Menu' Press the 'F5' option key Select Menu(Direct) Scroll down to ACM900 Accounting Support Staff and press <enter> Select 'Transactions', 'Add Beginning Balance Trans', and then 'Beginning Balance (BB) Enter the account number ('Lookup' is available) and the debit or credit beginning balance. Process Entries Expenditures, Revenues Select: Budgets (From the Accounting Menu ACM001) Budget Transaction Maintenance Transaction Maintenance Enter the Fund, Transaction Number, Transaction Date, and Description. Enter the Budget Entry Type as '01' for 'Original'. Then, enter the account number (function, object, cost center, and sub object) along with the debit or credit amount. If the account number is not already on the General Ledger, you will be prompted to add the account. The transaction (debits and credits) must be in balance. Post the transactions by pressing the 'Post' option key or using one of the menu options on the Transaction Maintenance menu. 27

34 Initial Setup Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 28

35 General Ledger Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Initial Set Up: Enter Budget Summary When a system is set up for the first time, the transactions that have already been made on their old system must be entered into the new system. The Process: Select Transactions Manual Transaction From the Transaction Maintenance Menu, select the type of transaction (CR, DP, JE, or PA) to be entered. Enter the information for the transaction When all transactions have been entered, post the transactions by using one of the options from the Posting Options menu. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 29

36 Initial Setup Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Initial Set Up: Add Outstanding Checks Summary Any outstanding checks must be entered so they will be recorded on the check reconciliation. These will be entered through the Purchasing System. The Process: From the FlexGen Master Menu: Punch the F5 key Select the Menu(direct) option Run the CKM001 Menu option: Select Maintenance Select Full Check Maint. Enter transactions for the checks from the Full Check Maint screen. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 30

37 Enter Process Transactions Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Enter/Process Transactions: Kinds of Transactions Summary In the General Ledger system there are various types of transactions. These transactions are assigned a two character code that is used throughout the system. The Process: Transaction Types BB - Beginning Balance Beginning Balance transactions are entries being used to set up a beginning balance for an account. Assets Debit Liabilities Credit Fund Balance Credit BG Budget Entry Budget Entries are used to enter, correct or transfer funds between budget amounts. Revenues Debit Expenditures Credit CE Prior Year Control The controlling entry transactions are automatically generated by the system. Cash Disbursement Cash Disbursements are checks that are issued against the account. The DEBIT amount is for the Expenditure Account Number. The CREDIT amount is for the Cash Account. CD Cash Disbursements are checks that are issued against the account. Cash Disbursement The DEBIT amount is for the Expenditure Account Number. The CREDIT amount is for the Cash Account. CR Cash Receipt Cash Receipts are used when cash is received from an outside source. For a COUNTY, the Debit amount is for the cash with Trustee account. For a CITY or TRUSTEE office, the Debit amount is for the Cash On Hand. The Credit amount is for revenue accounts. DP Deposit A Deposit entry is made when money is received and is deposited into the bank. The Debit amount is for the Cash In Bank Account. 31

38 Enter Process Transactions The Credit amount is for the Cash On Hand Account. EC Encumbrance An Encumbrance is a one sided entry made when you add a purchase order. The system will automatically these transactions. The entry is a debit for an expenditure account. JE Journal Entry A Journal Entry is used to correct or transfer funds between accounts. PE Prior Year This entry is automatically generated by the system. PA Payroll The Payroll entry is reserved for employee pay transactions. For the payroll transaction, you will debit the expenditure accounts and credit cash in bank and taxes. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 32

39 General Ledger Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Information To Enter Transactions Summary Before manual transactions are entered, you must have some controlling information already set up that is used throughout the General Ledger System. The Process: Some information to check before entering transactions: Know the fund and accounts that are to be used for the transaction. Are sub funds being used? In the Fund Control process, the sub fund indicator is set up for the fund. Is automatic numbering being used for the transaction numbers? In the Transaction Entry Type Maint, the automatic numbering option is set up for the transaction type. Is account number on the General ledger? If not, the account can be added when the transaction is entered. Is the transaction ready to be posted now? Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 33

40 Enter Process Transactions Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Enter/Process Transactions: Transaction Maintenance Summary Entering, changing and deleting transactions are performed using the same process. Changes and deletions can only be performed if the transaction has not been posted to the General Ledger. When the transaction is correct, post it to the General Ledger The Process: Entering Transactions Select Transactions Manual Transaction The manual transaction menu will appear Select the type of transaction to enter using the arrow keys on the keyboard. Select either CR-Cash Receipts, DP Deposits, PA Payroll, CD Cash Disbursement, or JE Journal Entry. Enter the fund, sub fund, transaction number, transaction date, and description. If using automatic numbering, press <enter> for the transaction number. Then enter the account number (function, object, cost center, sub object) and the debit and credit amount. The 'Lookup' option is available to select the account numbers if desired. The transaction must be in balance before it can be posted. When the entries are entered correctly, press the 'UPDATE(F4)' option on the action bar at the bottom of your screen. You will only receive a message if the transaction is out of balance. Select 'Yes' to cancel the current information and confirm your exit from the transactions. Post the Transaction To post your entries, select 'Posting Options'. You may select the 'Pre-Post Transaction Report' to display or print and check your manual transaction entries prior to posting. You can then select one of the following posting options: Post All Transactions, Post Transactions by Type', or Post Individual Transactions. After posting using one of these options, you can print or display a posting journal by using the option by that name. Changing Transactions Select Transactions Manual Transaction The manual transactions menu will appear. 34

41 General Ledger Select the type of transaction to access. Select either CR Cash Receipts, DP Deposits, JE Journal Entries or PA Payroll. Enter the fund, sub fund and transaction number. The Lookup option is available to select from transactions on file. The existing information will be displayed and you can make any necessary changes. Be sure the transaction is in balance before exiting the process. Post the transaction by pressing the Post option key. Delete A Transaction Select Transactions Manual Transactions The manual transactions menu will appear. Select the type of transaction to access. Select either CR Cash Receipts, DP Deposits, JE Journal Entries or PA Payroll. Enter the fund, sub fund and transaction number. The Lookup option is available to select from transactions on file. The existing information will be displayed and you can make any necessary changes. Be sure the transaction is in balance before exiting the process. Press the DelRec option key. You will be prompted to confirm that the deletion should be done. Select Yes. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 35

42 Enter Process Transactions Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Enter/Process Transactions: Pre-Posted Transactions Summary Pre-Posted transactions are transactions that have been entered but have not been posted/unposted to the General Ledger. These transaction amounts are not reflected in the General Ledger balances. To check the pre-posted transactions, you can review the Pre-Post Transactions Report. The Process: Pre-Posted Transaction Report Select Transactions, Manual Transactions The Manual Transactions Menu will appear punch 2 on your keyboard or click the Posting Options'. Then select Pre-Posted Transaction Report. You will be prompted by "You have selected to run this query.continue? Click OK to run the query. Click CANCEL to return to the Manual Transactions menu. A window will appear giving you the option to display the report or print the report to a printer or print to file. Click OK to perform action chosen or EXIT to leave the process. Display- Select display or show end or enter a page number to go to or enter text to search for in the report. Click the search is case sensitive checkbox to narrow results. When viewing report, options are available under the tool bar headings that are in black. Print- Select the printer to print the report to. File- Browse to choose where to save the file to. Name the report so that it can easily be found. Refer to the Moving Around In Your New Software section of the manual to see options available when a report is displayed. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 36

43 General Ledger Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Enter/Process Transactions: Posting Transactions Summary When a transaction is entered, it will not be reflected on the General Ledger until it has been posted. By posting, the accounts and amounts are updated to the General Ledger balances. The Process Select Transactions Manual Transactions Posting Options Then Select ONE of the following: Post All Transactions Post Transactions By Type Post Individual Transactions Select the menu option to post all transactions, post by transaction type, or select to post an individual/single transaction. If you select 'Post All Transactions', all outstanding transactions will be posted to the General Ledger regardless of transaction date or transaction type. You will automatically return to the Manual Transaction Menu. If you select 'Post Transactions By Type', you will use the arrow keys to select the type of Transactions to be posted. Press the 'Post' option key to post the transaction. You will automatically return to the Manual Transaction Menu. If you select 'Post Individual Transactions', the outstanding transactions will be displayed and you select the transaction to be posted with the arrow keys. Press the 'Post' option key to post the transaction. Your transaction will post to the General Ledger and you will automatically be returned to the Manual Transaction Menu screen. Note: If a transaction is out of balance, it will not post until it has been corrected and is in balance. You will receive a message when trying to post an unbalanced transaction that will make you aware of this. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 37

44 Enter Process Transactions Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Enter/Process Transactions: Errors Summary As you work in the General Ledger system, error messages may be displayed. Some messages are just warnings. The Process Warning Transaction Out of Balance This message is displayed when you are entering a manual transaction and the debits do not equal the credits. The transaction must be in balance before posting to the General Ledger. You can use the 'Transaction Maintenance' option to make the balancing entry or to delete the out-of-balance transaction. **Warning** Unposted Transactions Exist You will get this error when you exit the Manual Transaction Maintenance and there are transactions that have not been posted/updated to the General Ledger. This is to let you know that unposted entries exist but it is not a cause for concern. This is simply a normal warning message. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 38

45 General Ledger Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Print Posted Transactions Summary After the transactions have been posted to the General Ledger, you may want to print a listing that shows all of the posted transactions. This would be kept to verify what transactions have been updated to the General Ledger. The Process: Select Transactions Manual Transactions Posting Options Posting Journal You will be prompted by "You have selected to run this query.continue? Click OK to run the query. Click CANCEL to return to the Manual Transactions menu. A window will appear giving you the option to display the report or print the report to a printer or print to file. Click OK to perform action chosen or EXIT to leave the process. Display- Select display or show end or enter a page number to go to or enter text to search for in the report. Click the search is case sensitive checkbox to narrow results. When viewing report, options are available under the tool bar headings that are in black. Print- Select the printer to print the report to. File- Browse to choose where to save the file to. Name the report so that it can easily be found. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 39

46 Reports Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Reports: Reports Available Summary Various reports are available throughout the General Ledger System. The Process: General Ledger Detail List Report can be displayed, printed or saved to a file. Select the G/L month and a range of account numbers. Report is listed by account number and shows the prior year, beginning fiscal balance, year-to-date debit and credit, and the ending balance. Account Analysis Report Report can be displayed, printed or saved to a file. Select the report order Select from: Enter criteria based on the selection made from the select order menu. Account Balances Report Report can be displayed, printed or saved to a file. Select to have the report processed by: Enter selection criteria based on the selection made from the report type selected. Journal Listings Report can be displayed, printed or saved to a file. Select a option of: Based on selection on this menu, the enter ranges for date, transactions, sub funds and transaction numbers. Standard Reports All of the available reports will be displayed and you will select the ones to be processed. You will also indicate if the report should be summarized and in fund or sub fund order. 40

47 General Ledger You can use the 'Standard Report Selection' option to select and print or display the reports. Or, use the 'Standard Report Print Only' to print the reports directly to the printer. In the '...Print Only' process, you will select the report order and a range of dates, funds, and sub funds. Available Reports: Trial Balance Trial Balance (Sub Fund) Summary Financial Statement Summary Financial Statement (Sub Fund) Trial Balance - City Trial Balance Sub Fund - City Trial Balance Summarized - City Balance Sheet - City Balance Sheet Sub Fund - City Balance Sheet Summarized - City Cost Center Report Cost Center Report (Sub Fund) Sub Object Report Sub Object Report (Sub Fund) General Ledger Listing General Ledger Account Listing Journal Listing Account Analysis (Account Order) Account Analysis (Transaction Number Order) Account Analysis (Date Order) Account Analysis (by Function) Account Analysis (Sub Fund Order) Balance Sheet Balance Sheet (Sub Fund) Encumbrance Analysis Encumbrance Analysis (Sub Fund) Cash Receipts Journal Cash Receipts Journal (Sub Fund) Cash Disbursements Journal (Sub Fund) Cash Disbursements/Accounts Payable Journal Statement of Expenditures and Encumbrances Statement of Expenditures and Encumbrances (Sub Fund) Statement of Expenditures and Encumbrances by Object Statement of Expenditures and Encumbrances Summarized Statement of Expenditures and Encumbrances (GAAP) Audit Work Papers Audit Work Papers (Sub Fund) Statement of Revenue Statement of Revenue (Sub Fund) 41

48 Reports Statement of Revenue Summarized BOE Report Select Reports, Public School Financial Report, Then select BOE Report from the BOE Financial Report Menu. Then Select Generate Report Amounts. Answer yes to query. Report can be displayed, printed or saved to a file. If necessary, maintenance can be performed by selecting Ctl Maint then selecting System Control or Headings. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 42

49 Budget Analysis Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Budget Analysis: Enter Budget Entries Summary The Budget can be entered by using two different processes. The first process that can be used is to update the budget with the General Ledger. This takes the accounts and amounts on the current General ledger and builds the budget. The second option that can be used is to use the budget transaction maintenance option where each individual account and amount is entered. The Process: Update Budget From the General Ledger Select Budgets Update Budget File Then Select one of the following: Update BG Actuals From G/L Update BG Actuals From G/L HST Update BG Prior Yr From G/L HS This option takes the accounts and amounts from the current General Ledger and builds a working budget file for the next fiscal year. Select the beginning and ending range of funds and sub funds to be processed. Then enter G/L month. Several options are available to perform various budget updates, deletions etc. Place an X in the box to perform a function or leave all blank to perform all. When the budget is approved, be sure to roll the budget forward to the General Ledger. From the accounting menu, select Budgets, then Roll New Budget Forward to G/L. Enter Budget Transactions Select Budgets, Budget Transaction, then Transaction Maintenance. This option allows you to enter individual accounts and their budget amount. Enter/Select the fund and transaction number. Then, enter the transaction date, description, and budget entry type. For the budget entry type, enter '01' for an original budget or '02' for an amendment. Enter the accounts and amounts for the budget item. The transaction must be in balance before you can post your budget transactions. 43

50 Budget Analysis Press 'Esc' to leave the transaction maintenance screen and answer 'Yes' to confirm you exit from the screen. When all transactions have been entered, be sure to post the transactions to the General Ledger by using 'Post All Transactions' or 'Post Individual Transaction'. You can print a pre-post report to verify your entries prior to posting them to the General Ledger. Select 'Exit' to return to return to the budget menu. If you have unposted budget entries, an "Unposted Transactions Exist" warning message will appear. This is a normal warning and is not cause for concern. Press <enter> to acknowledge the warning and you will be returned to the budget menu. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 44

51 General Ledger Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Budget Analysis: Entries on Electronic Worksheet Summary During the Budget process, it may be easier to work with if you have the budget information in an electronic worksheet. The General Ledger system allows you to export this information in a comma separated file that can be loaded into a spreadsheet. You can select from various types of files. The file created will be loaded into the files directory on your computer and will be named ACSS@T (@ is your terminal number). This file can then be imported into a spreadsheet or loaded onto diskette to be transferred to another computer. The Process: Select Budgets Budget Spreadsheets Spreadsheets Then ONE of the following: Account Oder Without Title Account Order With Title Summarized Summarized With Sub Fund Summarized With Title Summarized Sub Fund With Title Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 45

52 Budget Analysis Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Budget Analysis: Using The Budget Projection Summary The Budget Projection process allows you to view the current budget with a project percentage of increase. You will select a range of accounts, the percent to change the budget, and indicate if the current year remaining amount will be calculated. This report can be used as a worksheet preparing for next year s budget. The Process: Select Budgets Budget Reports By Fund or By Sub Fund Budget Projection Enter beginning and ending range of account numbers to be processed. Enter percentage to change budget. Enter the indicator as to if the current year's remaining budget should be calculated. The report can be displayed or printed. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 46

53 General Ledger Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Budget Analysis: Available Reports Summary There are several reports available that contain the budget information and that will be helpful in preparing the next year s budget. The Process: Select Budgets Budget Reports Detailed Budget Reports Forecasted Amendment This contains a forecasted amendment for the budget. Prior year actuals, prior prior year actuals, current year budget, amendments, actuals, remaining budget, and percent of budget used are contained on the report. If the current year remaining is over the projected budget, an asterisk is displayed beside the current year remaining amount. Budget Projection This prints a Detailed Budget Projection Report. A range of account number can be selected. A 'Yes/No' prompt indicates if the amounts for the remaining current year will be calculated. Budget, Revenue, and Expenditure Worksheet This provides a worksheet for the budget. The current year actuals, expenditures, encumbrances, budget, and amendments are shown. Worksheet fields are provided for 0701 encumbrances, 0630 encumbrances, adjusted budget, and variance. Worksheet for a Fund This prints a detailed worksheet for a fund. Options available are entering a range of funds and having the current year estimated amounts included on the report. Statement of Expenditures by Object This is a budget report of expenditures and encumbrances in object order per find. Also displayed are the prior prior year actuals, prior year actuals, budget, amendments, and current year remaining. Revenue Estimated/Appropriated Requests This prints a Detailed Revenue Estimate/Appropriation Requests Report. Options available are entering an account number range, suppressing calculated amounts in columns 4 through 7, and using default headings for the report. Finished Budget Statement 47

54 Budget Analysis This prints a Detailed Finished Budget Statement. Options available are entering a range of fund numbers and budget selection. Finished Budget Statement - Cost Center This prints a Detailed Finished Budget Statement in cost center order. Options available are entering a range of fund numbers, cost centers, and budget selection. Summarized Budget Reports Budget Projection This prints a Summarized Budget Projection Report. Options are available to enter a range of account numbers and to have the amounts for the remaining current calculated. Worksheet for a Fund This prints a Summarized Worksheet for a Fund. Options available are entering a range of funds and having the current year estimated amounts included on the report. Revenue Estimated/Appropriated Requests This prints a Summarized Revenue Estimate/Appropriation Requests Report. Options available are entering an account number, suppressing calculated amounts in columns 4 through 7, and using default headings for the report. Finished Budget Statement This prints a Summarized Finished Budget Statement. Options available are entering a range of fund numbers and indicating which column's amounts are to be used for reporting. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 48

55 General Ledger Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Budget Analysis: Budget Roll Over Summary When the final budget is approved and the correct amounts have all been entered, you must roll the budget over to the General Ledger. This allows the budget to be rolled forward for the next year. The Process: Select Budgets Roll New Budget To G/L Selection criteria to be entered includes account number range, equity offsetting account, description, transaction date, and the column number associated with the appropriate amounts to be rolled forward. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 49

56 Account Inquiry Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Inquire On Accounts For Balances: Where To Get Summarized or Detailed Balances Summary When you need to know the summarized balance of a fund or department, you can use the Account Balances Report option. The Process: Select Reports G/L Reports Account Balances Summarized Enter the month to process and a beginning and ending range of account numbers. The report includes month-to-date debit and credit, beginning balance, year-todate activity, budget amount, budget amendments, ending balance, encumbered amount, unencumbered amount and prior year actual. The report can be printed or displayed. Note: To get detailed balances, select By Fund or By Sub Fund in place of summarized in the steps above. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 50

57 Maintain Records for Audit Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Maintain Records For Audit: Copying Audit Files Summary During the year and especially at year-end, Audit may need a copy of your files. There are two options available. After creating the Audit File, run the option to load the State PC Audit File on diskette. The Audit File will be broken down into multiple files for loading on high density 3 ½ diskettes. The Process: Select File Handler Build YTD Audit File Enter a Beginning and Ending range of month and accounts. To create the multiple files that can be loaded to diskette: Select 'Period End' 'Load YTD Acc Audit File' You will be prompted to confirm that the process should be performed. When the files are created, it will display the number of high density diskettes needed. Select File Handler Build State PC Audit File Enter a beginning and ending range of funds, functions and objects. To create the multiple files that can be loaded to diskette: Select Period End Load State PC Audit File You will be prompted to confirm that the process should be performed. When the files are created, it will display the number of high density diskettes needed. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 51

58 Month End Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Month End: What Needs To Be Done Before Closing Summary Before you begin the month-end process, there are some processes that need to be performed. The Process: Make sure all entries have POSTED Select 'Transactions' and then 'Manual Trans'. Review the debit and credit amounts. Post all entries for the month you want to close. Balance Sheet Run the Balance Sheet from the Standard reports (Reports Standard). Make sure that it says that all funds are in balance. Complete ALL Payrolls Make sure you have completed all payrolls for the month you are going to close. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 52

59 General Ledger 53

60 Month End Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Month End: Month End Process Summary The month-end process allows processing of reports and updating of necessary information for the month-end close. A menu will be displayed and you will select the processes in order shown. The Process: Select Period End Month End Select the printer that will be used for the reports. Select the month-end steps in the order listed: 1. Scan for Unposted Transactions 2. Build G/L Control Account Records 3. Accounting Reports 4. Clear Accounting Flags As each process is finished, the status of COMPLETED will be displayed beside the process. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 54

61 Year End Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Year End: What Needs To Be Done Before Closing Summary Before you begin the month-end process, there are some processes that need to be performed. The Process: Update Budget from G/L Update the budget from the General Ledger if you are planning on using 'Maintain Budget' options to get the budget reports from Prior Year, Actual, New Budget. Run Month-End Select Period End and then select the month-end close option to process June. Check Cost Centers If you are using cost centers, check the cost center control and sub fund control for the correct closing fund balance account. If a fund balance is not entered, it will look at your fund balance accounts on your fund group control (under File Handler, Acct Maint and then Fund Group. Make a Backup Print CAFR Reports Print the CAFR reports needed. Copy Files Select Period End, Year End and then Copy GL & Trans Files. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 55

62 Year End 56

63 General Ledger Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Year End: Checking After The Close Summary After the year-end close process has been completed, there are a few items that need to be checked and verified. The Process: Load YTD AUDIT FILE (Counties Only) This option is under the Period End menu. Load STATEPC Audit File (Counties Only) This option is under the Period End menu. Check Reports Go into the Standard Reports and run a Trial Balance and Balance Sheet. Make sure your beginning balance matches your ending balance for the month you just closed (June). Also, run an Account Analysis from the Standard Reports to make sure all of your future entries that were entered before you close the year have been posted correctly to the new year (July, August, etc.). Clean Up Files Wait a couple of weeks after closing and then run the option to Remove File In Work Directory (under Period End, Year End Processing ). Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 57

64 Year End Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation Year End: Year End Process Summary This allows the processing of reports and updating of necessary information for the year-end close. A menu will be displayed and you will select the processes in the order shown. Run year end (print reports, look them over, create state audit files, process last step of close). The Process: Select Period End Year End Select the printer that will be used for the reports. Select the year-end steps in the order listed: 1. Build Closing Fund Balance Accounts 2. Transaction Balance Exception Report 3. Summary Report 4. Build Audit Diskette And Control Records 5. Accounting Reports 6. Create Closing/Reversing Entries 7. Post Closing/Reversing Entries 8. Calculate Beginning Balances 9. Trial Balance Report & Balance Sheet 10. Update Transaction Posted File As each process is finished, the status of COMPLETED will be displayed beside the process. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 58

65 School Financial Reporting Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation School Financial Reporting: Report Definition Summary The reporting system reads the General Ledger totals and amounts and stores them in a predefined file. In order for this to happen, controls and guidelines have to be set up. The Process: Groups First, the report has to be dissected into groups and assigned types to represent those groups. Group Type Page Range 01 Revenues Expenditures Summary Manual Note: This also represents the order in which the pages will be processed. Line Type Second, the report must be even further broken down by line. This is done because all lines are not calculated the same. Each line will be defined as a particular type. Line Type Definition 01 Text Lines that are just text and contain non-amounts to be accumulated. 02 Detail Lines that contain amounts to be accumulated from the General Ledger. 03 Manual Entry Lines that contain amounts that will be entered manually. 04 Totals From Lines that obtain amounts by accumulating amounts from other lines on other pages. 59

66 School Financial Reporting 05 Running Total Lines that contain running totals of lines above them. Sometimes, financial information is posted to accounts that are not listed on the financial report. Therefore, controls have been set up to accommodate these instances. If an account is found on the general ledger that is not on the report, it will be rolled into a specified account that does exist on the report. These rolling accounts and their ranges are shown on the Function Roll Chart. Exceptions are noted where they apply. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 60

67 General Ledger Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation School Financial Reporting: Function Roll Chart Summary The Function Roll Chart contains rolling accounts and their ranges. These accounts are for financial information posted to accounts that are not listed on the financial report. If an account is found on the general ledger that is not on the report, it will be rolled to a specified account that does exist on the report. Exceptions are noted where they apply. The Process: Assets roll to All other assets that exist on the general ledger but not on the report, should be rolled to should be zeroed out before running the report. Liabilities, Reserves, and Fund Balances Account Range Roll to Account Range Roll To (Except 28100,28500, 28510) n/a n/a n/a n/a

68 School Financial Reporting Revenues Account Range Roll Account To Range n/a n/a Roll To n/a

69 General Ledger Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 63

70 School Financial Reporting Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation School Financial Reporting: Object Roll Chart Summary In addition to accounts being rolled into other specified accounts/functions, expenditures will need to be rolled. In the case of expenditures, only objects are rolled. Expenditures must follow a different rule than accounts because their situation can be different per page. As a general rule and guide line, expenditures will be rolled according to the chart below. Exceptions to the rule will be addressed per page. For instance, if there happens not to be an 099 object on the page to roll to, then it will be rolled to the next highest object on that page. Example: Page 12 if an object was found on the general ledger between the ranges of 700 and 799, it would be rolled to 722. Any object found on the general ledger between 600 and 699 would be rolled up to 722. Expenditures Object Range Roll To

71 General Ledger Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 65

72 School Financial Reporting Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation School Financial Reporting: Classroom and Non- Classroom Accounts Summary The Classroom and non-classroom account totals are on page 4 of the school financial report. These accounts are to be added together for the funds specified on the report. Accounts Classroom Non- Classroom Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 66

73 General Ledger Flexgen General Ledger LGC Local Government Corporation School Financial Reporting: Report Processing Summary The information below lists the processes that are included in the school financial reporting and a description of each option. Refer to the General Ledger Ready Reference manual for details of each option. BOE General Ledger Edit Report This option will produce a report showing accounts found on the general ledger but not listed on the report. This is a tool to be used to help balance the report. Keep in mind that some accounts will automatically be rolled into accounts that are on the report (see Function Roll Chart and Object Roll Chart). Adjustments Maintenance This option allows the adjustments that will appear on page 2. Remember to enter these amounts before you print the report. Schedule of Transfers Maintenance This is where the schedule of transfers are entered for pages 11 and 36. This information will also need to be entered before the report is printed. Generate BOE Report Amounts This reads through the general ledger and calculates amounts to be listed on the report. Change Report Amounts This allows any detail amount to be manually changed. Only type 02 detail lines, not total lines, can be changed. Once the amounts have been updated, everything for the entire report is recalculated. Remember: if you change amounts and then generate the report amounts again, your changes will be cleared. Page 39 Maintenance This allows amounts to be manually entered for page 39 of the report. Page 40 Maintenance This allows amounts to be manually entered for page 40 of the report. Display/Print BOE Report This allows you to print or display the school financial report. 67

74 School Financial Reporting Copy To/From Diskette This option allows the reporting information to be written to a diskette or downloaded from a diskette. This can be used if report information resides on more than one machine or directory. Each place where the report information exists will follow the same steps when balancing and preparing the report. Once the report balances for each place, the information will be copied to diskette and loaded to the designated computer for the combined reporting. The report will then contain totaled report information from all individual reports created. The file extension relates to the fund number that is entered on the System Control screen. Flexgen General Ledger Copyright All Rights Reserved LGC 68

75 City Budgeting Introduction The City Budget Module was designed in conjunction with CTAS. This budgeting tool is to help with the new proposed budget as well as loading the approved audited totals. ** Disclaimer: All screen examples listed throughout this document such as reports, are for reference only and are not necessarily the standard accounts used for your office. Before you Begin From the Accounting menu, go to File Handler and select File Maint. On the System Maint. option, select the Accounting Parameter Maint option. Accounting Parameter option. There are two parameters with which we are most concerned: Update Budget File at Year-End and Year-End Complete. 69

76 City Budgeting The Update Budget File at Year-End flag should be set to No. This ensures that at the time your year is closed, the information that was your current year financial data does not become your prior year financial data. Under most circumstances, that is not desirable. The Year-End Complete field should also be set to No at this point in time. If it is set to Yes, and you have not closed the current fiscal year, it should be set to No. Please contact LGC if you need help in determining what is appropriate. 1 P a g e Amending Current Year Budget Where you begin your budget process varies by location. For our purposes, we're going to begin with making amendments to your current year budget. There are differing perspectives on how to amend your budget (by line item or at the department/function level). Those have no bearing on how to use your LGC software in amending the budget. The methods remain the same. Updating the Budget File Whether you are beginning work on your proposed budget for the next fiscal year or considering work on amending your budget for your current fiscal year it is necessary to update the budget file. It is from this budget file from which all information is obtained in the budgeting process. From your Accounting menu select the City Budget option. It is located under the Budgets menu panel. Select City Budget from the menu. You should then see options similar to those below. Select the Budget Prep menu option. 70

77 General Ledger 2 P a g e In the Before Year-End section, you will have the below options. The first time each year in the budgeting process you will execute these options whose purpose is described below. Copy ACBG File The purpose of this option is to make a copy of the budget file before changes are made. This process should be selected before you select the option to Clear Budget File and/or Update Budget File from G/L. This process runs quickly and will take you back to the menu once it completes. Clear Budget File - ACBG The purpose of this option is so you can begin the budget process each year anew. Executing this option clears any amounts left over from a previous year's budget activity. Similarly, executing this option will also clear any imported, entered, or updated figures in your current budget file. Execute this option each year as you begin the budget process. It should not be necessary to execute this option more than once each year, unless you want to begin the budget process again. To execute, select Clear Budget File- ACBG. The option allows you to clear the budget file for one fund or all funds by entering the appropriate range. After entering Y for Clear Budget Records?, the software will prompt you Is This Screen Correct?'. If it is, select Yes. Otherwise, select No and make any necessary corrections. 71

78 City Budgeting 3 P a g e Update Budget File From G/L This option is normally executed numerous times throughout the budgeting process. As work proceeds normally in your office, the amount of revenue and expenditures changes from day to day. Executing this option as you work on your budget in various stages, ensures you will always have the very latest information available to you. At the very least, as you work on your proposed budget, this file should be updated once a month. That would be through the last completed month's work. To execute, select Update Budget File From G/L from the Before Year-End menu. The Update Budget File From G/L allows you to update one fund only, several funds in sequence, or all funds overseen by your office. Please note also, leaving all options blank automatically selects all options. This is critical to note especially in regards to options 5, 6, and 7 below. To select options, place an X in the box beside the appropriate options (defined below). 72

79 General Ledger You also have the option of specifying through which G/L (General Ledger) Month you want the information updated. The default is the month representing the current accounting period. For example, if you have closed February, the current accounting period is March and thus the default month will be March. For the purpose of amending your current year's budget, you will want the default GL month to be the current accounting period. When preparing to work on your proposed budget, this may or may not be the case. 4 P a g e Update Budget File From G/L Options Defined There are seven options that you may select. Each of these options represents a different column on the budget worksheet reports. Those columns are displayed to the right of the options you can select. We will discuss those reports in detail later in this document. 1. Update Prior Year Actual - As the name implies, this takes the actual account balances from your previous year's activity. This file should only need to be updated once throughout the budget process. Also, it may be necessary to adjust the amounts indicated here to concur with the audit of your prior year. 2. Update Budget and Amendments - From your current accounting records this option finds all budget entries for your revenue and expenditure accounts. 73

80 City Budgeting 3. Update Current Year Actual - Provides you with the most current amounts from actual entries to your current year revenue and expenditures through the month you indicated above. 4. Add Encumbrance to Current Year Actual - If using Purchase Orders it is advisable to select this option. This adds any outstanding purchase order amounts to the appropriate expenditure item. Thus allowing a true representation of money allocated to the various expenditures. 5. Clear Department Requests - Normally you will not select this option. Only select this option if you have entered amounts into this field using either the Budget Projection Change, imported from a spreadsheet, or filled via the Roll Budget Amounts option and you want those amounts cleared. Selecting this option will permanently delete those amounts. 6. Clear Budget Committee - Normally you will not select this option. Only select this option if you have entered amounts into this field using either the Budget Projection Change, imported from a spreadsheet, or filled via the Roll Budget Amounts option and you want those amounts cleared. Selecting this option will permanently delete those amounts. 7. Clear Commission Approval - Normally you will not select this option. Only select this option if you have entered amounts into this field using either the Budget Projection Change, imported from a spreadsheet, or filled via the Roll Budget Amounts option and you want those amounts cleared. Selecting this option will permanently delete those amounts. 5 P a g e Now that we've cleared and updated the budget file with our most recent information, we are ready to proceed with determining what portions of the budget, if any, are in need of amending. In the Curr Bgt Mgt menu option, you will notice several reports. These reports will provide you with information that can be used for reviewing actual versus budgeted amounts for your current fiscal year. Other Reports Stmt of Expenditures by Object This report can prove helpful in preparing your proposed budget for the coming year. It groups all departments (functions) by object number. For example, you see all your salary information for all departments together. The report also provides historical information providing Prior Year and Prior Prior Year actual data if available. In addition, 74

81 General Ledger the report provides the Current Year Original Budget and Budget Amendments, the Total Appropriations, Current Encumbrances and your Current Year remaining data. 6 P a g e Forecasted Amendment Detail & Summary These two reports provide virtually the same information. The primary difference being the Detail version displays accounts with Cost Centers and/or Sub Objects while the Summary version does not. Executing either option is performed in the same manner. Select either Forecasted Amendment or Forecasted Amendment Summarize from the Curr Bgt Mgt menu. You may enter an Account Number range to narrowly focus your report, or simply leave blank to report all budgeted accounts. The Beginning Fiscal Year f or the report should 75

82 City Budgeting be the first year in your current fiscal year range. For example, if the current fiscal year is for then 2014 will be your beginning fiscal year for this report. Once you are satisfied with your selections place a Y for Yes in the Screen Correct field. You then have the normal options to Display or Print the report. An example of which is displayed below. 7 P a g e The example of the Forecasted Amendment report shown above shows a line item that exceeds the budgeted amounts. This is indicated with the asterisks in the left and righthand columns of the report and can be verified by the Current Year Remain & the % Used column of the report. Entering Budget Amendments Once you have all your information for amending your current year budget, you are ready to make those entries to the General Ledger. This process is executed the same as previously in the legacy budget module. Remember, when making budget entries, debits and credits are opposite their normal entry. Normally to increase revenues you credit the account and to decrease revenues you debit the appropriate account. For budget entry purposes those are reversed. To increase a revenue amount you debit, to decrease revenues you credit. Similarly for expenditures, normal convention provides that to increase you debit and to decrease an expenditure you credit. Again, for budget entry purposes those are reversed. Thus to increase a budgeted expenditure requires a credit entry, to decrease a budgeted expenditure requires a debit entry. 76

83 General Ledger Also, if your amended entries do not balance you must make an offsetting entry to an equity account (reserves, retained earnings, or fund balance). 8 P a g e Budget Transactions Menu This option is used primarily for entering budget amendments. This can also be used for entering your final budget or original budget entries. You will not use this option for original budget entries if you use the Budget Projection Change to enter your budget amounts and roll those amounts. To make manual budget entries, from the City Budget menu, select Curr Bgt Mgt. Then select Transactions Menu. Next, select Transaction Maintenance. 9 P a g e 77

84 City Budgeting You will notice the similarity between the budget version of Transaction Maintenance and your GL version. The two work in the same manner. Depending on the setup for your particular office, you may have to enter the Transaction Number. Otherwise, it will be created automatically for you upon the completion of the entry. The function keys at the bottom of the window perform the same functions. For making budgetary amendments it is important to set the Budget Entry Type field to Amendment. Doing so ensures these entries appear properly on your fiscal reports, such as a Statement of Revenues or a Statement of Expenditures and Encumbrances. When you have completed making your entry, press the Update (F4) key. If necessary, make any other budget amendment entries at this time. After all budget entries have been entered, it is recommended you print a report to double check your work before posting them to the GL. Be sure you have properly debited and credited your revenues and expenditures. 78

85 General Ledger 10 P a g e Pre-Post Transaction Report This reports the entries entered via the Budget Transaction Maintenance. When you are satisfied the entries are correct, proceed to posting them to the GL. Post Budget Entries The software provides two options for posting budget entries: Post All Transactions and Post Individual Transactions. These options function similarly to those you find when posting entries to the General Ledger. Therefore we will not go into detail for posting entries here. Realize that upon selection of Post All Transactions the software immediately posts those transactions to the GL without any further interaction from the user. Preparing Your Proposed Budget Now that amending your current year's budget is completed, you are probably ready to begin or continue preparing the budget for the coming fiscal year. As discussed earlier, all information concerning the budget is contained in the Budget File. This allows for 'what if' scenarios without affecting your current year. For those scenarios to be accurate, you need to periodically update the budget file to reflect ongoing activity within your office, or more specifically the General Ledger. Several of the steps in this process have already been addressed in this document and will be briefly reviewed below. In general when using the City Budget Module, work will flow from left to right and top to bottom from the beginning to the end of the budget process. 11 P a g e 79

86 City Budgeting Copy ACBG File As indicated earlier, executing this option will make a copy of the current budget file. Execute this option each year as you begin the budget process. If you executed this option as indicated earlier, it is not necessary to do so again at this time. Clear Budget File - ACBG As indicated earlier, executing this option will clear any imported, entered, or updated figures in your current budget file. Execute this option each year as you begin the budget process. If you executed this option as indicated earlier, it is not necessary to do so again at this time. Update Budget File From G/L Before you select Update Budget File From G/L, be sure to select Copy ACBG File so it will make a copy of the current budget file before changes are made. It is recommended you update your budget file again at this point, especially if you have amended your budget. Since this option was discussed in detail in the Amending Current Year Budget section of this document, the execution of its options will not be discussed further at this point. Remember to periodically execute the Update Budget File From G/L as you proceed through the budget process. Executing this option as you work on your budget in various stages, ensures you will always have the very latest information available to you. At the very least, as you work on your proposed budget, this file should be updated once a month. Developing the Budget Several options exist to help you develop your proposed budget. We will examine those now. Budget Reports & Worksheets One of the first things you'll most likely do is to distribute some information to the various department heads. They in turn will provide you with requests for the line items under their direction. You have two options for providing reports to those individuals: a 3-column and a 7 column report. We'll also take a look at the budgetary version of the Statement of Expenditures by Object. 12 P a g e 80

87 General Ledger 3-Column Reports Two different variations of the 3-Column reports exist: Summarized and Detail. The primary difference between these two variations is the detailed report provides a breakdown for accounts with Cost Centers and Sub Objects. The summarized version combines those figures at the function (for revenues) or object (for expenditures) account level. To execute the 3-Col Summarized or the 3-Col Detail report, select Bgt/Dev from the City budget menu. Then select the appropriate report. If desired, enter the Beginning Fund and Ending Fund. To Include Accounts with Zero Balance enter a Y for Yes. Otherwise enter a N for No. The Beginning Projected Budget Date should be the first day in the new Fiscal Year. For example, in Tennessee for the Fiscal Year, that date would be 07/01/2015. Remember, it is not necessary to enter slashes when entering dates in your Flexgen software. 81

88 City Budgeting 13 P a g e The 3-Column budget worksheet provides you with completed prior year figures and blanks for the current year and proposed year. The columns are defined below. This allows for projecting both the current year and proposed year figures. This report is in portrait orientation for printing purposes. Column 1- Prior Year Column 2- Current Year Column 3- Proposed Budget (Next Year) 82

89 General Ledger 14 P a g e 7-Column Reports As with the 3-Column reports, the 7-Column reports provide different variations of this report: Summarized and Detailed. The primary difference, as with the 3-Column report, is that the Detailed variation provides you with a breakdown of accounts containing Cost Centers and Sub Objects. One valuable difference between the Summarized and Detailed versions of this report is in the ability to have departments break by page. Each time the department number (function) changes, the report will start a new page for the next department. This allows you to provide your department heads with information that is pertinent only to them. To execute the 7-Col Summarized or the 7-Col Detail report, select Bgt/Dev from the City Budget menu. Then select the appropriate report. If desired, enter the Beginning and Ending Fund. If you do not want any amounts printed or shown in columns 5,6,or 7, you will enter Y for Yes for the option Suppress Amounts Col 5 Thru 7. Your Beginning Fiscal Year For Report should be the first year in the new fiscal year. If you would like to show your budget reports starting with a certain page number you can enter that in under Starting Page No. This is for customers that publish a budget/financial book and need to change the page number for where they are inserting this report so that they can create a table of contents and the page numbers match up. 83

90 City Budgeting 15 P a g e If you want to customize the headings for columns 5, 6, and 7 answer Y for Yes. After completing the screen, the software will present you with the screen shown below. You may create numerous custom headings. Enter a number and description for the customized headings. Then enter your custom text for each column heading. Select 84

91 General Ledger Update (F4) when you have finished entering your text. Next, you will see the screen below. Select Yes to include accounts with zero balances. After responding appropriately, the normal Display and Print options dialog box will appear. The resulting report is similar to the one shown below. 16 P a g e 85

92 City Budgeting The columns for the report above are defined below. 1 - Prior Year 2 - Original Budget for the Current Year 3 - Amended Budget for the Current Year 4 - Current Year activity (may be actuals from GL, may include encumbrances from PO's, may be estimated figures for current year entered by the user) 5, 6, 7, - Proposed Budget (Next Year) As indicated above, one advantage to using the 7-Column Budget Worksheets is the detail provided for the Current Year. In addition, the columns available for the Proposed Budget allow you to track requests at the various stages of the budgetary process. For instance, once the information is entered via the Budget Projection Change option you will be able to track the requests by department heads, the budget committee, and see the final proposed budget to the Council. 17 P a g e Add New Budget Account The Add New Budget Account option enables you to add accounts you anticipate for your coming budget year that are not currently budgeted in your current year's operations. This simply adds the new budget accounts to your Budget File and does not affect your current year figures in any way. 86

93 General Ledger To add a new budget account from the City Budget menu, select Bgt/Dev then Add New Budget Account. Enter all pertinent information for the budget account to add. At the very least you will enter the Fund and Function for Revenues and Fund, Function, an Object for Expenditures. If you see the message "Account Does Not Exist on the GL" simply press Enter, the account will be added to the GL and you will be prompted to 'Add Budget Account' shown below. If the information is correct, select Yes. 18 P a g e 87

94 City Budgeting Delete Budget Account This option allows you to delete from the budget file those accounts that will not be used in the coming fiscal year. Just as the Add New Budget Account option doesn't add the accounts to your current year activity, the Delete Budget Account doesn't delete the accounts from your current records. It only deletes them from the budget file being used for preparing your proposed budget. To delete a budget record from the City Budget menu, select Bgt/Dev, then Delete Budget Account. You will see a screen similar to the one below. Enter the full account number you do not want to appear on your budget reports. If the account has current year activity you will see the message shown below notifying you of this fact and that you cannot delete this account due to this fact. The item below shows a budget account that can be deleted. It has no Current Year Budget or Current Year Activity. Press the Delete (F6) key to delete these records. 19 P a g e 88

95 General Ledger Budget Projection Change The Budget Projection Change is used for entering your proposed budget figures into the software. With this option you are allowed to correct data from the prior fiscal year, predict or enhance current year financial data, enter projections for the coming fiscal year, and prepare the budget amounts that are to be posted to the GL for the new budget year. You will use this option several times in the budgeting process as this is your primary tool for entering amounts for preparing your proposed budget. Before using the Budget Projection Change, you should select the option Copy ACBG file under the Budget Prep menu. This will make a copy of the budget file before you begin in case this file needs to be restored. You may also want to update your budget file so it includes your most recent data. Refer to the Update Budget file on page 4 and 5 of this document for specifics, if necessary. Then from the City Budget menu, select the Bgt/Dev panel. Then select Budget Projection Change. You have 5 selections possible. You may select any or all. If selected, you may modify the amount in that field regardless of its origin. The Department Request and the Budget Committee Approval fields are only available on the 7-Column reports. All others are available via either the 3-Column (Final) or 7-Column (Budget worksheet or Final) reports. Also, for our purposes, you will leave the Sub Fund Order field set to No. Once your selections are correct, answer Yes to the question 'Is This Screen Correct?'. 20 P a g e 89

96 City Budgeting There are several options for accessing specific accounts in the Budget Projection Change screen. You can enter the account number, use the Lookup (F2) option, use the arrow keys to the right of the account number fields, or use the page up/down keys on your keyboard. The fields displayed in white below will be the field(s) you placed an X beside on the 1st screen for the Budget Projection Change. You may enter information in one or all of those selected. Once information is entered into the last accessible field, the software presents the next sequential budget account. Continue in this manner until all amounts have been entered. 21 P a g e 90

97 General Ledger Budget Audit Amounts The City Budget Module allows a different approach to budgeting. That is a focus on achieving desired fund balance through budgeting. Using information from previous years audits allows you to more accurately arrive at a desired fund balance for your proposed budget. The Budget Audit Amounts option allows you to enter this information and the software uses it on the budgeting reports to show fund balance should you realize your proposed budget. This option is NOT required for completion of the budgetary process. Undesignated Fund Balance - This amount comes from your completed audit from the Prior Prior Year. (example, Current Fiscal Year is , Prior Year is , Prior Prior Year is ) Reserves - This amount also comes from your completed audit from your Prior Prior Year. Reserves should not include the reserves for encumbrances. Reserves for encumbrances should have been included on the audited expenditures when using the budgetary basis. Designated Fund Balance - If necessary, comes from audited Prior Prior Year. 91

98 City Budgeting Excess (Diff) in Rev/Exp - This amount is not editable and comes from your Prior Year figures. It equals the realized difference between your revenues and expenditures. Adjustment - If necessary to balance your audited Fund Balance from your Prior Year audit. Total Ending Fund Balance - This figure should be compared to the Fund Balance from your Prior Year Audit. If the numbers do not equal, you may use either the Adjustment field above or adjust Column 1 in the Budget Projection Change process described earlier in this document. If the numbers equal, you are finished with this process. 22 P a g e Below is an example of the 7-Column Summarized budget worksheet. This shows the results of the work done in the Budget Audit Amounts. In this example, the General Fund will realize a decrease in their Fund Balance as a result of budget projections. Roll Budget Amounts This feature allows you to roll amounts entered in one column to another column on your budget reports. In addition, in order to roll your budget amounts to the GL, the rolled amounts come exclusively from the last column on your budget worksheets (3 or 7). This option helps you to achieve this very easily. 92

99 General Ledger To roll your budget amounts from one column to another from the City Budget menu select Bgt/Dev, then Roll Budget Amounts. 23 P a g e Each Fund must be rolled individually. Begin by entering the appropriate Fund. Disregard the Sub Fnd field as it has no relevance to cities. The Roll Amended Budget to Est and Bgt Current Year? field allows you to use your amended budget figures as your current year figures for projection purposes. It should be stated that this does not provide a true and accurate picture of your current fiscal year activity and therefore should be considered carefully before selecting. Enter N for No to leave your Current Year figures as prepared via the Budget Projection Change process. 93

100 City Budgeting Select the Column on the left that contains the amounts you want to roll. On the right, enter the Column number to which you want the amounts rolled. After entering the 'To Column', the software will prompt if the screen is correct. Respond accordingly. Please note, on the 3-Column reports, the final or proposed budget column is the 3rd column. However, you must still enter 7 as the column for which to roll your figures. The 3-Column reports recognizes the figures in Column 7 from the Budget Projection Change process as those to report in Column 3 Remember, to Roll Budget to GL you must execute this option if you have not entered your figures into column P a g e Below is an example of the 7-Column Summarized budget worksheet with the figures in Column 6 rolled to Column 7 achieved by executing the Roll Budget Amounts option described above. Spreadsheets You may want to use other means to report and prepare your proposed budget. The Spreadsheets options allow you to do just that in the new City Budget Module. These options allow you to both export data to a file that can be viewed and modified in a spreadsheet, as well as import data from a file modified or created in a spreadsheet. Please note, these options deal only with 94

101 General Ledger summarized data. Data at the Cost Center or Sub Object level is neither exported nor imported. Create Spreadsheet File Selecting this option allows you to create a file for use with a spreadsheet program. You provide a name for the file which is created and placed in your data (typically named files) directory. You also have the option of placing the file in a folder or on a diskette or flash drive allowing it to be easily transported to another computer for use. From the City Budget menu select Oth SS, then Create Spreadsheet File. 25 P a g e To export a limited set of account numbers enter a Beginning and Ending Account Number. Otherwise, leaving as displayed below will export all pertinent account information (revenues, expenditures, and equity accounts). Note: Only Fund, Function, and Objects are exported. This option does not provide for the export of detailed information including Cost Centers and Sub Objects. Also note, the file created will be in a Tab Delimited format. It will be important to remember this information later when you open the exported file. 95

102 City Budgeting In the Spreadsheet File Name field enter a name for the resulting exported file. You are limited to twelve characters. Once the information entered is correct, enter Y for Yes in the Screen Correct? field. Once processing is completed, the software will prompt you to place a diskette in the disk drive to allow for copying the file for transportation. If you are using a diskette or flash drive, you will need to place it into the appropriate drive on your server. If you do not use a diskette or flash drive, depending on your setup it will copy the file to your appropriate folder. If you do not want to copy the file to a diskette, folder or flash drive at this time, simply press the Escape key on your keyboard. 26 P a g e 96

103 General Ledger The exported file can be opened with a spreadsheet application, such as Microsoft's Excel. Once opened, the file will look similar to the example shown below. The export provides no header information to define the data. Also, the information is in a General format. You may modify the data in any way you want, however ALL formatting, header information, sub-totals and totals must be removed prior to attempting to import the information back into the software. An example of a modified spreadsheet with sub-totals is shown below. Budget Export Fields As stated above, the export does not provide budget header or field name information. The columns associated with the budget export file are defined below. A - Fund B - Function C - Object D - Fund Description E - Function Description F - Object Description G - Prior Year Amounts H - Original Budget Amounts I - Amended Budget Amounts J - Current Year Amounts K - Column 5 of budget worksheets L - Column 6 of budget worksheets M - Column 7 (3) of budget worksheets 27 P a g e 97

104 City Budgeting Update Budget From Spreadsheet When you are ready to import the information into the budget software you must first remove all formatting (format as General), remove all headers, footers, sub-totals, & totals from the spreadsheet. You will also need to save the file as either a CSV (comma separated values) or Tab Delimited file. This is easily accomplished in your spreadsheet application using the Save As option. Once your spreadsheet is in the proper format, from the City Budget menu select Oth SS, then Update Budget From Spreadsheet. To import your CSV or Tab Delimited spreadsheet into your budget file you must tell the software where to find the file. In the Spreadsheet Path and Name enter the full path of the location and name of your spreadsheet (example path- L:\DOWNLOADS\BUDGET1516). Next, indicate the type of Delimiter used. Enter a 'C' for comma delimiter (CSV) or a 'T' for a tab delimiter. To successfully import your data back into the budget file, you need to tell the software where to find the data. There are 10 fields to which you may import data. Each column in your spreadsheet is normally identified by a letter. For the purpose of identifying what data goes where, you will need to assign a number for each column. Thus the information you are importing can reside in any column in your spreadsheet as long as you correctly tell the software where to find it. For example, Column A equals Column Number 1, Column B equals Column Number 2, etc. Also it is not necessary to fill in all the Spreadsheet Column Number fields. For those fields left blank, no data will be imported. 98

105 General Ledger Should you encounter an error similar to the one shown below, the error is either in the formatting of the spreadsheet you are trying to import, or you have incorrectly entered your column references. Press the Enter key or select OK, check your formatting and field references and try again. 28 P a g e Appropriation Resolution The Appropriation Resolution option provides you with the total Expenditure amounts at the Function or Department level. You may use this to create your official Appropriation Resolution for passage by your council. Add your own layout, formatting, and legal wording for presentation. From the City Budget menu, select Oth SS then Appropriation Resolution. To narrow the range of accounts exported enter Beginning and Ending Account numbers. In the Spreadsheet Name, enter a name for the exported file. When the screen is correct, enter Y for Yes. The software will prompt you with the message to place a diskette in the disk drive. If you are using a diskette or a flash drive you will need to place it in the appropriate drive on the server. If you do not want to place the file on diskette, in a folder or flash drive (depending on your setup), simply press escape. A file will be created according to the name you entered under Spreadsheet File Name. 99

106 City Budgeting The file created is a comma separated value (CSV) file. It contains no header information to identify the data and has no special formatting. An example of the exported file opened in a spreadsheet application is shown below. The columns for the exported file are defined below. Appropriation Resolution Export Fields A - Fund Number B - Function Number C - Fund Description D - Function Description E - Budgeted Appropriation amounts 29 P a g e Final Budget Reports The Reports menu panel provides you the option of printing 3-Column or 7- Column reports which you can present to your council or use during the budgetary process. Which report you choose depends on how much information you want to present. These reports are virtually identical to the Budget Worksheets discussed earlier in this document on pages One important difference to note is the 3- Column reports contain printed numbers in the current year actual and proposed budget columns (provided you rolled your budget figures to the last column using the Roll Budget Amounts option) instead of the blanks provided by the worksheet versions. Selection options are executed in the 100

107 General Ledger same manner as described earlier in the Budget Reports & Worksheets section. Examples of these reports are shown below. 30 P a g e Completing the Budget Process Once your budget has been approved, you may be ready to proceed with processing your final budget figures to the GL. Before proceeding to the Roll Budget to GL option, please make sure you have completed the following steps. 1. Entered your final figures from a budget worksheet into the Budget Projection Change option. 2. Rolled your final budget figures to Column 7 (if you hadn't done so already) via the Roll Budget Amounts option. 3. Closed your fiscal year. The Roll Budget to GL should not allow you to roll those figures if you haven't completed the Year-End. 101

108 City Budgeting You have two methods to update your budget information to the GL. Either by using the Budget Transactions option or the Roll Budget to GL option. Since we discussed the Budget Transactions option earlier in the document, we'll discuss the Roll Budget to GL option below. Roll Budget to GL Using the information you've entered into your budget file via either the Budget Projection Change option or the Update Budget From Spreadsheet option, the Roll Budget to GL option processes that information to your General Ledger. As mentioned above, you must first have closed your fiscal year before attempting to roll your budget to the General Ledger. From the City Budget menu, select Load GL then Roll Budget to GL. Entries will be posted using the date with which you logged into the software last. Please verify your login date and the required information is correct. 31 P a g e If you attempt to roll your budget to the General Ledger before you have closed your year, and provided your Year-End Closed flag is correctly set on your Accounting Parameter maintenance screen (see page 1 of this document), you should see the screen below. This indicates that either the year isn't closed and you need to wait until that has been completed, or the Year-End Closed flag isn't set correctly. 102

109 General Ledger If you have completed all the steps necessary noted above, when you select the option Roll Budget to GL, you should see a screen similar to the one shown below. It is strongly recommended you roll each fund separately. This allows you to correctly identify the Equity Offset Account. Enter a Beginning and Ending Fund number. 32 P a g e 103

110 City Budgeting Next, enter the Equity Offset Account for the fund entered above. This should be the funds Unreserved Fund Balance or Retained Earnings. Refer to your Trial Balance if you are uncertain of the account number to use. Enter a Transaction Description similar to the one shown. The description should allow you to easily identify the purpose of this transaction. Immediately upon entering a Y for Yes in the Continue? (Y/N) field, the software will begin posting your budget entries to your General Ledger. Entries will be posted using the date with which you logged into the software last. Please verify your login date and the required information is correct on the screen shown above before answering the Continue question. Budget Posting Journal It is recommended you print and keep a copy of the budget journal after posting all your budget entries. From the Load GL menu, select Posting Journal. Print the report as any other report normally printed in your office. Conclusion Using the information contained in this document should help you in using LGC's new City Budgeting software. It is not intended to replace or serve as instructions for budget projection purposes. Should you require assistance with the overall budgetary process, please consult the appropriate personnel or documentation, such as your Municipal Technical Advisory Service (MTAS) representative or someone of similar authority. If you require assistance in using LGC's software, please contact our office at Someone will be happy to assist you. 33 P a g e 104

111 County Budgeting Introduction The County Budget Module was designed in conjunction with CTAS. This budgeting tool is to help with the new proposed budget as well as loading the approved CTAS audited totals. ** Disclaimer: All screen examples listed throughout this document such as reports, are for reference only and are not necessarily the standard accounts used for your office. Before you Begin From the Accounting menu, go to File Handler and select File Maint. On the System Maint. option, select the Accounting Parameter Maint option. Accounting Parameter option. There are two parameters with which we are most concerned: Update Budget File at Year-End and Year-End Complete. The Update Budget File at Year-End flag should be set to No. This ensures that at the time your year is closed, the information that was your current year financial data does not become your prior year financial data. Under most circumstances, that is not desirable. The Year-End Complete field should also be set to No at this point in time. If it is set to Yes, and you have not closed the current fiscal year, it should be set to No. Please contact LGC if you need help in determining what is appropriate. 1 P a g e Amending Current Year Budget 105

112 County Budgeting Where you begin your budget process varies by location. For our purposes, we're going to begin with making amendments to your current year budget. There are differing perspectives on how to amend your budget (by line item or at the department/function level). Those have no bearing on how to use your LGC software in amending the budget. The methods remain the same. Updating the Budget File Whether you are beginning work on your proposed budget for the next fiscal year or considering work on amending your budget for your current fiscal year it is necessary to update the budget file. It is from this budget file from which all information is obtained in the budgeting process. From your Accounting menu select the County Budget option. It is located under the Budgets menu panel. Select County Budget from the menu. You should then see options similar to those below. Select Load/Audit menu option followed by Before Year-End. Here you will have several options. The first time each year in the budgeting process you will execute three of these options whose purpose is described below. 2 P a g e In the Before Year-End section, you will have the below options. The first time each year in the budgeting process you will execute both options whose purpose is described below. Copy ACBG File The purpose of this option is to make a copy of the budget file before changes are made. This process should be selected before you select the option to Clear Budget File and/or Update Budget File from G/L. This process runs quickly and will take you back to the menu once it completes. Clear Budget File - ACBG The purpose of this option is so you can begin the budget process each year anew. Executing this option clears any amounts left over from a previous year's budget 106

113 General Ledger activity. Similarly, executing this option will also clear any imported, entered, or updated figures in your current budget file. Execute this option each year as you begin the budget process. It should not be necessary to execute this option more than once each year, unless you want to begin the budget process again. To execute, select Clear Budget File- ACBG. The option allows you to clear the budget file for one fund or all funds by entering the appropriate range. After entering Y for Clear Budget Records?, the software will prompt you Is This Screen Correct?'. If it is, select Yes. Otherwise, select No and make any necessary corrections. 3 P a g e \Update Budget File This option is normally executed numerous times throughout the budgeting process. As work proceeds normally in your office, the amount of revenue and expenditures changes from day to day. Executing this option as you work on your budget in various stages, ensures you will always have the very latest information available to you. At the very least, as you work on your proposed budget, this file should be updated once a month. That would be through the last completed month's work. To execute, select Update Budget File from the Before Year-End menu. The Update Budget File allows you to update one fund only, several funds in sequence, or all funds overseen by your office. Please note also, leaving all options blank automatically selects all options. This is critical to note especially in regards to options 5, 6, and 7 below. To select options, place an X in the box beside the appropriate options (defined below). 107

114 County Budgeting You also have the option of specifying through which G/L (General Ledger) Month you want the information updated. The default is the month representing the current accounting period. For example, if you have closed February, the current accounting period is March and thus the default month will be March. For the purpose of amending your current year's budget, you will want the default GL month to be the current accounting period. When preparing to work on your proposed budget, this may or may not be the case. 4 P a g e Update Budget File Options Defined There are seven options that you may select. Each of these options represents a different column on the budget worksheet reports. Those columns are displayed to the right of the options you can select. We will discuss those reports in detail later in this document. 1. Update Prior Year Actual - As the name implies, this takes the actual account balances from your previous year's activity. This file should only need to be updated once throughout the budget process. Also, it may be necessary to adjust the amounts indicated here to concur with the audit of your prior year. 2. Update Budget and Amendments - From your current accounting records this option finds all budget entries for your revenue and expenditure accounts. 3. Update Current Year Actual - Provides you with the most current amounts from actual entries to your current year revenue and expenditures through the month you indicated above. 4. Add Encumbrance to Current Year Actual - If using Purchase Orders it is advisable to select this option. This adds any outstanding purchase order amounts to the appropriate expenditure item. Thus allowing a true representation of money allocated to the various expenditures. 5. Clear Department Requests - Normally you will not select this option. Only select this option if you have entered amounts into this field using either the Budget Projection Change, imported from a spreadsheet, or 108

115 General Ledger filled via the Roll Budget Amounts option and you want those amounts cleared. Selecting this option will permanently delete those amounts. 6. Clear Budget Committee - Normally you will not select this option. Only select this option if you have entered amounts into this field using either the Budget Projection Change, imported from a spreadsheet, or filled via the Roll Budget Amounts option and you want those amounts cleared. Selecting this option will permanently delete those amounts. 7. Clear Commission Approval - Normally you will not select this option. Only select this option if you have entered amounts into this field using either the Budget Projection Change, imported from a spreadsheet, or filled via the Roll Budget Amounts option and you want those amounts cleared. Selecting this option will permanently delete those amounts. 5 P a g e Now that we've cleared and updated the budget file with our most recent information, we are ready to proceed with determining what portions of the budget, if any, are in need of amending. In the Curr Bgt Mgt menu option, you will notice several reports. These reports will provide you with information that can be used for reviewing actual versus budgeted amounts for your current fiscal year. Other Reports Stmt of Expenditures by Object This report can prove helpful in preparing your proposed budget for the coming year. It groups all departments (functions) by object number. For example, you see all your salary information for all departments together. The report also provides historical information providing Prior Year and Prior Prior Year actual data if available. In addition, the report provides the Current Year Original Budget and Budget Amendments, the Total Appropriations, Current Encumbrances and your Current Year remaining data. This report is also available sorted by Sub Fund if necessary. 109

116 County Budgeting 6 P a g e Forecasted Amendment Detail & Summary These two reports provide virtually the same information. The primary difference being the Detail version displays accounts with Cost Centers and/or Sub Objects while the Summary version does not. Executing either option is performed in the same manner. Select either Forecasted Amendment or Forecasted Amendment Summarize from the Curr Bgt Mgt menu. Please note if necessary, reports by Sub-Fund order are also available. You may enter an Account Number range to narrowly focus your report, or simply leave blank to report all budgeted accounts. The Beginning Fiscal Year f or the report should be the first year in your current fiscal year range. For example, if the current fiscal year is for then 2014 will be your beginning fiscal year for this report. Tip: Entering the budget fiscal year for the report does not affect the report amounts, but changes the dates in the report headers. Once you are satisfied with your selections place a Y for Yes in the Screen Correct field. You then have the normal options to Display or Print the report. An example of which is displayed below. 110

117 General Ledger 7 P a g e The example of the Forecasted Amendment report shown above shows a line item that exceeds the budgeted amounts. This is indicated with the asterisks in the left and righthand columns of the report and can be verified by the Current Year Remain & the % Used column of the report. Entering Budget Amendments Once you have all your information for amending your current year budget, you are ready to make those entries to the General Ledger. This process is executed the same as previously in the legacy budget module. Remember, when making budget entries, debits and credits are opposite their normal entry. Normally to increase revenues you credit the account and to decrease revenues you debit the appropriate account. For budget entry purposes those are reversed. To increase a revenue amount you debit, to decrease revenues you credit. Similarly for expenditures, normal convention provides that to increase you debit and to decrease an expenditure you credit. Again, for budget entry purposes those are reversed. Thus to increase a budgeted expenditure requires a credit entry, to decrease a budgeted expenditure requires a debit entry. Also, if your amended entries do not balance you must make an offsetting entry to an equity account (reserves, retained earnings, or fund balance). 8 P a g e 111

118 County Budgeting Budget Transactions Menu This option is used primarily for entering budget amendments. This can also be used for entering your final budget or original budget entries. You will not use this option for original budget entries if you use the Budget Projection Change to enter your budget amounts and roll those amounts. To make manual budget entries, from the County Budget menu, select Curr Bgt Mgt. Then select Transactions Menu. Next, select Transaction Maintenance. 9 P a g e You will notice the similarity between the budget version of Transaction Maintenance and your GL version. The two work in the same manner. Depending on the setup for your particular office, you may have to enter the Transaction Number. Otherwise, it will be created automatically for you upon the completion of the entry. The function keys at the bottom of the window perform the same functions. For making budgetary amendments it is important to set the Budget Entry Type field to Amendment. Doing so ensures these entries appear properly on your fiscal reports, such as a Statement of Revenues or a Statement of Expenditures and Encumbrances. 112

119 General Ledger When you have completed making your entry, press the Update (F4) key. If necessary, make any other budget amendment entries at this time. After all budget entries have been entered, it is recommended you print a report to double check your work before posting them to the GL. Be sure you have properly debited and credited your revenues and expenditures. 10 P a g e Pre-Post Transaction Report This reports the entries entered via the Budget Transaction Maintenance. When you are satisfied the entries are correct, proceed to posting them to the GL. Post Budget Entries The software provides two options for posting budget entries: Post All Transactions and Post Individual Transactions. These options function similarly to those you find when posting entries to the General Ledger. Therefore we will not go into detail for posting entries here. Realize that upon selection of Post All Transactions the software 113

120 County Budgeting immediately posts those transactions to the GL without any further interaction from the user. Preparing Your Proposed Budget Now that amending your current year's budget is completed, you are probably ready to begin or continue preparing the budget for the coming fiscal year. As discussed earlier, all information concerning the budget is contained in the Budget File. This allows for 'what if' scenarios without affecting your current year. For those scenarios to be accurate, you need to periodically update the budget file to reflect ongoing activity within your office, or more specifically the General Ledger. Several of the steps in this process have already been addressed in this document and will be briefly reviewed below. In general when using the County Budget Module, work will flow from left to right and top to bottom from the beginning to the end of the budget process. 11 P a g e Copy ACBG File As indicated earlier, executing this option will make a copy of the current budget file. Execute this option each year as you begin the budget process. If you executed this option as indicated earlier, it is not necessary to do so again at this time. Clear Budget File - ACBG As indicated earlier, executing this option will clear any imported, entered, or updated figures in your current budget file. Execute this option each year as you begin the budget process. If you executed this option as indicated earlier, it is not necessary to do so again at this time. Update Budget File Before you select Update Budget File, be sure to select Copy ACBG File so it will make a copy of the current budget file before changes are made. It is recommended you update your budget file again at this point, especially if you have amended your budget. Since this option was discussed in detail in the Amending Current Year Budget section of this document, the execution of its options will not be discussed further at this point. Remember to periodically execute the Update Budget File as you proceed through the budget process. Executing this option as you work on your budget in various stages, ensures you will always have the very latest information available to you. At the very least, as you work on your proposed budget, this file should be updated once a month. Load CTAS to Budget Another option available before beginning the development of your new budget is the Load CTAS to Budget. This allows you to load a file containing prior year audited values that may be obtained from Co. Audit through CTAS. (If interested, request this file from your CTAS representative). From the County Budget menu, select Load/Audit, then Before YE. 12 P a g e 114

121 General Ledger Select Load CTAS to Budget upon selecting this option you will see the box below. The Load CTAS to Budget option copies from a specific drive or folder. You can copy from a diskette, flash drive or folder. Choose the path of where your file is located on the left side (example L:\LGC\DOWNLOADS) and on the right side select the file (example ANYWHERE2013.csv) then select OK. Once you select your file and say ok you will see the below screen. For Do you want to import prior year-end closing data (Col 1)? Enter Select Y for Yes. Enter the Beginning and Ending Fund numbers. Then select Yes, if the screen correct. The information will then be available for use in your budget file. After importing the file from CTAS you will be prompted to print or display the Exception Report. Items on the report did not import for the reasons stated. If items appear on the report that are relevant to your work call LGC and we will work with you to resolve the issues. If you need to execute the report again, you may select the Exception Report from the Before YE menu. 13 P a g e NOTE: Once you have copied your data from the Load CTAS to Budget do not execute the Update Prior Year Actual option 1 from the Update Budget File menu again unless 115

122 County Budgeting you want it to replace data from the CTAS file. You may however execute options 2-7 as instructed earlier in this document. Developing the Budget Several options exist to help you develop your proposed budget. We will examine those now. Budget Reports & Worksheets One of the first things you'll most likely do is to distribute some information to the various department heads. They in turn will provide you with requests for the line items under their direction. You have two options for providing reports to those individuals: a 3-column and a 7 column report. We'll also take a look at the budgetary version of the Statement of Expenditures by Object. 14 P a g e 3-Column Reports Two different variations of the 3-Column reports exist: Summarized and Detail. The primary difference between these two variations is the detailed report provides a breakdown for accounts with Cost Centers and Sub Objects. The summarized version combines those figures at the function (for revenues) or object (for expenditures) account level. To execute the 3-Col Summarized or the 3-Col Detail report, select Bgt/Dev from the County Budget menu. Then select the appropriate report. 116

123 General Ledger If desired, enter the Beginning Fund and Ending Fund. To Include Accounts with Zero Balance enter a Y for Yes. Otherwise enter a N for No. The Beginning Projected Budget Date should be the first day in the new Fiscal Year. For example, in Tennessee for the Fiscal Year, that date would be 07/01/2015. Remember, it is not necessary to enter slashes when entering dates in your Flexgen software. 15 P a g e 117

124 County Budgeting The 3-Column budget worksheet provides you with completed prior year figures and blanks for the current year and proposed year. The columns are defined below. This allows for projecting both the current year and proposed year figures. This report is in portrait orientation for printing purposes. Column 1- Prior Year Column 2- Current Year Column 3- Proposed Budget (Next Year) 16 P a g e 7-Column Reports As with the 3-Column reports, the 7-Column reports provide different variations of this report: Summarized and Detailed. The primary difference, as with the 3-Column report, is that the Detailed variation provides you with a breakdown of accounts containing Cost Centers and Sub Objects. One valuable difference between the Summarized and Detailed versions of this report is in the ability to have departments break by page. Each time the department number (function) changes, the report will start a new page for the next department. This allows you to provide your department heads with information that is pertinent only to them. To execute the 7-Col Summarized or the 7-Col Detail report, select Bgt/Dev from the County Budget menu. Then select the appropriate report. If desired, enter the Beginning and Ending Fund. If you do not want any amounts printed or shown in columns 5,6,or 7, you will enter Y for Yes for the option Suppress Amounts Col 5 Thru 7. Your Beginning Fiscal Year For Report should be the first year in the new fiscal year. If you would like to show your budget reports starting with a certain page number you can enter that in under Starting Page No. This is for customers that publish a budget/financial book and need to change the page number for where they are inserting this report so that they can create a table of contents and the page numbers match up. 118

125 General Ledger 17 P a g e If you want to customize the headings for columns 5, 6, and 7 answer Y for Yes. After completing the screen, the software will present you with the screen shown below. You may create numerous custom headings. Enter a number and description for the customized headings. Then enter your custom text for each column heading. Select Update (F4) when you have finished entering your text. Next, you will see the screen below. Select Yes to include accounts with zero balances. After responding appropriately, the normal Display and Print options dialog box will appear. The resulting report is similar to the one shown below. 119

126 County Budgeting 18 P a g e The columns for the report above are defined below. 1 - Prior Year 2 - Original Budget for the Current Year 3 - Amended Budget for the Current Year 4 - Current Year activity (may be actuals from GL, may include encumbrances from PO's, may be estimated figures for current year entered by the user) 5, 6, 7, - Proposed Budget (Next Year) As indicated above, one advantage to using the 7-Column Budget Worksheets is the detail provided for the Current Year. In addition, the columns available for the Proposed Budget allow you to track requests at the various stages of the budgetary process. For instance, once the information is entered via the Budget Projection Change option you will be able to track the requests by department heads, the budget committee, and see the final proposed budget to the Council. 19 P a g e Stmt of Expenditures by Object Another available report you may find of value is the Budgetary Statement of Expenditures by Object. This report can prove helpful in preparing your proposed budget for the coming year. It groups all departments (functions) by object number. For example, you see all your salary information for all departments together. The report also provides historical information providing Prior Year and Prior Prior Year actual data if available. In addition, the report provides the Current Year Original Budget and Budget Amendments, the Total Appropriations, Current Encumbrances and your 120

127 General Ledger Current Year remaining data. This report is also available sorted by Sub Fund if necessary. 20 P a g e Add New Budget Account The Add New Budget Account option enables you to add accounts you anticipate for your coming budget year that are not currently budgeted in your current year's operations. This simply adds the new budget accounts to your Budget File and does not affect your current year figures in any way. To add a new budget account from the County Budget menu, select Bgt/Dev then Add New Budget Account. 121

128 County Budgeting Enter all pertinent information for the budget account to add. At the very least you will enter the Fund and Function for Revenues and Fund, Function, an Object for Expenditures. If you see the message "Account Does Not Exist on the GL" simply press Enter, the account will be added to the GL and you will be prompted to 'Add Budget Account' shown below. If the information is correct, select Yes. 21 P a g e Delete Budget Account 122

129 General Ledger This option allows you to delete from the budget file those accounts that will not be used in the coming fiscal year. Just as the Add New Budget Account option doesn't add the accounts to your current year activity, the Delete Budget Account doesn't delete the accounts from your current records. It only deletes them from the budget file being used for preparing your proposed budget. To delete a budget record from the County Budget menu, select Bgt/Dev, then Delete Budget Account. You will see a screen similar to the one below. Enter the full account number you do not want to appear on your budget reports. If the account has current year activity you will see the message shown below notifying you of this fact and that you cannot delete this account due to this fact. The item below shows a budget account that can be deleted. It has no Current Year Budget or Current Year Activity. Press the Delete (F6) key to delete these records. 22 P a g e Budget Projection Change The Budget Projection Change is used for entering your proposed budget figures into the software. With this option you are allowed to correct data from the prior fiscal year, predict or enhance current year financial data, enter projections for the coming fiscal year, and prepare the budget amounts that are to be posted to the GL for the new budget year. You will use this option several times in the budgeting process as this is your primary tool for entering amounts for preparing your proposed budget. Before using the Budget Projection Change, you should select the option Copy ACBG file under the Before Year-End menu. This will make a copy of the budget file before you begin in case this file needs to be restored. You may also want to update your budget file so it includes your most recent data. Refer to the Update Budget file on page 123

130 County Budgeting 4 and 5 of this document for specifics, if necessary. Then from the County Budget menu, select the Bgt/Dev panel. Then select Budget Projection Change. You have 5 selections possible. You may select any or all. If selected, you may modify the amount in that field regardless of its origin. The Department Request and the Budget Committee Approval fields are only available on the 7-Column reports. All others are available via either the 3-Column (Final) or 7-Column (Budget worksheet or Final) reports. Also, for our purposes, you will leave the Sub Fund Order field set to No. Once your selections are correct, answer Yes to the question 'Is This Screen Correct?'. 23 P a g e There are several options for accessing specific accounts in the Budget Projection Change screen. You can enter the account number, use the Lookup (F2) option, use the arrow keys to the right of the account number fields, or use the page up/down keys on your keyboard. The fields displayed in white below will be the field(s) you placed an X beside on the 1st screen for the Budget Projection Change. You may enter information in one or all of those selected. Once information is entered into the last accessible field, the software presents the next sequential budget account. Continue in this manner until all amounts have been entered. 124

131 General Ledger 24 P a g e Budget Audit Amounts The Budget Projection Change Process is used to enter projected figures for next year's budget. Rather than merely entering revenues and expenditures the Budget Audit Amounts option allows you to enter fund balance amounts from prior audits. This information is then used to give you a projected fund balance for the end of the new fiscal year, if your new budget is realized as projected. This option is NOT required for completion of the budgetary process. 125

132 County Budgeting Undesignated Fund Balance - This amount comes from your completed audit from the Prior Prior Year. (example, Current Fiscal Year is , Prior Year is , Prior Prior Year is ) Reserves - This amount also comes from your completed audit from your Prior Prior Year. Reserves should not include the reserves for encumbrances. Reserves for encumbrances should have been included on the audited expenditures when using the budgetary basis. Designated Fund Balance - If necessary, comes from audited Prior Prior Year. Excess (Diff) in Rev/Exp - This amount is not editable and comes from your Prior Year figures. It equals the realized difference between your revenues and expenditures. Adjustment - If necessary to balance your audited Fund Balance from your Prior Year audit. Total Ending Fund Balance - This figure should be compared to the Fund Balance from your Prior Year Audit. If the numbers do not equal, you may use either the Adjustment field above or adjust Column 1 in the Budget Projection Change process described earlier in this document. If the numbers equal, you are finished with this process. 25 P a g e Below is an example of the 7-Column Summarized budget worksheet. This shows the results of the work done in the Budget Audit Amounts. In this example, the General Fund will realize a decrease in their Fund Balance as a result of budget projections. Roll Budget Amounts This feature allows you to roll amounts entered in one column to another column on your budget reports. In addition, in order to roll your budget amounts to the GL, the rolled amounts come exclusively from the last column on your budget worksheets (3 or 7). This option helps you to achieve this very easily. 126

133 General Ledger To roll your budget amounts from one column to another from the County Budget menu select Bgt/Dev, then Roll Budget Amounts. 26 P a g e Each Fund must be rolled individually. Begin by entering the appropriate Fund. The Roll Amended Budget to Est and Bgt Current Year? field allows you to use your amended budget figures as your current year figures for projection purposes. It should be stated that this does not provide a true and accurate picture of your current fiscal year activity and therefore should be considered carefully before selecting. Enter N for No to leave your Current Year figures as prepared via the Budget Projection Change process. Select the Column on the left that contains the amounts you want to roll. On the right, enter the Column number to which you want the amounts rolled. After entering the 'To Column', the software will prompt if the screen is correct. Respond accordingly. Please note, on the 3-Column reports, the final or proposed budget column is the 3rd column. However, you must still enter 7 as the column for which to roll your figures. The 3-Column reports recognizes the figures in Column 7 from the Budget Projection Change process as those to report in Column 3 127

134 County Budgeting Remember, to Roll Budget to GL you must execute this option if you have not entered your figures into column P a g e Below is an example of the 7-Column Summarized budget worksheet with the figures in Column 6 rolled to Column 7 achieved by executing the Roll Budget Amounts option described above. Spreadsheets You may want to use other means to report and prepare your proposed budget. The Spreadsheets options allow you to do just that in the new County Budget Module. These options allow you to both export data to a file that can be viewed and modified in a spreadsheet, as well as import data from a file modified or created in a spreadsheet. Please note, these options deal only with summarized data. Data at the Cost Center or Sub Object level is neither exported nor imported. Create Spreadsheet File Selecting this option allows you to create a file for use with a spreadsheet program. You provide a name for the file which is created and a copy placed in your files directory. You also have the option of placing the file in a folder or on a diskette or flash drive allowing it to be easily transported to another computer for use. From the County Budget menu select Oth SS, then Create Spreadsheet File. 28 P a g e To export a limited set of account numbers enter a Beginning and Ending Account Number. Otherwise, leaving as displayed below will export all pertinent account information (revenues, expenditures, and equity accounts). Note: Only Fund, Function, and Objects are 128

135 General Ledger exported. This option does not provide for the export of detailed information including Cost Centers and Sub Objects. Also note, the file created will be in a Tab Delimited format. It will be important to remember this information later when you open the exported file. In the Spreadsheet File Name field enter a name for the resulting exported file. You are limited to twelve characters. Once the information entered is correct, enter Y for Yes in the Screen Correct? field. Once processing is completed, the software will prompt you to place a diskette in the disk drive to allow for copying the file for transportation. If you are using a diskette or flash drive, you will need to place it into the appropriate drive on your server. If you do not use a diskette or flash drive, depending on your setup it will copy the file to your appropriate folder. If you do not want to copy the file to a diskette, folder or flash drive at this time, simply press the Escape key on your keyboard. 29 P a g e The exported file can be opened with a spreadsheet application, such as Microsoft's Excel. Once opened, the file will look similar to the example shown below. 129

136 County Budgeting The export provides no header information to define the data. Also, the information is in a General format. You may modify the data in any way you want, however ALL formatting, header information, sub-totals and totals must be removed prior to attempting to import the information back into the software. An example of a modified spreadsheet with sub-totals is shown below. Budget Export Fields As stated above, the export does not provide budget header or field name information. The columns associated with the budget export file are defined below. A - Fund B - Function C - Object D - Fund Description E - Function Description F - Object Description G - Prior Year Amounts H - Original Budget Amounts I - Amended Budget Amounts J - Current Year Amounts K - Column 5 of budget worksheets L - Column 6 of budget worksheets M - Column 7 (3) of budget worksheets 30 P a g e Update Budget From Spreadsheet When you are ready to import the information into the budget software you must first remove all formatting (format as General), remove all headers, footers, sub-totals, & totals from the spreadsheet. You will also need to save the file as either a CSV (comma separated values) or Tab Delimited file. This is easily accomplished in your spreadsheet application using the Save As option. Once your spreadsheet is in the proper format, from the County Budget menu select Oth SS, then Update Budget From Spreadsheet. 130

137 General Ledger To import your CSV or Tab Delimited spreadsheet into your budget file you must tell the software where to find the file. In the Spreadsheet Path and Name enter the full path of the location and name of your spreadsheet (example path- L:\DOWNLOADS\BUDGET1516). Next, indicate the type of Delimiter used. Enter a 'C' for comma delimiter (CSV) or a 'T' for a tab delimiter. To successfully import your data back into the budget file, you need to tell the software where to find the data. There are 10 fields to which you may import data. Each column in your spreadsheet is normally identified by a letter. For the purpose of identifying what data goes where, you will need to assign a number for each column. Thus the information you are importing can reside in any column in your spreadsheet as long as you correctly tell the software where to find it. For example, Column A equals Column Number 1, Column B equals Column Number 2, etc. Also it is not necessary to fill in all the Spreadsheet Column Number fields. For those fields left blank, no data will be imported. Should you encounter an error similar to the one shown below, the error is either in the formatting of the spreadsheet you are trying to import, or you have incorrectly entered your column references. Press the Enter key or select OK, check your formatting and field references and try again. 31 P a g e Appropriation Resolution The Appropriation Resolution option provides you with the total Expenditure amounts at the Function or Department level. You may use this to create your official Appropriation Resolution for passage by your council. Add your own layout, formatting, and legal wording for presentation. From the County Budget menu, select Oth SS then Appropriation Resolution. To narrow the range of accounts exported enter Beginning and Ending Account numbers. In the Spreadsheet Name, enter a name for the exported file. When the screen is correct, 131

138 County Budgeting enter Y for Yes. The software will prompt you with the message to place a diskette in the disk drive. If you are using a diskette or a flash drive you will need to place it in the appropriate drive on the server. If you do not want to place the file on diskette, in a folder or flash drive (depending on your setup), simply press escape. A file will be created according to the name you entered under Spreadsheet File Name. The file created is a comma separated value (CSV) file. It contains no header information to identify the data and has no special formatting. An example of the exported file opened in a spreadsheet application is shown below. The columns for the exported file are defined below. Appropriation Resolution Export Fields A - Fund Number B - Function Number C - Fund Description D - Function Description E - Budgeted Appropriation amounts 32 P a g e Sending Budget to CTAS If CTAS prepares your budget for you they need your current year data exported to a file. The op- tions under Create Disk creates a file that can be sent to CTAS. The option If CTAS Prints Budget allows you to select one or multiple funds to export and creates the file. 132

139 General Ledger The option Copy Budget-CTAS copies the file to your desired location (folder, flash drive or diskette) which can then be delivered or ed to CTAS. The name of the file is CTASBUD.TXT. 33 P a g e Final Budget Reports The Reports menu panel provides you the option of printing 3-Column or 7- Column reports which you can present to your council or use during the budgetary process. Which report you choose depends on how much information you want to present. These reports are virtually identical to the Budget Worksheets discussed earlier in this document. One important difference to note is the 3- Column reports contain printed numbers in the current year actual and proposed budget columns (provided you rolled your budget figures to the last column using the Roll Budget Amounts option) instead of the blanks provided by the worksheet versions. Selection options are executed in the same manner as described earlier in the Budget Reports & Worksheets section. Examples of these reports are shown below. 133

140 County Budgeting 34 P a g e Completing the Budget Process Once your budget has been approved, you may be ready to proceed with processing your final budget figures to the GL. Before proceeding to the Roll Budget to GL option, please make sure you have completed the following steps. 1. Entered your final figures from a budget worksheet into the Budget Projection Change option. 2. Rolled your final budget figures to Column 7 (if you hadn't done so already) via the Roll Budget Amounts option. 3. Closed your fiscal year. The Roll Budget to GL should not allow you to roll those figures if you haven't completed the Year-End. You have two methods to update your budget information to the GL. Either by using the Budget Transactions option or the Roll Budget to GL option. Since we discussed the Budget Transactions option earlier in the document, we'll discuss the Roll Budget to GL option below. Roll Budget to GL Using the information you've entered into your budget file via either the Budget Projection Change option or the Update Budget From Spreadsheet option, the Roll Budget to GL option processes that information to your General Ledger. As mentioned above, you must first have closed your fiscal year before attempting to roll your budget to the General Ledger. From the County Budget menu, select Load GL then Roll Budget to G/L. 134

141 General Ledger Entries will be posted using the date with which you logged into the software last. Please verify your login date and the required information is correct. 35 P a g e If you attempt to roll your budget to the General Ledger before you have closed your year, and provided your Year-End Closed flag is correctly set on your Accounting Parameter maintenance screen (see page 1 of this document), you should see the screen below. This indicates that either the year isn't closed and you need to wait until that has been completed, or the Year-End Closed flag isn't set correctly. If you have completed all the steps necessary noted above, when you select the option Roll Budget to GL, you should see a screen similar to the one shown below. It is strongly recommended you roll each fund separately. This allows you to correctly identify the Equity Offset Account. Enter a Beginning and Ending Fund number. 135

142 County Budgeting Next, enter the Equity Offset Account for the fund entered above. This should be the funds Unreserved Fund Balance or Retained Earnings. Refer to your Trial Balance if you are uncertain of the account number to use. 36 P a g e Enter a Transaction Description similar to the one shown. The description should allow you to easily identify the purpose of this transaction. Immediately upon entering a Y for Yes in the Continue? (Y/N) field, the software will begin posting your budget entries to your General Ledger. Entries will be posted using the date with which you logged into the software last. Please verify your login date and the required information is correct on the screen shown above before answering the Continue question. Budget Posting Journal It is recommended you print and keep a copy of the budget journal after posting all your budget entries. From the Load GL menu, select Posting Journal. Print the report as any other report normally printed in your office. Other Options X/I Fund A couple of other options that can be inserted into the workflow of this document involve consolidating budgets in non-centralized counties. These options allow for the export and import of budget data at whatever stage in the process agreed upon by all offices involved. For instance, a Highway Department and/or Board of Education could export their budget data for import in the County Mayor's office. This allows for a consolidated presentation of the budget. This can take place after the exporting offices had worked their budget data thru to completion, or without doing any work on the budget. The steps presented below are optional. You are not required to use them for preparation of your budget. Copy File to Export The Copy File to Export option allows you to export your budget data for import into the budget data in the County Mayor's office. From Other, select Copy File to Export. Enter the appropriate information and once updated this option will copy the file to your desired location (diskette, flash drive or folder) depending on your setup. 37 P a g e 136

143 General Ledger After the data has been copied to the desired location you can take or the file to your County Mayor's office for importing. The filename is AC22.FLE. Import To Temp File In the County Mayor's office, to import the file for consolidation of budget information, select the Other menu select Import To Temp File. Place the diskette or flash drive you received from one of the submitting offices in your server's disk drive. If you receive this file via , you will copy the AC22.FLE file to the correct media or folder to import the file, depending on your setup. 38 P a g e View Temp File Once the Import To Temp File process is complete you are given the opportunity to view the data before it is actually updated to your Budget File. Select View Temp File 137

144 County Budgeting from the Other menu. Copy Temp File to Budget File If you are satisfied with the data presented you may complete the import process. To import the data to your budget file, select Copy Temp File To Budget File. Enter the appropriate information concerning Beginning and Ending Fund numbers. To Include Current Year Actuals enter a Y for Yes. This includes this data from the file being imported. To Import Prior Year-End Closing Data enter a Y for Yes. This includes this data from the file being imported. If you want to Clear the Budget File Fund Records enter a Y for Yes. Enter Yes, if you have data left over from last year that needs to be cleared out. Enter No, if you have done any budget projection work that you don't want to lose. Once this process is completed for all submitting offices, you are now ready for working with a consolidated budget. 39 P a g e Conclusion Using the information contained in this document should help you in using LGC's County Budget software. It is not intended to replace or serve as instructions for budget projection purposes. Should you require assistance with the overall budgetary process, please consult the appropriate personnel or documentation, such as your County Technical Advisory 138