Account reconciliation

Reconciling the monthly revenue and expense detail report is critical fiscal management control. It ensures that revenue and expenditure transactions are correct, allowable and applied to the appropriate accounts.

Departments should reconcile:

• Actual revenues and expenses could reveal duplicate invoice payments and amounts charged in error or non-payment. These issues can be immediately corrected to keep budgets balanced and accurate. Refer to the Reconciling Operational Transactions guide for more information.
• P-Card transactions.
• Revenues to ensure payments made to ASU are deposited intact, in a timely fashion and recorded with the appropriate worktag.
• Salaries and wages. Refer to the best practices for reconciling payroll expenses guide for more information.

Departments are responsible for verifying accounts and proving and documenting that an account balance is correct at least once a month for the previous month’s activity.

Preparer, approver and department responsibilities

All departments should have preparer and approver reconciliation roles.

• Preparers are administrative staff who handle a department’s day-to-day fiscal responsibilities and should be familiar with routine transactions for a department’s accounts.
• Approvers are typically administrative staff who report departmental accounts’ status monthly to the director, chair or other designated official.

Departments with limited staff that does not have a preparer and approver should consult with their dean’s office or vice president financial administrators to determine how to handle these roles appropriately.

Verifying transactions

A transaction may be verified without physically verifying supporting documentation if the reviewer knows the transaction’s nature. They should research and resolve discrepancies and verify that all transactions comply with ASU policies and procedures.

Note: Some internal service units do not provide invoices for services rendered, such as postage charges from ASU Mail Services. Departments must know the expected, customary and routine charges from these units. If any charges appear unusual, the department should contact the unit to request supporting documentation and resolve discrepancies.

When reconciliation is complete, the approver should:

1. Verify the appropriateness and legitimacy of the transactions recorded against the department’s accounts.
2. Review any unusual or unexpected high dollar-amount transactions in detail.