Re: Splitting subscription invoices monthly in campus accounting system

From: Beth Price
Sent: Monday, November 1, 2021 2:03 PM
To: ACQNET_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG
Subject: FW: Splitting subscription invoices monthly in campus accounting system

Hi Laura,

We went through this. I claim no accounting expertise, but can share some of what we’ve learned over the years. In the end it was for the best in my opinion.

If your University follows Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) my understanding is that best practice dictates expenditures must be reported in the fiscal year for which the services were rendered, not the fiscal year in which you received the invoice. Our university refers to the months that are paid in the next fiscal year as “prepays”. Most universities are regularly audited and I believe this is something the auditors need to review.

A few things we learned:


  1.  My colleague, Paula Albers, developed a spreadsheet that we tweaked over the years as we better understood the info we needed to track and project. At the beginning of each fiscal year we enter our projected cost for each database and how many months, if any, will need to be “prepaid” to the next fiscal year. This lets us quickly calculate total expenses for current fiscal year vs next. The spreadsheet worked great the first year. Following years were trickier because we had to add in the “prepays” carried over from previous fiscal year. Thus, some formulas depend on data that needs to be manually entered in columns to their right - I’ve not yet made time to rearrange those, but the numbers work. We’ve successfully used it for a couple years now. I attached an abbreviated version of the sheet we use with formulas only, and one example, in case you want to play with it, or adapt it to your needs. If you notice any mistakes in formulas, etc. let me know. They are exclusively mine.
  2.  We track all this in our Sierra accounting module also. The spreadsheet makes Sierra entry quick & easy. And there are things spreadsheet can tell us that Sierra can’t and vice versa.
  3.  I regularly reconcile our expected prepays with our university’s central accounting reporting system (CARS) to be sure the amount they expended to next fiscal year matches the amount I expected. If there are discrepancies we work them out right away instead of waiting for fiscal close (ack!).
  4.  Be sure you understand the invoice threshold amount requiring a prepay ($10,000+, $2500+, etc.) and ask Finance to notify you right away if they change it.

Most important is communication with your Finance or Accounting department. The more we understood about how things work on their end, the easier things became. Our Finance staff is amazing but their plates are as overfull as ours, so communication takes patience and persistence.

Feel free to phone me if you’d like. I would love to hear what others are doing if they’re able/willing to share.

Best,

Beth Price
Senior Resources Development Librarian
Webster University Libraries
314-246-6971
bethprice14_at_webster.edu<mailto:bethprice14_at_webster.edu>


Any opinions expressed are my own and do not reflect any official stance held by my employer.


From: ACQNET Email List <ACQNET_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG<mailto:ACQNET_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG>> On Behalf Of Laura Turner
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2021 11:33 AM
To: ACQNET_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG<mailto:ACQNET_at_LISTS.CLIR.ORG>
Subject: Splitting subscription invoices monthly in campus accounting system

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.

Hello,

Beginning this fiscal year (which runs July-June on our campus), our campus accounting office began splitting our large subscription invoices (e.g. for database packages) into monthly "payments" in the campus accounting system (we switched to WorkDay as our enterprise accounting application in June 2021).  So the university is paying the entire bill at once, but posting monthly payments based on the date coverage of the payment (much to our surprise).  This means that some of our packages that start coverage in October (for example) will have July-September 2022 payments posted in the next fiscal year.

Has anyone else had this experience and can you please tell me how you handle(d) it?  This is looking nightmarish to my department at this point and I'd like to explore if this is happening elsewhere before I meet with our campus accounting leadership.

Thanks for any input - feel free to reply directly to me if you prefer.

Also, if you have experience with WorkDay as your campus enterprise accounting application and would be willing to talk to me and my electronic resources and serials librarian about your processes, please let me know.

Laura

Laura Turner
Head of Collections, Access, and Discovery
Helen K. and James S. Copley Library / University of San Diego
5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA  92110-2492
Phone:  (619) 260-2365 | lauraturner_at_sandiego.edu<mailto:lauraturner_at_sandiego.edu>

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