FINANCIAL SERVICES
DRAFT
Preparing PCard Clearing Fund Journal Vouchers for
Institutional Approvers
October 2014
A FLOWCHART
To be developed
B. NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION
The purpose of this document is to provide the institutional approvers with a document they can
use to assist administrators prepare journal vouchers in order to remove transactions from the
clearing fund that has been created for the PCard process.
Background
Tri-Agency guidelines require independent review and approval of transactions prior to the
transaction posting to a research fund in UniFi. To support recording PCard transactions in the
appropriate period, Payment Services sends a PCard reminder email to card holders to remind them
of the submission deadline of PCard statements for processing. If the reconciled PCard statement
is not received by the deadline, Tri-Agency related PCard transactions are posted to a clearing fund.
Any transactions that are posted to this clearing fund need to be removed by journal entry to an
appropriate fund by the last working day of the following month.
The journal entry must be prepared in UniFi Plus as the preparer will be required to provide the
reason for the journal entry in FOATEXT. The journal entry is an independent transaction,
regardless that it is a result of the PCard process, that must be complete and fully supported
(examples are provided below). Two underlying principles drive this process.
1. The journal entry must be understood by the end user (fund holder and / or manager). This
will be accomplished by including useful information in the description field. The
description field information is what appears in FAST as a transaction description.
2. The journal entry must have an audit trail. This is accomplished in the document text field
(FOATEXT).
The following narrative explains how institutional approvers will be notified that have been posted
to the clearing fund and how to transfer the transactions from the clearing fund to an appropriate
fund via journal entry.
Process Narratives
On the 3rd working day of each month, Payment Services will generate a report (excel
spreadsheet) listing of the transactions that have been have posted to the Tri-Agency PCard
clearing fund. This report and will include the following information:
• The PCard number (PCXXXXX),
• The relevant taxes,
• The GST rebate (if applicable), and
• the original CFOAPAL from the PCard holders reconciliation statement.
The report will be sent to the designated institutional approvers responsible for approving TriAgency transactions. The institutional approver is responsible for ensuring that transactions on
the report are moved from the clearing fund to an appropriate fund using journal entries.
pg. 1
Note: One of the important principles of the institutional approver function is that they are only
to review and approve transactions. This means they are not able to initiate transactions.
Therefore, the approvers must ensure that the journal vouchers are prepared by an administrative
staff member (who has been appropriately delegated) or the grant holder.
Journal voucher preparation process:
• Use UniFi Plus;
• One journal voucher must be completed for each cardholder.
• Each PC number (identified in the transaction column of the spreadsheet) must have a
separate line on the journal voucher to meet audit requirements.
• The journal voucher must have both a debit and an offsetting credit for each of the PC
number.
o The debit entry (DR - where the charge is being transferred to) is posted to the
original CFOAPAL or an appropriate college or unit fund.
o The credit entry (CR) removes the transaction from the clearing fund (415950).
Column ‘S’ of the report provides the original CFAPAL.
• In instances where there are several lines of transactions that relate to one PC number
(GST Rebate, Self-Assessing, etc), the amounts of these lines should be netted (added
together) in order to get a single debit line for each PC number.
• Capturing text: There are two different requirements to capture text in a journal entry.
1. Description field. This is the information that will appear in the Description column
in FAST and must be written in a manner that will be understood by the fund owner.
There is a maximum of 35 characters for this field; therefore to ensure the description
field is captured in a consistent manner, please include the following:
o the month and year of the statement (e.g. Feb 14)
o the PCard reference number (PCXXXXXX)
o the vendor (e.g. Fischer)
2. Document text field - FOATEXT. This is the information provides the audit trail
information. The document text must be written in a manner that will be understood
by individuals who may not be familiar with university processes. To ensure the
description field is captured in a consistent manner, please include the following:
o The date of the original transaction captured in dd-mmm-yy format
o The name of the card holder captured as Last_Name, First_Name (or intitial)
o The reason for the journal entry. The PCard transactions have been:
 authorized by the grant holder or delegate,
 supported by sufficient and complete supporting documents, and
 have been reviewed and approved
o The justification for the expense as provided by the grant holder or delegate
where required.
• In UniFi Plus the document total is the total amount of the journal voucher where the
debit and credit amounts are added together as if both were positive amounts.
• The journal voucher is normally completed by administrative staff and is submitted (in
the system) to the institutional approver for his/her review and approval. Once posted to
UniFi, the institutional approver must check the balance in fund 415950 to ensure the
journal voucher has removed the transaction from the clearing fund and the fund balance
has been zeroed out.
pg. 2
Example 1:
The original transaction is for a FedEx courier charge on A Jones’ PCard which was charged to
the original CFOAPAL fund number 402901. As the statement was late, this charge was
transferred to the Tri-Agency Pcard clearing fund 415950. In the report sent out to institutional
approvers, the charges would appear as follows:
415950-1020-70203-8000
415950-1020-70203-8000
Fedex 726628059/E.Mitter - McGill U
GST Rebate - 67 rate/Fedex 72662805
81.62
(2.61)
PC630140 Jones, A
PC630140 Jones, A
The journal voucher entry that needs to be prepared is as follows:
Debit (moves the expense to the appropriate fund):
Credit (removes from the clearing fund):
1-402901-1020-70203-8000
1-415950-1020-70203-8000
$79.01
$79.01
The description field: (max 35 characters which will show up in UniFi):
Sep 14 PC630140 Fedex.
Document text:(required in order to add further detail and description of the purchase as
necessary) such as:
05-Sep-14 Jones, A. The PCard transactions have been authorized by the grant holder or
delegate, supported by sufficient and complete supporting documents, and have been reviewed
and approved by the institutional approver. The expense relates to send the final publication
document to research collaborator Eleanor Mitter of McGill Univ.
Example 2:
The original transaction is for two separate charges on A Smith’s PCard relating to purchases for
time travel which was charged to fund number 403033. As the statement was late, this charge
was transferred to the Tri-Agency Pcard clearing fund. From the report that was sent out to
institutional approvers, the charges would appear as follows:
403033-1066-70616-8000
403033-1066-70616-8000
403033-1066-70616-8000
403033-1066-70616-8000
403033-1066-70616-8000
403033-1066-70616-8000
403033-1066-70616-8000
403033-1066-70616-8000
Comsol Inc
GST – Self Assessed
PST – Self Assess
GST Rebate – 67 rate/Comsol Inc
Comsol Inc
GST – Self Assessed
PST – Self Assess
GST Rebate – 67 rate/Comsol Inc
1,744.94
87.25
87.25
(54.46)
1,746.06
87.30
87.30
(54.49)
PC123478
PC123478
PC123478
PC123478
PC123490
PC123490
PC123490
PC123490
Smith, A
Smith, A
Smith, A
Smith, A
Smith, A
Smith, A
Smith, A
Smith, A
Since there are two PC numbers there needs to be two separate entries.
Entry 1.
Debit (moves the expense to the appropriate fund): 1-403033-1066-70616-8000 $1860.98
Credit (removes from the clearing fund):
1-415950-1020-70203-8000
$1860.98
Description: Sep-14 PC123478 Comsol Inc
Entry 2.
Debit (moves the expense to the appropriate fund): 1-403033-1066-70616-8000 $1862.78
Credit (removes from the clearing fund):
1-415950-1020-70203-8000
$1862.78
pg. 3
Description:
Sep 14 PC123480 Comsol Inc
Document Text:
06-Sep-14 Smith, A. The PCard transactions have been authorized by the grant holder or
delegate, supported by sufficient and complete supporting documents, and have been reviewed
and approved by the institutional approver. The expense relates to purchase a reactor to invent
time travel.
pg. 4