Monthly Budget Report Certification Procedures

Overview

Agencies are required to report on transactions from appropriations and/or receipts each month. The report formats are prescribed by the Office of State Budget (OSBM). By the 10th working day of the following month, the agency is responsible for certifying that the month end reports are accurate and complete. The agency is responsible for checking and acknowledging the accuracy of its month end reports while month end production and distribution are controlled centrally. Each agency identifies persons with the responsibility of pre-certifying the month end reports to the Office of the State Controller by submitting the certification form to OSC by the tenth working day of the following month. OSC then generates copies of the reports for the General Assembly Fiscal Research and any designated agency copies that night. Electronic copies of the reports are available in Systemware.

If an agency records a prior period adjustment after producing month-end certified reports, the agency must recertify for that month and any subsequent months. Agencies must notify the OSC and explain any prior period adjustments. The OSC will assist the agency in reissuing the impacted reports

Monthly Budget Report Reconciliation Procedures

The purpose of the Monthly Budget Report Reconciliation Procedures is to reconcile appropriations, allotments, disbursements, receipts, and cash activities by budget code to the North Carolina Financial Systems (NCFS) and North Carolina Accounting System General Ledger. There are four reconciliation procedures to account for each type of budget code an agency might have:

• General Fund
• Federal Fund
• Capital Improvement Fund
• Special Funds

Any fund other than a General Fund, Federal Fund, or CI is termed a Special Fund.

Before an agency begins to reconcile these reports, all activity for the month must be posted to the NCAS General Ledger and the NCFS system. This means that:

• All unfinished documents created through the Budgetary Control module that have effective dates for the certified period are completed, approved, and posted.
• The suspense account (Account 99999999899 / Center 999999999998) should have a zero balance for all companies. All suspense account entries that have effective dates for the certified period must be cleared.
• All special suspense accounts such as the Payroll Suspense account (Account 531999 / Center 9999), Health Benefits Suspense account (Account 531998 / Center 9999), and Mail Service Suspense account (Account 532849 /  Center 9999) should have a zero balance for all companies.
• There are no error batches in the Suspended Batch Master (SBM) with effective dates for the month being certified.
• The Disbursing Account (111250) for all companies has a zero balance. The disbursing account must be cleared after each check cycle. The entry to clear the Disbursing Account is a debit to the Disbursing Account and a credit to the Allotment Account (111270) or Budget Code Cash Account (111260).
• The AP encumbrances and PS encumbrances listed on the Box Totals report (C-GL-Box Totals) are zero for all companies.
• All company totals on the Box Totals report (C-GL-Box-Totals) are equal to zero.
• The ending cash balances on the Statement of Cash, Receipts, Disbursements, and Balances (BD704) report are correct for all special revenue funds.

"The preliminary steps described above correlate to the information found in the Month-End Report Certification Readiness Checklist document.  

Report Certification Process: Guidelines

Statewide reporting guidelines require an agency to certify by the tenth working day that its prior month's financial reports are accurate and ready to be made available to the central managers. The central manager agencies are OSC, Office of State Budget Management, Office of the State Auditor, and the Fiscal Research Division of the General Assembly.  Some of the central managers review electronic copies of the reports, while others require hardcopies.  Each agency is responsible for distributing any hardcopy reports to central managers if required.  The certification process requires several steps.

Certification Procedure

“Refer to the Performing Month-End Procedures for certification procedures.”