RE: Serials Accounting

["Williams, Norma" <nwilliam@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: Serials Accounting

Shirley,
          I tried years ago to send invoices once a month so it would be easier to keep up with the ones they got paid during the month and the ones they did not. I was told they preferred to get them every week and I just can't seem to do that with two jobs. Anyway, we could try again.We do have some things that come in and we want to send them at odd times even though it is not time for all to go. You can decide how you want me to handle it.

                                                                         Norma

-----Original Message-----
From:   Fox, Linda J. [SMTP:FoxLJ@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent:   Tuesday, December 21, 1999 4:58 PM
To:     'INNOPAC@xxxxxxxxxx'
Cc:     Dingley, Brenda L.
Subject:        RE: Serials Accounting

We have developed a work-around for this problem which you might find useful.
Several years ago we instituted an internal "monthly closing" for payment of
invoices, etc.  This date usually falls during the third week of the month.  All
invoices are submitted to the University's Accounting Office for payment in time
for checks to be cut that month.  Any fund adjustments are also posted (for
example, we credit interest on several endowed gift funds).  No more activity is
performed until after the first of the month.  Then, when we receive the monthly
report from Accounting, we compare that with the financial report run on the
"closing" date.  We still find occasional discrepancies, but these are real
discrepancies which need to be resolved.  We have found that this process helps
us catch errors made early in the fiscal year (and let's face it, none of us is
perfect) and resolve them in a timely manner instead of rushing around at the
end of the year trying to find them all.

Hope this helps.
Linda Fox
Library Assistant, Technical Services Division
304 Miller Nichols Library
University of Missouri--Kansas City
5100 Rockhill Rd.
Kansas City, MO  64110

phone: (816) 235-5290
fax: (816) 333-5584
email: foxlj@xxxxxxxxxx




-----Original Message-----
From: Catherine Foreman [mailto:cforeman@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 1999 2:52 PM
To: INNOPAC@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Serials Accounting




We also used to reconcile the accounts from our system with the
University's Finance Department records, but stopped that once we moved to
Innopac. The reason was because the figures never matched, as you have
found. Our previous system was GEAC, and we would enter the invoices in
GEAC, but not authorize them until they were shown as paid by Finance. The
authorization in GEAC would move the money from Encumbered to Spent,
therefore the figures always matched.
We were very disappointed to find that Innopac did not offer this, and sent
it in as an enhancement request early on, but never saw anything come of
it. As soon as an invoice is entered in Innopac, and the posting is done
(we post each morning), the money is moved into Spent, but the invoice may
not be paid by Finance for one or two weeks, or sometimes longer.
It is important for our figures to be accurate for subscriptions, so
eventually we resorted to not entering the invoices in Innopac until they
were paid by Finance. Unfortunately this has it's drawbacks, as one can't
tell by looking at the record if an invoice has been received. We don't
enter a note in the record as it would be too time-consuming, but do keep a
copy of the invoice in our files.
We do enter invoices for monographs before they are sent to Finance, and
have just resigned ourselves to the fact that the accounts don't match.
When we do our year-end reports, we use Finance's Spent figures.
Sorry to not have a better solution for you. I'd love to hear if anyone
else does!
Happy Holidays all,
Cathy

At 03:07 PM 12/21/1999 -0500, you wrote:
>Each month I go over the ledger from our finance office and check off
>every invoice in the file. These match exactly. Then I check the amount
>accounted for in III, and find that III shows a considerably higher amount
>in the spent column, and I cannot account for the difference. With 800+
>titles being paid, it is nearly impossible to track where the discrepancy
>begins.
>
>Does anyone else have a problem reconciling accounts in III? In four
>months I am over $1881, and last fiscal year it was $3200. No single title
>stands out as the culprit. Any suggestions?
>
>Betsy Fishman
>Acquisitions Manager
>Muhlenberg College
>484-664-3570
>efishman@xxxxxxxxxx
>
>
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Catherine Foreman                  phone: (905)688-5550 ext.3265
Bibliographic Services             fax: (905)988-5490
Acquisitions Supervisor            email: cforeman@xxxxxxxxxx

James A. Gibson Library            
Brock University                    
St. Catharines, ON, Canada  L2S 3A1
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