General
Q: Why are we doing this quarterly close and continuous monitoring?
A: Quarterly Close helps us reduce errors, keep our ledgers more current, and report on the City’s financial activity more efficiently at year end.
Q: How will I find out the status of pending documents before the quarterly close?
A: Refer to the FY25 Quarterly Close Tasks by Module: Q1, Q2, and Q3 article.
Accounts Payable
Q: What will happen to vouchers that are not fully approved before the quarterly close?
A: Pending vouchers will not be deleted. Departments can change the accounting date to the open quarter.
Accounts Receivable
Q: What should departments do about incomplete AR deposits? Some departments share their bank accounts with other departments that may not have completed their transactions.
A: We will run queries to identify the departments with incomplete deposits. The cash team will also include this information when sending out their reports.
Expenses
Q: What should approvers do with submitted expense reports from closed quarters that haven’t been approved yet?
A: At close, expense reports should either be fully approved or “pushed back” to be resubmitted in the open quarter. When resubmitting, the accounting date of the report will automatically be updated to the open quarter with no additional necessary.
Q: Can we change the accounting date in Expenses?
A: No, accounting dates in expenses are a system date and cannot be changed.
General Ledger (GL)
Q: What will happen to journal entries that are not fully approved before quarterly close?
A: They will be deleted.
Procurement (PO/RQ)
Q: We always receive PO change order requests throughout the year for POs released in Q1, Q2, and Q3. If a quarter is now closed, how should we handle change order requests for POs from that quarter?
A: Departments should create new PO releases against Supplier Contracts when additional goods or services are needed.
Q: If POs are pending on change orders on the closing date, will the POs be deleted?
A: No.
Q: Even if we update the PO Header Accounting Date of a PO change order to a date later than the closed quarter, we cannot update the PO Distribution Line Budget Date. Will we still be able to add funds to a PO Distribution Line with a budget date from a closed quarter within the current fiscal year?
A: If additional goods or services are required departments should not create a Change Order; please create a new Purchase Order. If there has been any Voucher activity against the PO distribution line, the Budget Date can’t be updated. If there is no Voucher activity against the PO distribution line the Budget Date can be updated to a date in an open period. If there are multiple distribution lines the Apply to all Distribs checkbox must be selected when using Override in PO Defaults.
Q: Who should be reviewing and finalizing POs related to IT requisitions?
A: Department should coordinate with OCA. Ideally, POs can be finalized as soon as they are sourced from a requisition.
Q: For procurements that take extended time (e.g. vehicles), can departments still create POs from requisitions in closed quarters within the current fiscal year?
A: Yes. Just note that the pre-encumbrance will still be associated with the original date, while the pre-encumbrance liquidation and PO encumbrance will be in the open quarter.
Q: Can we do change orders in an open quarter to POs from closed quarters within the current fiscal year?
A: In general, departments should create new POs when additional goods or services are needed. This is because change orders are difficult to reconcile and difficult for other people to understand receipts. Change orders should not be used to increase PO amounts.
Reductive change orders are appropriate for reducing quantities or amounts for POs released against a Supplier Contract, however. Departments will need to change the PO accounting date to the open quarter. Reductive change orders need to be completed before PO close on each according quarter end date. It is not possible to do change orders for accounting dates from closed quarters after PO close.
Q: Which dashboard should we use to identify documents that need to be finalized and closed?
A: Inactive POs and Requisitions. This is for Requisition Processors, PO Processors, and PO Admins. Please check out the brief and comprehensive training, Purchasing 281: Managing the Requisition and Purchase Order Lifecycle, to learn how to log into SF Reports & Analytics and work with the dashboard. You can find enrollment instructions in the Search for a class or course in SF Learning article.