Insight Best Practices

Transcription

1 2018 User Group Meeting June 4-7, 2018 Insight Best Practices Date: 6/6/2018 Page: 1

2 Table of Contents In General... 3 Insight Module Flowchart... 4 Accounts Payable... 6 Accounts Receivable... 6 Capital Credits... 6 Cash Manager... 6 Fixed Assets... 7 General Ledger... 7 Inventory... 8 Plant Assets... 8 Project Costing... 8 Purchasing... 9 Payroll... 9 Transportation...10 Unclaimed Property...10 Work Orders...10 Date: 6/6/2018 Page: 2

3 In General - Don t make entries to subsidiary GL accounts (payable account, inventory account, etc.) outside of that account s subsidiary module. o In rare cases where this may be necessary (generally to correct something), feel free to run it by PCS first. - Utilize the Notes buttons throughout the system. o Examples: more details on why a journal entry was made, reasoning for a change made to employee setup, etc. - Be as consistent as possible. o Once routines that work for your organization have been established, do your best to stick with them. - Communicate with other departments and employees. o This is especially true at larger utilities. It s important to know who has done what, particularly when it comes to month-end. - Plan for absences. o Consider typing up your orders of operations for certain processes in the event that you are out of the office on the day they need to be done. - Help new employees succeed. o Whenever possible, be sure that employees moving into new positions are familiar with their job responsibilities and as much of the day-to-day responsibilities as possible before they move into the role. o PCS is here to help with this. - Take and keep notes. o When you come across an unusual situation, or find that the same process is giving you trouble frequently, consider recording the solutions somewhere where you can access them in the future. This could save you or others time someday. o PCS has notes on many processes, so feel free to check with us on this. - Use your resources. o There are many websites and forums that address general or even specific accounting questions, and many of your offices likely have literature on utility accounting tucked away somewhere. o PCS is also here to answer any questions you have about the system, and don t forget to utilize your auditor as a resource for accounting-related questions. o Be as detailed as possible when sending a question. The more information we have, the more effectively we ll be able to research. - Keep reports when possible. o After printing important reports such as month-end balancing reports or financial statements, be sure to keep copies on hand for at least a reasonable length of time. Some of these reports can be difficult or impossible to reproduce later. o If your organization is attempting to go paperless, our reports offer export options to PDF or Excel. Date: 6/6/2018 Page: 3

4 - Remember that PCS period closes are soft closes. o With the proper security rights, posting to prior periods can (and in some cases should) be done. o The system will handle this even to the prior year. Insight Module Flowchart - This shows the interactions between each Insight module. This can be useful in determining whether or not a given module can be closed before another. It also helps with understanding the flow of information through the Insight system in general. - See next page for the Insight module flowchart. Date: 6/6/2018 Page: 4

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6 Accounts Payable (AP) 1. Verify that all known vouchers for the period have been entered and posted. o If vouchers come in late that need to be posted to the prior period, this can be done with proper security rights. 2. Verify that all checks for the period have been printed and processed. 3. Balance to GL, and verify that any differences are reconcilable. 4. Close the period. o Note: If you receive an error message about an unposted batch but can t find it on the Voucher Entry screen, it is likely on the Void AP Checks screen. Accounts Receivable (AR) 1. Verify that all invoices for the period have been entered and posted. 2. If you have any recurring invoices that need to be entered, process and post those. 3. Verify that payments for the period have been entered and posted, including those made in Cashiering. 4. Run the finance charge process (if applicable). 5. Balance to GL, and verify that any differences are reconcilable. 6. Close the period. Capital Credits (CC) 1. Verify that all processes (patronage allocations, adjusting entries, estate checks, general retirement, etc.) for the period have been run. o There may be months with little to no activity in Capital Credits. 2. Close the period. Cash Manager (CM) Date: 6/6/2018 Page: 6

7 1. Verify that all cash transactions for the period have been entered and posted/processed. o This could include entries or processes in AP, AR, CC, GL, UP, or Cashiering. 2. Balance to GL, and verify that any differences are reconcilable. 3. Reconcile the bank statement. There may be reconcilable differences due to timing. - The Insight applications are all period-based with the exception of Cash Manager, which is date-based. As such, all entries involving cash should be entered with a date that matches the period. If, for example, an entry involving cash is made with a May period but a June date, this will be a reconcilable item on the May bank reconciliation. It could either be reversed and re-entered or noted as a reconciling item. Either way, this would no longer be a problem on the June reconciliation. Fixed Assets (FA) 1. Process depreciation, then review and post the depreciation batches. 2. Balance to GL, and verify that any differences are reconcilable. 3. Close the period. General Ledger (GL) 1. Process and post any recurring entries for the period. 2. Verify that all needed journal entries for the period have been entered and posted. 3. Process the stores expense allocation. o This shouldn t be done until all inventory entries and all entries to the stores expense clearing account have been made for the month. 4. Run your month-end GL reports, such as financial statements. o We recommend filing these away somewhere, either physically or digitally (or both). They can be run again in the future for this period, but if any entries are made back to the period after closing it, the data on the reports will have changed accordingly. 5. Run the Current Period by Module report to verify that all modules other than GL have been closed to the next period. 6. Close the period. o As noted above, GL should be the last module to be closed in each period. o Note that when the 12 th period is closed in GL, the system also closes the year. Date: 6/6/2018 Page: 7

8 This means that net income is rolled into the retained earnings account and the beginning balances for income and expense accounts are set to $0.00 for the first period of the new year. Inventory (IN) 1. Verify that all activity for the period has been entered and posted. o This can include PO receipts, material issues to work orders or expense accounts, salvage from retirement, sales of materials, and any other miscellaneous inventory entries. 2. Balance to GL, and verify that any differences are reconcilable. 3. Close the period. Plant Assets (PA) 1. Verify that all entries for the period have been created/entered and posted. o This can include special equipment entries (either through AP vouchers or manual entries in PA) and any other miscellaneous plant entries. o Work orders should also be closed before closing Plant Assets as Type A work order closes post PA batches. 2. Balance to GL, and verify that any differences are reconcilable. 3. Close the period. Project Costing (PC) 1. Close the period. o Most entries to projects come from other sources, such as AP or PR. This module does not need to be balanced to GL or to any other module. As such, the only month-end procedure for PC is to close it before closing GL. Date: 6/6/2018 Page: 8

9 Purchasing (PO) 1. Verify that all receipts for the period have been entered and posted. 2. Check the inventory variance account s balance. o If used correctly, any balance in this account should represent receipts with inventory items that have been posted but not yet pulled in on AP vouchers. If there aren t any such receipts, the account balance should be $ Purchasing does not have its own current period; instead, it uses the current period from the Inventory module. As such, there is no period close that needs to be processed for PO specifically. Payroll (PR) 1. Verify that all timesheets for the period have been entered and posted. 2. Verify that all payrolls for the period have been processed and the advice slips or checks have been kept. 3. Process payroll allocations. o This process cannot be run until all timesheets for the period have been paid. For example, if paying biweekly and the May 31 st timesheet isn t paid until June 10 th, May allocations cannot be run until the June 10 th payroll has been processed and the advice slips or checks have been kept. o Payroll allocations need to be processed before closing PC, TR, or WO as payroll allocations can update data in these modules. 4. Balance to GL, and verify that any differences are reconcilable. 5. Close the period. o In some cases, this can be done after Step 1. This depends on your pay structure. In the example above with a May 31 st timesheet that isn t paid until June 10 th, the Payroll period could be closed to June after all May timesheets have been entered and posted. Payrolls and May allocations could still be processed, and this would make it less likely that any June timesheets would accidentally be posted to May. Date: 6/6/2018 Page: 9

10 Transportation (TR) 1. Verify that all costs and truck usage for the period have been entered and posted in AP & PR, respectively. o Note that payroll allocations should be run before closing Transportation as well. 2. If using clearing units to record generic transportation expenses (bulk purchases such as oil or filters, for example), run the multi-unit allocation process. o This process is only necessary if TR allocations are set up to run by unit. It moves costs from the dummy units to real units in proportion to the real units usage (miles or hours) during the period. If TR allocations are set up by class, these costs will all be considered together within classes, so there is no need to move costs from one unit to another within classes. 3. Process transportation allocations. o This process spreads costs from the TR clearing accounts to the GL accounts that incurred usage (miles or hours) during the period, in proportion to the amount of usage each GL account incurred. 4. Close the period. Unclaimed Property (UP) 1. Verify that any necessary entries for the period have been entered and posted. o There may be months with little to no activity in Unclaimed Property. 2. Close the period. Work Orders (WO) 1. Verify that all costs to work orders for the period have been entered and posted. o This can include entries from AP, AR, FA, GL, IN, PA, PO, PR, TR, or WO. o Because of the number of modules that can send data to WO, we typically recommend closing WO late in the process of closing a period. 2. Run the overhead allocation process. o This moves costs from one or multiple clearing work orders to the work orders that incurred costs in the chosen basis for the period. The basis is typically labor Date: 6/6/2018 Page: 10

11 costs, but another basis can be chosen if desired. 3. If closing work orders for the period, run the work order close process(es). o This can include closes to plant assets (Type A work orders), fixed assets (Type C work orders), or GL expense accounts (Type D work orders). 4. Balance to GL, and verify that any differences are reconcilable. 5. Close the period. Date: 6/6/2018 Page: 11