United States Department of Agriculture
Research, Education and Economics

ARS * CSREES * ERS * NASS

Bulletin

ANNUAL CLOSING GUIDANCE

Due to externally imposed accelerated deadlines associated with the preparation and submission of the Department's FY 2002 financial statements, we are amending year-end closing deadlines for various financial operations. The following provides preliminary annual closing guidance.

Preparing for Year-End Close:

1. Review of Unliquidated Obligations

Departmental Regulation 2230-001 requires us to formally review unliquidated obligations semi- annually. It is especially important for us to ensure that all invoices associated with FY 1997 obligations are paid prior to September 30. Properly executed invoices must be received by National Finance Center (NFC) by 4 p.m. (CDT) on September 13, 2002, in order to disburse prior to September 30, 2002. Unless FY 1997 invoices are paid prior to September 30, 2002, the management units will have to pay for these invoices from FY 2003 or other future appropriations.

Payments against cancelled appropriations are governed by the statutory provisions of Public Law (PL)101-510. Briefly, PL 101-510 states that budget authority is canceled after the five-year period of expired authority has ended for an annual (1 year) appropriation. At the end of the five-year period all budget authority, both obligated and unobligated, is canceled and the unused budget authority is transferred to the Treasury. Thereafter, payments against canceled years must be funded from current year's direct appropriated funds within the area. There is no central funding source to draw upon. A number of areas had to use FY 2002 funding to pay for FY 1996 and other canceled years' invoices this year.

As part of this process, it is important to review all prior year (FY 1997 - 2001) unliquidated obligations and to clear out all invalid obligations so that our financial records provide an accurate picture of our obligated balances and to maximize the availability of prior year budget authority for paying invoices properly chargeable to prior year periods.

2. Period End Estimates (YE) Documents

It is important for accounting personnel to familiarize themselves with the entry of period end estimate (YE) documents at this time rather than waiting until the end of the fiscal year and possibly encountering difficulties. Please practice by entering a YE document for a nominal amount 2 or 3 different times prior to September. Information for preparing YE documents may be found starting on Page 41 of the FFIS Spending Quick Reference Guide. If difficulties are encountered, contact the FFIS Operations Branch (FFISOB) Help Desk on (301) 504-4429.

3. Expenditure of Funds

Fundholders should make every effort to obligate available funding by early September. The Financial Management Division (FMD) will work with the Budget and Program Management Staff (BPMS) and the National Program Staff (NPS) to ensure that High Priority Requirements List (HPRL) and program funding is released as early as possible. Obviously, business will not come to a halt and there will be occasions where requirements will be identified late in the year or funding will be made available at the last minute. However, these occasions should be kept to a minimum and routine, “common” purchases should be completed prior to September.

Year End Close

In previous years, we have had several weeks to “clean-up” our Location Obligation Tracking System (LOTS) records, research “aging” documents, and reconcile the September ledgers prior to submitting our final period end estimates. This year, September information must be reconciled and period end estimates must be entered in FFIS no later than October 3, 2002. See the enclosed timeline to assist you in managing your location's year-end close out activities.

All NFC feeder systems (travel, purchasing, credit cards, etc.) obligation and payment activity must be entered by September 19, 2002, to ensure it is processed in FY 2002. All direct-entered obligation and payment activity by ARS Operations Section, NFC, must be received by September 9 and September 13, 2002, respectively to ensure is processed in FY 2002. Activity processed thereafter will need to be captured in a period end estimate in the event it is rejected.

Note: Obligation and payment documents must pass through feeder system and FFIS edits to ensure they are successfully captured in FY 2002. In the event documents are rejected, SUSF table managers will attempt to reconcile errors prior to the close of FY 2002.

Obligations can continue to be executed against the available funding through September 30. However, the obligation amounts will need to be captured by accounting personnel using period end estimate (YE) documents. Every effort must be made to provide accounting personnel with the appropriate documentation (PCMS logs, purchase orders, etc.) as quickly as possible.

Period end estimates must be submitted for the following:

• All 201 accounts
  
• All soft fund accounts expiring on or before September 30, 2002
  
• All 202 Hazardous Waste Clean-up accounts

Final Close Out Activities

In lieu of the FLASH report, certification of Period End Estimates and balances by fund type will be required from the Servicing Budget Fiscal Office (SBFO) by October 4, 2002. SBFO's arerequired to do a screen print from the ALOC table for their division (Area) for all Fund Types (01, 08, 91, 92, 93, 95, 02, etc.), review the information, certify that it is complete/correct, and fax the information (with certification) to the Chief, Fiscal Operations Branch, FMD, on 301- 504-4302, by October 4, 2002, 3:00 p.m. EST.

The CRIS Activities Module (CAM) will still be required. Additional guidance with due dates will be provided later in the fiscal year.

Carol I. Shelton, Acting Director
Financial Management Division

2 Enclosures

Enclosure 1
(revised 9/9/02)

TIMELINE/CUTOFF DATES