The Business Office is required for audit purposes and budgetary accounting procedures to establish a documented cutoff of purchasing and accounts payable transactions at year-end.  If you anticipate a problem meeting the deadlines disclosed below, please contact Brenda Thompson or Jennifer Martinka as soon as possible so we can work together to address the issue. 

Deadlines for 2016-2017 Faculty Awards:

Business Office Deadlines for Current Budget Year (2016-2017) Transactions:

 **CREDIT CARD PURCHASES:  Although the deadline for credit card purchases above is 6/28/17, all purchases which have posted to your credit card by 6/30/17 will be charged to the current year budget, including any made after that deadline.  We recommend making all FY17 purchases by 6/28/17 to allow adequate time for the transaction to post.  Please wait until 7/1/17 to make FY18 purchases. 

REMINDER – All purchases of $500 and over must be approved by the appropriate member of the President’s Staff.

Please submit invoices to the Business Office for payment as soon as all required approvals have been obtained.

NOTE:  All reimbursement requests for expenses incurred during the period July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2017, including travel expense reports, petty cash, and other reimbursements submitted with a check requisition, must be turned in to the Business Office for payment by 6/27/17 or they will NOT be reimbursed, with the exception of trips ending between 6/27/17 and 6/30/17. Expense reports should be turned in as soon as possible after the conclusion of these trips, but no later than 7/10/17.

Please remember that the University’s purchasing policy requires the completion of a purchase requisition before any goods costing $1,000 or more are ordered from a vendor.  The Business Office will receive current year purchase requisitions through June 15^th.  Your purchase requisition will be processed as quickly as possible and become a purchase order to be sent to the vendor.  Please allow adequate time for processing by the Business Office and vendor, and for shipment and receipt by June 30^th, in order for the expense to be charged to your current year budget.

Transactions must meet certain criteria to be accounted for in the current fiscal year.  The critical element to SU’s auditors is a bona fide obligation to pay which is evidenced by the receipt of goods and services.  That is, the transfer of ownership for goods or the performance of work for services must be completed by 6/30/17.  Alone, neither purchase requisitions nor purchase orders satisfy this test.  Your planning of expenditures between now and the end of the fiscal year should ensure that the items you are purchasing could be received by the June 30^th deadline for receipt of goods and services as noted above.  If not, you may wish to consider another vendor or another product to meet your needs. 

All goods and services received by June 30^th which are evidenced by an invoice promptly submitted for payment will be charged to the current year.  The Business Office will continue to process invoices for orders completed in June through 5:00 p.m. July 12, 2017, and these invoices will be charged to FY 2016-2017 budgets.  After July 12, 2017, only invoices greater than $5,000 will be reviewed and manually accrued back to FY 2016-2017 if appropriate.  All other invoices will be expensed in the new fiscal year. 

As always, reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses (e.g. stamps, etc.), travel reimbursements, and small purchases (less than $1,000) may be submitted to the Business Office via check requisition, bypassing the purchase order process. 

Finally, since the Business Office will be processing transactions for both the current fiscal year and the new fiscal year simultaneously, please clearly indicate on all documentation the fiscal year to which the transaction pertains.  An example of a future year purchase that might be processed in the current year is a prepaid subscription for a periodical with a subscription term of July 2017 through June 2018.

Your cooperation in following these procedures is appreciated.  Please contact Brenda Thompson at thompso2@southwestern.edu or Jennifer Martinka at martinkj@southwestern.edu if you have any questions.