Accounting and Budget Events Inventory

Overview

Florida PALM automates a variety of accounting entries based on predefined business rules for each accounting event. These entries:

• • Align with the statewide Chart of Accounts (COA) structure (COA Design).
  • Support the reporting requirements for the Department of Financial Services (DFS) Division of Treasury, Statewide Financial Reporting, and mandated Legislative Reporting.
  • Are triggered by system events (e.g. voucher posting, recording deposits, asset creation).
  • Comply with GASB and Legislative requirements.
  • Maintain Budget and Cash controls.

Standardized Accounting Entries and Budget Impacts

Florida PALM generates standard accounting and budget events based on the specific financial activity that is occurring within the source module. Each event is described to reflect the type of activity that is occurring, such as creating an encumbrance, recording a deposit, or managing state-owned assets.

Accounting events are documented with accounting entries recorded at the ChartField string of Fund, Budget Entity, State Program, Category and Account which are required on all transactions. Agencies must also record Organization on all transactions and have the option of recording at a more granular level using the additional agency specific ChartFields of Other Accumulator 1 (OA1), Other Accumulator 2 (OA2), Contract, Grant, and Project Costing.

Budget events are broken out by the impacts to different Commitment Control (KK) ledgers to include Appropriations, Releases, Reserves, Allotments, Revenue, Invested Balance and Cash.

These accounting and budget events are grouped within the Accounting and Budget Events Inventory by source module which contains the following tabs:

• • Change Log – provides version and revision information.
  • Overview – provides the purpose of the document and explains fields used in each detailed tab.
  • Summary Accounting Events – provides each accounting event and the associated account entry showing the debit and credit for applicable Account value.
  • Summary Budget Impacts – provides the increase or decrease impacts to the balances maintained in the Appropriations, Releases, Reserves, Allotments, and Revenue KK ledgers for applicable accounting events.
  • Summary Investment Balance – provides the increase or decrease impacts to the fund investment balances in the Investment KK ledger for applicable accounting events.
  • Summary Cash Impacts – provides the increase or decrease impacts to the trust fund cash balances in the Cash KK ledger for applicable accounting events.
  • Summary Treasury Accounting – provides the accounting entries showing the debit and credit for applicable Account value associated to automated banking events managed by Treasury.
  • Module Tabs – provide the module specific accounting entries and associated budget impacts for all KK ledgers. Entries related to other source modules are included in this tab when needed to show the complete transaction lifecycle.

Understanding the source of entries helps end users understand how Florida PALM supports accurate and consistent financial reporting across the state. Florida PALM generates accounting, budget, investment, and cash events from the following modules and financial activity:

• • Accounts Payable (AP) / Purchase Order (PO)
    1. Create and Modify Encumbrances
    2. Create and Post Supplier Vouchers
    3. Warrant and ACH Payment Processing
    4. Payment Cancellation or Reissue
  • Accounts Receivable (AR)
    1. Create and Modify Customer Accounts Receivables
    2. Record Bank Deposits
    3. Issue Customer Refunds
    4. Record Customer Accounts Receivables Write-offs
  • Asset Management (AM)
    1. Record and Modify State – Owned Assets
    2. Record Depreciation for Capitalized Assets
    3. Record Disposal of Assets
  • Cash Management (CM)
    1. Record Bank Statement Reconciliation
    2. Record Bank Cash Clearing transactions
  • General Ledger (GL)
    1. Record Investment and Disinvestment Journals
    2. Record Investment Interest Apportionment Journals
    3. Record Account Receivable Write-Offs
    4. Reclassification of Capitalized Assets and Depreciation Recorded in a Governmental Fund
    5. Record Payroll Carry Forward Payables
  • Human Capital Module (PR)
    1. Record Payroll Payment
    2. Record Payroll Payment Reversals
    3. Record Payroll Payment Overpayments
    4. Record Payroll Payment Cancellations
  • InterUnit Module (IU)
    1. Record and Modify Inter/Intra Unit Encumbrances
    2. Record and Modify Inter/Intra Unit Accruals
    3. Record Due To/Due From Accounting
    4. Record Fund Advance Activity
    5. Record Trust Fund Loan Activity
    6. Record GR Service Charge Activity
    7. Record SWCAP and Indirect Cost Activity
    8. Record Expenditure and Revenue Reclassifications
    9. Record Inter/Intra Unit Expenditure and Revenue Activity
    10. Record Inter/Intra Unit Revenue Refund

Florida PALM Standardized Accounting Entry Format

Each standard accounting entry recorded in Florida PALM source modules follows a consistent format when summarized and posted to the ACTUALS Ledger. These summarized entries contain key pieces of information that identify the nature of the transactions, the ChartField string used on the transactions, and other relevant details. Accounting entries posted to the General Ledger (GL) must be balanced. This section outlines the common components which will be reflected on posted Source Module GL Journals.

Florida PALM Source Module GL Journals will contain the following the standard details for each module:

• • GL Journal Date
  • GL Journal Source Identifier
  • GL Journal ID containing a masked value
  • GL Journal Description
  • GL Journal Line Description

The table below provides the details for each source module by accounting event.

Controls and Validations

To maintain the integrity of the financial data, Florida PALM has been configured to have multiple controls and validation processes. These safeguards are to ensure the accounting entries comply with accounting policies and legislative statutes, follow the state standard (COA), and are properly authorized prior to the accounting entries posting to the ACTUALS Ledger. This section highlights the key controls and validations that support the accurate, compliant, and secure financial transactions within Florida PALM.

Combination Edits

ChartField Combination Edits help to maintain data integrity across modules by validating ChartField relationships to ensure that required ChartFields and ChartField values are valid for use with one another. The enforcement of ChartField relationships ensures accurate and meaningful reporting of the State’s financial results from the State’s financial management system. Combination Edits can be used to specify which ChartFields are required on a transaction or which ChartField values are not allowed based on values entered in other ChartFields. ChartField Combination Edits are established and maintained by DFS for use by all agencies and are defined at both the ChartField level and the value level. ChartField Combination Edit rules are listed in the Chart of Accounts Design - Appendix 2. Additional rules may be identified that will result in updates to Appendix 2.

Budgetary Control

The Commitment Control (KK) module ensures financial transactions recorded within Florida PALM do not exceed authorized budget amounts. The budget checking process in Florida PALM refers to the act of checking transactions against ChartField values and designated ledger balances to determine if sufficient balance exists for the transaction to proceed and to update the ledger balance for the transaction.

Budget Checking is applicable for all transactions processed in Florida PALM which includes Appropriations, Allotments, Cash, Investments, and Revenue.  Budget checking is a step in the transaction lifecycle before an accounting entry is posted in the source module. The Commitment Control module is tightly integrated with the General Ledger and other source modules (i.e., Accounts Payable, Purchasing, InterUnit, and Accounts Receivable), which enables the expenditure accounting entries to be tracked and controlled against Appropriations and Allotments Budget Structures, cash transactions against the Cash Control Budget Structure, revenue transactions against the Revenue Budget Structure, and investment/disinvestment transactions against the Investment Budget Structure.

The table below, titled the Remaining Spending Authority Calculation Criteria, details the remaining spending authority calculation and revenue criteria for the Detail Ledgers. Encumbrance and expenditure amounts can never exceed appropriations and expenditure amounts can never exceed releases, but encumbrances may exceed releases. The Reserve Budget Structure only includes Budget detail because this budget amount does not allow expending or encumbering. Encumbrance and expenditure amounts can exceed allotments but must meet the criteria for appropriations and/or releases. Cash amounts can never exceed the spendable cash balance while disinvestment amounts can never exceed the invested balance. Remaining spending authority that is not sufficient to cover transactions can be overridden with appropriate Commitment Control security rights. This level of override is only available to DFS users.

The table below provides a summary of the Budget Structures and the related budget definition rules for key parameters.

Information related to the Budget Structures and Controls is provided in the Budget Structure Design.

Agency Cash Impacts

The Spendable Cash ledger within the KK module ensures that cash impacting transactions recorded within Florida PALM do not exceed the available cash balance for a Trust Fund. An agency’s spendable cash balance can be impacted by designated account values. Agency cash impacting values are the following types of values:

• • Bank Cash Account Values – Bank Cash Account values represent either a depository bank account or a disbursement account. These values can be requested by agencies, in the case of a Clearing Revolving Account (CRA) or are created when a new depository bank account is established by Treasury. These accounts are system control accounts and cannot be used by an end user in a transaction.
    • Below is a sample list of Bank Cash Accounts which will impact cash:
      1. Wells Fargo Concentration (WFC) Bank Cash Accounts: Each agency has at least one WFC Bank Cash Sub-account. These values are configured once a new bank account is established based on the location. The agencies’ WFC Bank Cash Sub-account values begin with a mask of WFCxxx.

• • Internal State of Florida Cash Values – These accounts values are used to support the movement of cash within Florida PALM that does not impact a bank. Internal State of Florida Cash Values which will impact an agency’s cash balance are:
    • 101012 – InterUnit Bank Account
    • 101013 – State Treasury Cash

Workflow

Transaction workflow within Florida PALM is an electronic routing and approval process for transactions within each source module and the General Ledger. Florida PALM workflow process will standardize the approval process for all agencies. The approval process will ensure that transactions are being reviewed for accuracy and validity prior to creation of accounting entries.

Reconciliation and Error Correction

To maintain the integrity of the financial data, Florida PALM encourages agencies to proactively perform transaction monitoring. Agencies can use the Source Module to GL Reconciliation tool. This tool compares each source module accounting table to the GL to ensure all eligible source module transactions are posted to the GL. Agencies should review the results and determine if any items require correction.

Should an agency need to correct accounting transaction within Florida PALM, the following options are available to correct the transaction within the source module. Correction transactions are subject to Edit, Budget, and Cash check.

• • Zero Dollar Deposit: Used to correct Direct Journal Deposits within the AR module.
  • Adjustment vouchers: Used to correct ChartField strings on current year (CY) vouchers that have been posted.
  • InterUnit Module: Used to correct agency balances at a summary level.

Reporting

Accounting, budget, cash, and investment events become available for reporting once posted to the ledgers. Standard reports agencies will use for analysis and monitoring are:

• • GLR099 - Trial Balance
  • GLR083 – Investment Activity Report
  • KKR008 - Schedule of Allotment Balance
  • KKR059 – Trust Fund Cash Balance and Activity Report
  • KKR018 – Agency Commitment Report

Agencies can run additional delivered reports with Florida PALM and create queries within the Florida PALM Data Warehouse solution.

For information on reports provided by Florida PALM or the Data Warehouse see the Reports Catalog.

Version History