Kansas SMART(Statewide Management, Accounting, and Reporting Tool)

Workflow for General Ledger

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Meeting Agenda

• Objectives• Process Definitions• Journal Creation and Approval • Assumptions• Roles• Frequently Asked Questions• Agency Considerations• Questions

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Team Introductions

General Ledger Team

• Brett Bauer – State Lead• Lisa Becker – State Team• Marie Winter-Zima – State Team• Ismael Garcia – Accenture Lead• Michael Sutanto – Accenture Team

Contact Email: sunflowerfms@da.ks.gov

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• Participants will understand the workflow for General Ledger approval.

• Enable agencies to be able to decide what approver roles your agency will need in SMART.

• Identify who in your agency will be in these roles.

Objectives

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• Provide expertise and experience• Represent your agency• Identify any issues/concerns• Document your current Process and

how the new process will fit in with your current business requirements

• Prepare for the Role Mapping activity for your agency in the near future

Why am I Involved?

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Process Definition: Creating a Journal Entry

• Creating a Journal Entry is the process of recording a balanced accounting entry with one or more debits and credits to record a transaction.

• The total of the debits must equal the total of the credits or the entry will fail edit check.

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Process Definition: Approving a Journal Entry

• Approving a Journal Entry is defined as the process of evaluating that the journal entry is correct and approving the transaction.

• Following the approval and systematic checks, the journal will post to the appropriate ledgers.

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Process Definition: Workflow

• Workflow governs the journal entry approval (and denial) process. Essentially, workflow is used to facilitate the process wherein a journal entry is routed from a Processor to Approver for review and ultimately approval.

• A Processor submits a journal entry into workflow and the workflow routing rules will direct the journal entry to the appropriate approver/approvers.

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Process Definition: Routing Rules

• Routing Rules guide the journal through the approval process.

• The rules for General Ledger will guide the journal from the Processor to the various Kansas GL Approvers for Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3.– The Kansas GL Approver could be a pool of individuals.

• If the agency only has one GL Approver, the system will show the Approver as Kansas GL Approver – Level 3.

• Kansas GL Approvers can either approve, deny, or recycle the journal.

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Approvers Options:

• Approve the Journal – continues processing of the journal by sending journal to the next approver level.

• Deny the Journal – ends the processing of the journal. A denial email is sent to the processor. The journal will have to be fixed by the processor, edited, budget checked, and submitted for approval once again.

• Recycle the Journal – sends the journal entry to the previous approver.– For example, Approver 1 looks at the journal and approves it.

Approver 2 looks at the journal, makes some changes but wants approver 1 to approve it again. When approver 2 recycles the journal, it will send the journal back to approver 1 for further review and to approve again.

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When should I use a General Ledger Journal?

1.Mass Corrections (such as a large summary correction of payroll)

2.Reclassification entries

3.Adjusting journal entries

4.Record statistics

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As-Is Business Process Flow:Creating a Journal Entry

StartJV entered into

SOKIAgency approval

End

SOKI checks for errors A&R approval

Errors?

?

A&R corrects in STARS

JV interfaced from SOKI to

STARS

No

STARSEdit and

Budget Check

A&R contacts the agency

Yes

NOTEApproval sub-process detailed on following slide.

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As-Is Business Process Flow: Approving a Journal Entry (Sub-Process)

Start

End

Agency approves and

releases the JV to A&R

A&R audits the JV

Edits to be made?

?

A&R contacts the agency to

make edits

A&R releases the JV to STARS

Yes

No

A&R corrects JV in SOKI A&R Approves

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To-Be Business Process Flow:Creating a Journal Entry

StartGL Processor enters journals

SMART

Errors?

?

Journal submitted for

approval to GL Approver(s)

SMART

Journal edit and budget check

process

SMART

To Approval Process

GL Processor corrects errors

SMART

Yes

NoGL Processor

submits journals

SMART

A

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To-Be Business Process Flow: Approving a Journal Entry

GL Approver X reviews journals

SMART

Journal routed to A&R for audit

and approval

SMART

Approved?

?

GL Approver sends journal

back to previous approver

SMART

End

No

YesApproved?

?

Journals are posted

SMART

Journals are routed to GL Processor or

previous approver

SMART

Yes

No

From Creation Process

NOTEFor “GL Approver X”, X equals Level 1 (if applicable), Level 2 (if applicable), and Level 3.

Deny or Recycle?

?

Recycle DenyA

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Assumptions for General Ledger Workflow

• All G/L journals are subject to workflow.• Agencies will have at least one level of approval.

–There can be a maximum of three approval levels within SMART.

• An individual can have both Processor and Approver roles.• D of A will have one level of approval.• Journals will not be marked to post until D of A has

approved the journals.• Denied Journal Entries will be returned to creator of journal

entry not a pool of processors.• An approver can update a journal then edit and approve

the journal. • If a journal is denied, an email will be sent to the journal’s

GL Processor.

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Roles for General Ledger Journal Entry

•Kansas GL Processor–The individual who creates the journal entries, edits, and budget checks the journal.

•Kansas GL Approver – Level 1–The first level of agency general ledger approval.

•Kansas GL Approver – Level 2–The second level of agency general ledger approval.

•Kansas GL Approver – Level 3–The third level of agency general ledger approval. (If agency has only one level, the GL Approver 3 will be the only approver.)

•Central GL Auditor–The D of A general ledger approver.

•Kansas GL Viewer–Anyone with security to view the Kansas GL can run certain reports.

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Frequently Asked Questions

• What happens if the GL Approver is gone? – A higher level approver can approve the journal. Alternately,

a D of A GL Auditor can approve a journal without any agency approval and the journal will be valid and workflow approved.

• If I am GL Approver 3 and I have an issue, can I return it to the GL Processor?

– Yes, any approver level can deny a journal and send it back to the entry person.

• What if I need more than 3 levels of approval?– Additional approvals will need to be done outside of the

system.• If I deny a journal, will it free up budget?

– No, budget check happens with the Kansas GL Processor.

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Key Organizational Impacts for Approving a Journal Entry

As-Is Process To-Be Process

JVs are budget checked in STARS after the transaction is released by A&R.

Journals are budget checked before they are submitted for approval.

Corrections made online in STARS to transactions that originated from SOKI are not fed back to SOKI to update the original document.

In SMART, the journal process is done entirely within the system.

Agencies run a report to see what journal entries failed.

Agencies will Inquire by Journal Status to see which ones have errors. A journal must have a valid Edit and Budget check status before it can be routed for workflow approval.

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Agency Considerations for Approving a Journal Entry

Your agency may need to consider the following impacts to your processes / procedures:•How many levels of approval does our agency need?•Who will perform the approvals?•If we need more than 3 levels of approval, who will perform the manual approvals?

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Approving Journals from various sources

•The Journals which are Journal Generated from sub modules will be pre-approved and allowed to post after generation.

• Journals created via online, spreadsheet, or flat file import are subject to workflow.

•Sources of Journals:– Online (ONL)

– Spreadsheet Journal Upload (SPJ)

– Flat File Journal Interface - INF06 (EXT)

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Questions?