1. BEST PRACTICES MASBO 2016

2. BEST PRACTICES – WORKSHOP SUMMARY Cover the Following Topics: Claims Payroll Transfer Letters Balancing with Treasurer Treasurer Statements Canceled/Void Warrants/Journal Vouchers MOE/Special Ed Reversion Food Service Fund Trustee Reports Budgets

3. MY ADVICE ON SHORTCUTS DON’T DO SHORTCUTS!

4. PAYING CLAIMS – RECONCILIATIONS 1.When paying bills, use cover sheet for each bill; 2.When cover sheets have been completed run a tape total; 3.Enter bills into computer system and then compare bill total to tape total - if not equal go back and check each entry; 4.Once totals are the same, then run check listing from last check run and make sure the next check to be written is next consecutive check; 5.Print claim checks, print file for board packet at same time; 6.Nice job, you should be ready for next bill pay or for transfer letters!

5. PAYROLL RECONCILATIONS 1.Make sure when you are doing your first payroll of the year that you have new hourly wages correct for each classified staff and certified staff; 2.Run spreadsheet of your certified staff and divide by number of pays – this should give you a monthly worksheet to balance your certified staff; 3.Have previous month payroll classified timesheets available; 4.Write up timesheets using hours on time input for the month and refer to previous timesheets for hourly wages and as a parameter for wages earned for the month; 5.After timesheets are written up, total up all timesheets, add to total of certified sheet and come up with a total payroll;

6. PAYROLL CONTINUED: 6.Enter payroll into the system and run journal – compare total of journal to tape journal to make sure they both match; 7.If they don’t match need to find out why and either fix worksheet or data entry. If they match, then enter Gross wages and deductions into Excel spreadsheet to make sure Fica, Medicare, Unemployment, and Worker Comp are all figured correctly. Go over example; 8.Compare deductions to previous month – many deductions stay the same from month to month, if difference, make sure you know why; 9.Fix any discrepancies and then you are ready to run payroll checks – making sure that you run payroll check register from previous pay so that the next check written is next numbered check in your batch; 10.Nice job! You are ready to do your next payroll or to do transfer letter for the month.

7. PAYROLL YEAR END CALENDAR AND FISCAL 1.Keep spreadsheet on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis that totals up wages and deductions; 2.From spreadsheet, you should be able to compare for 941s and W2s to make sure they reconcile – don’t print W2s until 941s match up to totals; 3.On a fiscal year basis, run expenditure report for 1xx expenses and 2xx expenses and compare to Payroll Journal for the year – should match up if you are running all payroll expenses through payroll system, if not, need to add in manual checks to get to total; 4.Example would be if you are paying worker comp premiums from claims.

8. TRANSFER LETTERS 1.Print out claim check listing for the month and get total of claim checks; 2.Print out payroll check listing for the month and get total for payroll; 3.Print out county treasurer transfer letters from your system and then compare them to totals for claim check and for payroll checks – if they match you are good to go! If not, you need to determine what you did for the month and correct the transfer; 4.Print out the expenditure report for the month and then compare the total of your claims plus payroll to your monthly expenditures. They should be the same unless you did a journal entry sometime during the month. If you did, make sure the county has received this journal entry as well; 5.If everything is ok, good job! You should not have any problems balancing with the treasurer.

9. BALANCING WITH TREASURER 1.First, after receiving county treasurer statement, check to make sure ending cash balances last month are the same as beginning cash balances this month – believe or not, this isn’t always the case; 2.Enter revenues from the county treasurer report into your system – make sure you are looking at debits as well for adjustments such as NSF checks; 3.Run Cash balance report and compare your cash balances to the county cash balances. They should match up (except for clearing funds) if you entered revenues correctly and did transfer letters correctly the previous month; 4.Return checks for claims and then payroll. Then run an outstanding check report for both and compare to county clearing funds. If they don’t match up then need to compare the amounts of the checks returned to make sure both entities have returned the same dollar amounts for checks and ach amounts;

10. BALANCING W/TREASURER (DOESN’T BALANCE) Questions: 1. Not your check or not your deposit; 2. Deposit is in different amount than on your books; 3. Cash balances aren’t the same coming from prev. month; 4. Total cash is right but funds are off. In each case, need to review and determine the cause, and then correct in that month with county treasurer or on your books!

11. TREASURER STATEMENT –THINGS TO LOOK FOR 1.Make sure you are receiving state revenues each month – 3110-3118 come together and when you are not receiving those you should be receiving GTB dollars 3120 (Nov and May); 2.Requests for Federal/State Funds should be monitored to make sure you are receiving what you asked for – usually a month later; 3.November and May treasurer statements – check on protested tax account and receivables to monitor what cash flow you are going to receive; 4.At year end, need to record these receivables; 5.Debt service payments made by treasurer usually are paid in December and June so you will need to make a journal voucher on your books to reflect this if you have bonds.

12. CLEARING ACCOUNTS Recommend that you have one for Claims and one for Payroll; Some districts also have an Interest Clearing Fund; Easier to fix mistakes with two clearing funds than it is one!! Remember that Clearing Accounts must match Outstanding Checks each month – do not let this get away from you!

13. FEDERAL/STATE GRANT KISS SUGGESTIONS 1.Spend money first, then request the dollars; 2.Ask on a periodic basis – I usually do it every other month after I have completed expenses for the month; 3.Make sure at year end you have completed your supply order in May. When final payroll has been completed, request federal dollars such as Title 1 right away; 4.Some grants run through September – I find it easier to close out (if possible) all grants as of June 30 th and carryover any dollars left to next year allocation if under the percentage allowed; 5.Much easier to keep track of one grant each year than it is two grants for each entitlement; 6. Don’t encumber a grant at year end – think ahead and take care of early so that doesn’t happen!!!!!!

14. MAINTENANCE OF EFFORT/SPED REVERSION 1.April is the time of year you should be monitoring your special education expenditures and comparing last year to this year; 2.Remember xxx-280-xxxx-xxx accounts for most funds – typically General, Transportation, Tuition, Retirement, and resources transferred in Misc Fed Funds; 3.920/930 object accounts don’t count toward total; 4.Exceptions to MOE – special circumstances – special needs student with one-on- one needs left, retiring teacher, or per student cost; 5.Be creative with MOE from year to year; 6.Also need to monitor Special Ed Reversion (state dollars x 1.33) – if under that amount you can write check to your local coop to avoid reversion to the state;

15. CANCELED CHECKS/VOID WARRANTS 1.If you are going to void a warrant/cancel a check try to do it in the same month as the check was written; 2.Make sure that when you void a warrant that you make the same entry with the county as you do on your books – need to account for it in your clearing funds if you have already transferred the dollars there; 3.My recommendation is to bring a canceled warrant list to your board on a yearly basis or at the most twice a year – reduce the number of entries you are going to have to make with the county;

16. FOOD SERVICE BALANCES AT YEAR END Should be monitoring the balances on a periodic basis: 1. First to make sure you are receiving federal dollars for each month of reimbursement; 2. Second, to make sure you will have a positive balance at the end of the year; 3. Third, if you do have a positive balance, that the balance isn’t over 3 months of expenses; 4. Should be making projections in April as to what your ending balance will be – if you are supplementing the Food Service Fund with General Fund dollars you can manipulate the expenses to meet your needs either freeing up general fund dollars or anticipating needing more General Fund dollars to avoid a negative balance; 5. Remember to accrue state revenue.

17. YEAR END THINGS TO DO 1.Compare Budgets to Actual – probably should be doing this at least quarterly; 2.Make sure you haven’t overspent a budgeted fund – budgeted funds are funds that you are receiving taxes in; 3.Make sure you have received all the revenues you budgeted or at least there is an explanation as to why you didn’t, for example, protested taxes; 4.Compare revenues, expenditures, and cash balance for every fund to county treasurer reports to make sure they match; 5.Minimize encumbrances as much as possible – create good ordering practices that allow you to either eliminate or minimize the number of purchase orders you have at the end of the year. I suggest starting your ordering in April if you have the budget capacity to do so.

18. YEAR END THINGS TO DO 6.Check to make sure you have adjusted your sick and liability leaves to account for people leaving, master agreement limits, etc. so that you have an accurate accrual liability report for treasurer statement; 7.Record taxes receivable/protested taxes for trustee report; 8.Accruals – again minimize by paying as close to the end of June as you can so you don’t need to do this; 9.You should of already asked for all your Federal Funds by the end of May or beginning of June so if these dollars are in you can put together a schedule of federal funds balancing the cash balance in Misc Fed Funds to your report; 10.If you have done these things, the Trustee Report will be easy!!!!!!! 11.Year is over, now it is time to do it all over again!