General Accounting supports campus and fiscal administrators with their understanding of University accounting information. We provide guidance and support for the University Chart of Accounts, assist with GL verification, provide guidance regarding financial transactions, and manage the year end close and audit process.
The following items will help new fiscal administrators become familiar with the University of Hawai‘i’s financial reporting environment.
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Journal Vouchers
Please go to the Financial Systems website for detail training guidance of the various journal vouchers in KFS.
KFS JV’s are used to perform accounting tasks that cannot be done by any of the other financial transaction documents. The JV document can also be used to correct errors that may occur in the system. There are six different e-Docs to process journal entries:
- Distribution of Income and Expense (DI)
This e-doc is used to reallocate income, expenses, assets or liabilities within the organization. Usually same object code allocated to different accounts. - General Error Correction (GEC)
This e-doc is used to correct inappropriate or incorrect accounting string data posted to the general ledger. - Transfer of Funds (TF)
This e-doc is used to transfer funds (cash) between accounts, to cover an overdraft, reimburse an account for an expense or fulfill a funding commitment. - Internal Billing (IB)
This e-doc is used for bills for goods or services provided by one university department to another, reflecting interdepartmental income to the provider and expense to the customer. - Service Billing (SB)
This e-doc is similar to the Internal Billing document but does not route for approval. Use of this document is restricted to specified users and only authorized income accounts may be entered. - Salary Expense Transfer (ST)
This e-doc is used to correct or transfer salary and fringe benefit expenses from one account to one or more account(s).
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KFS Inquiries Overview
KFS includes several pre-defined search processes, including the General Ledger balance inquiries and Chart of Accounts lookups. Users are able to utilize these search processes but the availability will depend on your access rights. Authorized users can utilize the balance inquiries to view current balance information from the General Ledger for specified accounts based on actual amounts posted, pending ledger entries and other transactional data.
Based on your selection criteria the user can enter an account number, a time period, or search for a list of the possible values with the option to include or exclude pending general ledger entries. The query will allow you to view summary or detail information, if an item is underlined you will be able to click the hyperlink for additional detailed information which will open to a corresponding query screen or applicable e-doc with the supporting documents. Your inquiry results can be downloaded into three options: CSV, spreadsheet or XML.
- Available Balances
- Balances by Consolidation
- Cash Balances
- General Ledger Balance
- General Ledger Entry
- General Ledger Pending Entry
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Available Balances
Available Balance inquiries can be based on either the consolidated or detail option which will segregate sub-accounts and sub-object codes and sort the query in rows by object codes with the budget, actual, encumbrance and variance amounts. The variance results for expenses and revenues are calculated as follows:
- Expense variance = Budget – Actual – Encumbrance
- Revenue variance = Actual – Budget
This inquiry will give you the current available balance for a specific account, leaving the object code empty will give you the balance amounts for all object codes associated with the specific account. Underlined balance amounts are linked to the corresponding “General Ledger Balance”.
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Balance by Consolidation
Balance by consolidation can be based on either the consolidated or detail option which separates to sub-account but not to sub-object details. The inquiry gives you the option to drill down to the object level then to object codes and filter to include or exclude cost share sub-accounts.
Balance by consolidation inquiries use object consolidation codes (no asset or liability object codes) to reflect revenue and expense totals by category. The income and expense object consolidation codes reflect budget, actual, encumbrance and variance. Subtotals for consolidation codes categorized as income, income from transfers, compensation, benefits, general expenses and expense from transfers.
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Cash Balances
Cash balance can be based on either the consolidated or detail option which separate sub-accounts and sub-object codes. The query allows you to view the net results of the cash offset entries automatically created by KFS when transactions are generally processed on an asset object code and do not impact the operating balance (revenue less expense) of an account. The entries represent cash flow, positive for revenue and negative for expense transactions, not all entries generate a cash flow off set.
Inquiries will show the beginning, annual and available balance (beginning + annual) for cash object codes only. Any applicable Contract & Grant beginning balance can be displayed and generally represents the cumulative total through the beginning of the fiscal year from inception to date on accounts that include contract & grants.
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General Ledger Balance Inquiry
General ledger balance inquiry can be based on either the consolidated or detail option which separate sub-accounts and sub-object codes and provides the option to filter by balance type or object type; include or exclude pending entries and view monthly or cumulative amounts.
The general ledger balance for specific account by object code with balances within a fiscal period, provides the beginning (including the contract & grant beginning) and annual balances by all object codes (income, expense, asset, liability and fund balances).
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General Ledger Entry
General ledger entry queries can include or exclude pending entries and be further refined based on other criteria. This query is used to view the accounting entries that posted to the general ledger using the search criteria fiscal year, chart code, fiscal period and account or fiscal year and document number. The queries for general ledger entries and general ledger pending entries reflect views of selected accounting entries rather than balances by account.
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General Ledger Pending Entry
This query is similar to the general ledger balance query except that it includes only pending accounting entries that have not posted to the general ledger. The moment an entry is created until the batch process is run entries are classified as “pending”. Although pending e-doc flows through the various workflow processes and the status changes, you are able to view these transactions through this query and view it based on all or only those that are fully approved.
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Fiscal Year Calendar of Events
Fiscal Year-End Closing Schedule
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Reports
The KFS application provides financial information through inquiry screens. Data can be exported for reporting purposes. The amount of data that can be returned on a query however, has limitations. The Jasper Reporting System (JRS) should be used for larger or more comprehensive searches. For guidance and training on JRS, please see the Financial Systems-Training page.