The UC Merced Office of the Controller is issuing the following update related to payroll suspense activity that remains unresolved at the time of year end close.
The UC Office of the President requires all campus suspense activity (i.e. expenditures coded to Suspense Fund 13002 and/or Suspense Expense account series 59000X) be cleared to zero balance with system-wide Accounting Procedure updates. This updated practice takes into consideration the Common Chart of Accounts (CCoA) and CFS file schemas that transmit UC Merced’s data from our local Oracle instance to the consolidated financial statements.
Effective 1/1/2025, any unresolved payroll suspense balances will be reclassified to a predetermined COA combination (refer to table below) within the unit’s respective Vice Chancellor’s Operating Budget. If payroll suspense activity is addressed during the fiscal year, there will be no VC budgetary impact as the Salary Cost Transfer (SCTs) will remove the payroll suspense balance making it a zero balance. If the payroll suspense activity is unresolved at year end, the VC budget will be impacted through the year end reclassification process. The budget will only be recovered through the successful processing of SCTs.
Next Steps:
Financial and Accounting Services and the Controller’s Unit will process an initial transfer of unresolved payroll suspense activity balances prior to FY2025 to the predetermined COA combinations. Throughout the fiscal year, ideally monthly, departments will review their respective unit’s payroll suspense activity per the R-268 DOPE report and submit the needed Salary Cost Transfers (SCTs). The Controller’s Unit will no longer issue monthly “Unresolved Payroll Suspense” notifications to departments with payroll suspense activity. A year end reclassification will be processed every fiscal year end to move unresolved payroll suspense.
Resources:
- Staff Salary Cost Transfer Form
- Academic Salary Cost Transfer Form
- Payroll Services DOPE Report Job Aide
Questions? Please reach out to Amanda Preston-Nelson, Associate Vice Chancellor and Controller.
