The Finance tool uses a number of terms and it's beneficial to know the definition of each. Use the glossary below to learn about the different terms and what each of them mean.
- Allocate
- Payment
- Transfer
- Deposit
- Encumbered Funds
- Funding Request
- Purchase Request
- Finance Stages
- Notifications
- Finance Categories
- Finance Types
Allocate
| Description | Moving money from a General Ledger account to a Child account. |
| Notes | You can only create an ‘allocation’ transaction within a Child account. |
| Example | Allocating money from SGA (General Ledger account) at the start of the semester to an organization (Child Account) as their allotted money for the semester. |
Payment
| Description | Takes money and removes it from an account out of the site in order to pay someone or a vendor. |
| Notes | You can create payments from both General Ledger and Child accounts |
| Example | As an organization, we spent money for our organization’s event and now need to pay the vendor from the organizations account. |
Transfer
| Description | Moving money from one child account to another child account |
| Notes | You can transfer money between Child accounts. Can also make a transfer from a Child account to a General Ledger account. |
| Example | My organization had an event that was co-sponsoring an event with another organization. In order to share expenses, my organization transferred money from our account to their organization’s account. |
Deposit
| Description | Moving money into an account that is not already in the site. |
| Notes | You can create deposits to both General Ledger and Child accounts |
| Example | My organization did fundraising off-campus and now we’d like that money we raised to be put into our organization’s account. |
Encumbered Funds
| Description | Funds approved to be spent that have not yet been paid out by the organization, but are accounted for. These funds occur when a purchase request is submitted then approved, but no transaction has yet to happen. The amount is held in ‘encumbered funds’ until a transaction is created, which then will create movement of the money out of the account. |
| Notes | Encumbered funds only occur in purchase requests that have been approved - they do not appear with funding requests. |
| Example | An organization submits a purchase request because they spent my money for an organization related event. After this request is approved, the amount requested sits in ‘encumbered funds’ within the organization account. It sits here until a transaction is created from the approved request which will then move the money out of the organization account and to the payee. |
Funding Request
| Description | Request money to be moved into account through an organization page. |
| Notes |
Funding requests have a 'completed' status - not approved. When a funding request is marked as complete, deposit and allocation options become available. Campus administrators cannot edit the amount requested in a funding request but they can 'approve' a different amount. For example, if an organization requests $100, no money is moving at that point. The administrator could then approve this for $90. This is where the money actually moves. This is an option within an organization's page and it is not required. You can disable funding requests for your site which will remove it from organization pages. |
| Example | My organization doesn’t have enough in our budget, yet we need more money for an upcoming event. Before spending money, we submit a funding request to SGA to see if we can be approved for money to be added to our account. During this, my organizations selects which account we want the money moved into. |
Purchase Request
| Description | Request money to be moved out of an account through an organization page. |
| Notes |
Once the amount requested is approved, it is then to be paid (through payment or transfer) to someone else (person, vendor, or another org). This will move the money out of the account. Purchase requests have an approve option before they are completed. This gives site administrators the ability to approve a purchase before an actual payment is made. After approving a purchase request, payment and transfer options become available. Once the payment is made, the request can be changed to complete. This is an option within an organization's page and it is not required. You can disable funding requests for your site which will remove it from organization pages. |
| Example | We co-sponsored an event with another organization and now we owe that organization half the money they spent on rental equipment. |
Finance Stages
| Description | Finance stages allow you to mimic your office's workflow in the approval process for purchase and funding requests. Stages serve two purposes: • To review and make notes and/or recommendations • To move the finance request along to the appropriate stage, based on your internal workflow |
| Notes |
You can establish a maximum of five stages. They can be used to track documentation post-purchase. There isn't a requirement for each stage to be signed off in order to move forward. For example, a stage one reviewer could move a request to stage four, as long as that Position Template has access to both of those stages. At this time, there are no notifications sent when a request moves stages. |
Notifications
| Description | Users who submitted requests will receive notifications when their requests have been approved, denied or canceled. |
| Notes | At this time, notifications are not sent to site administrators or users involved in finance stages. |
Finance Categories
| Description | As an administrator, you can use categories to describe the type of payment or deposit made in the site to an account. As a student, you can use categories to tag a request when they are submitting it so the administrator can see what the request is for. All categories are visible to the student when selecting. |
| Example | Income, correction, expense, initial deposit, supplies, food, or equipment. |
Finance Types
| Description | Describe how the payment was made in the site. |
| Example | Cash, check, or university transfer. |