Journal Approvers are responsible for the first level of approvals in workflow when a journal is initiated. The responsibility of the Journal Approver is to review the ChartFields and ensure that they are correct on the lines that are charged to their units. They should also review attachments and confirm that the transaction has appropriate and accurate information and is within policies and procedures.
Each Journal Approver may approve one or more lines on a General Ledger (GL) journal. Each line can be evaluated separately. You can choose to approve one or more lines and deny another. Denying one line will impact the entire Journal and it will have to be remediated before being posted.
In your role as a Journal Approver, also consider:
After it has obtained approval from all Journal Approvers, it will pass to appropriate central offices like Sponsored Projects, if appropriate, and then on to Central Accounting for final approval.
Journal Approvers who have questions about what the review process should include before approving a GL journal entry should refer to the following document created by the Accounting Office: Financial Review and Analysis resource page.
In this article, you will learn how to approve a General Ledger (GL) Journal in the UGA Financial Management System. GL Journals are used to adjust accounting transactions or for internal-to-UGA customer transactions.
First, log into the UGA Financial Management system.
You can find the Approvals tile on the UGA Financials Employee Self Service page.
Click the Approval tile.
Note: The number in the bottom right corner indicates the number of approval waiting for your decision.
The Pending Approval page is displayed with a list of all transactions types awaiting your review and approval.
The View By menu sorts available documents by Type . You can click on any menu item to only see transactions of that type (ex: Journal Entries).
To sort the list in by different criteria, click the View By list.
A list of display options is shown.
You can view by the Date Routed, Priority, or the Requester.
Click the Type option.
To review the General Ledger journals waiting for approval, click the Journal Entry tab.
Locate and select the Journal Entry to review the accounting information.
Click on the appropriate Journal Entry.
The Journal Entry page is displayed along with information to review for approval.
Example shown here: two lines pending your approval.
The summary section is the header information from the journal. It includes the Journal ID, Journal Description, and Ledger Group.
The Attachment section provides a link to review any documents the initiator has included for justification or information.
Click the View Attachments link.
The View Attachment page is displayed.
Use the attached file links to review the information in deciding to approve or deny the journal.
When finished reviewing, click the Close button.
The Lines section contains accounting information to review.
Make sure the Account, Department, and Chartfields for the Fund and Class are correct. If Funds are crossed, additional lines will be automatically added to the journal to balance the fund amounts.
Note: If the Account Code is 471100 on the revenue (credit) side of the entry, this indicates an Intra-University charge.
Approvers can enter comments here. Previously entered comments will be displayed in the Approval Chain.
Approval Chain displays the approval workflow chain.
Click the Approval Chain link.
You can scroll through to see the history of approvals for the documents.
To add an ad hoc approver, click the appropriate Add Ad hoc [+] button for the approval step you would like the inserted ad hoc approval to follow.
Use the lookup features or enter the User ID directly into the field.
Example shown here: " dr02330 " in the User ID field.
Be sure that the Approver button is selected. This will route the transaction to the selected approver who must approve before it will go on to the next level of approval.
Note: The ad hoc approval won’t route to the inserted approver until the person who added the ad hoc approval approves the payment request themselves.
Click the Insert button.
The selected ad hoc approver is added to the approval chain.
To exit, click the Close [x] button.
The Pending tab is selected by default and displays the line(s) that you need to approve. Lines on the journal that have been distributed to other approvers can be reviewed by selecting the All tab.
Review the ChartFields and amounts for the transaction to be sure they are correct.
Note: Where the journal contains a credit to Revenue account code 471100, the journal is recording an intra-university charge. The Revenue entry for intra-university charges should use Class Code 41900 if in a Departmental sales & Service fund (14xxx) or Class Code 19000 for all other funds excluding Auxiliary and Restricted Funds.
The Journal ID can be used to view the actual journal, and its ChartFields in Query Viewer.
Once you review the accounting information, you are ready to enter your approval.
Take action on all lines at once or select individual lines.
Example shown here: Select checkbox to apply a decision to all lines.
Your action options are displayed in the top right corner of the screen: Approve, Deny, and Hold.
If you choose to deny the journal, it will be sent back to the initiator to correct and resubmit for approval.
Click the Deny button.
The Deny pop-menu is displayed.
Approvers Comments are required. This is where you explain why you are denying and give the initiator information how to correct the info.
Example shown here: click the Cancel button.
When you choose Hold, it will stay in your approval queue until you decide to act on it again. You might do this if you want to do some research on the ChartFields or discuss something with the initiator before approving.
Click the Hold button.
You can use the Approver Comments box to indicate the reason for the hold and the comments will appear to anyone checking the approval status.
If you are ready to approve, click the Approve button.
You have the option to comment in the Approver Comments box, if needed.
Example shown here: " Approved LLP " in the Approver Comments box.
Click the Submit button.
The Pending Approvals page is returned.
The journal you approved is no longer in the queue on the Pending Approval page and the number of journals is also reduced.