Approving a Budget Journal

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Overview

After a budget journal is submitted, it goes into the approval workflow to finalize the journal.

It goes first to the pools of journal approvers for your department, unit or college to review the accounting detail and amounts. Once it passes that approval it is routed to Endowments or to OVPR if any lines of the journal affect those funds.

Things to note when approving a budget journal include:

Approving a Budget Journal requires the UGA KK Jrnl Approver role.
Budget cannot be moved between funds.
Budget journals must be in whole dollars only.
Budget Entry Type should always be "Adjustment." Transactions with "Original" budget entry type are entered only by Central Offices.

Final approval for all journals is performed by Central Accounting, where journals are reviewed for adherence to policy.

In this article, you will learn how to approve a budget journal in the UGA Financial Management System.

Note: You must have the UGA KK Jrnl Approver role to approve Budget Journals.

1. Step 1

First, log into the UGA Financials Management System.

You can find the Approvals tile on the UGA Financials Employee Self Service page.

The number in the bottom right corner indicates how many approvals are waiting for your decision.

Click Approvals tile.

2. Step 2

The Pending Approvals page is displayed with a list of all transactions types awaiting your review and approval.

The organizer on the left arranges these documents by Type (as a default). You can click on any menu item to only see transactions of that type (ex: Budget Journals).

3. Step 3

If you have many approvals, you can sort this list in different ways by clicking the View By dropdown menu. Options include Date Routed, Requester (name of the person who sent it to you), and Priority (determined by how long it has been awaiting your approval).

4. Step 4

Since you want to review and approve pending budget amendments, keep the View By option set to Type.

Click the Budget Journal link.

Note: Budget journals here includes both transfers and journals.

5. Step 5

The budget amendments waiting for your approval are displayed. While you can click the checkbox of the amendment you want to approve or deny and perform the approval from here, due diligence requires that you review the ChartFields, attachment, and overall transaction for accuracy and appropriateness within policies and procedures.

Click the row for the transaction you want to review.

6. Step 6

The top section of the review page displays the Description given to the transaction and the amount.

It also indicates what you need to approve. In this example, you are to review and approve one line on the transaction.

7. Step 7

The Summary section gives a summary of the Header page. You can review the Entry Type, Ledger Group and Year/Period (the accounting period in which the budget journal will be posted).

The Ledger Group should be DEPT_REV for revenue budget adjustments (account codes 4xxxxx). It should be DEPT_CHILD for expense budget adjustments (account codes 500000 and up).

8. Step 8

The Entry Type will indicate whether this is a budget journal or a budget transfer. Budget Journals will be marked as Adjustment. Budget Transfers will have a type of Transfer Adjustment.

9. Step 9

Budget amendments lines are reviewed by the budget journal approver for each department.

The Pending tab shows the line(s) for your approval. You can click on All if you want to see all the lines to be approved.

Note: The Select box will only be available for lines you can approve. You cannot approve another's transaction.

10. Step 10

For each line, you can see the line description, which defaults to the Account name. You can also view the amount of the transaction and all of the ChartFields entered as the accounting details.

As a budget journal approver, you need to verify that the ChartFields and amounts are correct.

Note: If you need to see more information, you can also view the original journal.