Overview: Year End Close

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 arrow graphic  FY10 Year End Close Calendar

 

Year End Close Defined

Year end close is performed to finalize a snap shot of transactional activity for an entire fiscal year. Stanford’s financial fiscal year is September through August. Most processes run at year end are also run on a daily, weekly and/or monthly basis. For year end, these processes are performed for the last time for the entire fiscal year to ensure all transactions are posted and reflected on reports. The year is officially closed when these processes are complete (including posting).

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Specific Year End Close Processes

There are a couple of processes that are integral to year end close; Clearing of Organization Suspense Accounts, PTA Maintenance Blackout and the Shortfall Process.

Clearing of Organization Suspense Accounts

Organization Suspense Accounts (OSA) are holding accounts, set up for every department to account for payroll transaction errors. All balances remaining in the OSA are cleared by the Financial Information & Reporting Systems team in the Controller's Office at Year End Close. For more information, see Overview: Organization Suspense Accounts for Labor and Clearing Organization Suspense Accounts PowerPoint presentation.

PTA Maintenance Blackout

PTA Maintenance Blackout is implemented to prevent updates to PTA’s during year end close. The purpose of the PTA blackout is to avoid rejected journals during Close when deadlines are tight.

Shortfall Process

The shortfall process calculates the difference between the actual payout rate and the payout rate used at the beginning of the fiscal year to calculate endowment payout. This shortfall amount is posted to each endowment fund and liquidates available investments to cover any overdrafts at fiscal year end.

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Schedules and Deadlines

At year end, there are two preliminary closes before the final close. This allows end users to view August month end close data and make additional corrections and adjustments before the final close. Once Final Year End Close has occurred, no more corrections or adjustments may be applied to the prior year (year being closed).

The year being closed remains open for three additional weeks in the new fiscal year in order to process all prior fiscal year transactions.

  • All transactions will occur in the last month of the fiscal year, August.
  • Prior months will not be re-opened, so all adjustments will be reflected in August.
  • During this time, transactions for the new fiscal year may be entered into the Oracle system but will not be posted into the new fiscal year until the prior year is finally closed.
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FY10 Year End Close Schedule

Fiscal Year 2010 Year End Close officially begins Tuesday, August 31, 2010. There are four distinct timelines for activities included in the FY10 Year End Close Schedule as follows:

  • Pre-Close:  Activities before September 1
  • August-2010 Month-End Close:  September 1 – September 7
  • Year-End Expenditure Close:  September 8 – September 14
  • Year-End Fund Transfer Close:  September 15 – September 23

For detailed year end tasks and deadlines, review the FY10 Year End Close Schedule.

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