Clearing transactions in a timely manner, ensuring expenses are appropriately allocated, and conducting reconciliations and reviews as needed are critical activities at the department level. These best practices help mitigate fraud, waste and abuse and support financial stewardship excellence for the university. The quarterly clearing process, managed by FMS, was implemented in September 2021 and represents an additional control in this process, ensuring that transactions are cleared and identified for management review and further reinforces the department-level activities.
Stanford’s policy for Travel Cards and Purchasing Cards requires transactions to be verified and approved within 60 days of the completion of travel (for TCards) or the SU Credit Card Posted Date (for PCards). Advances must be cleared or returned within 60 days of their expected clearing date. Clearing transactions and advances in a timely manner protects the university from risk and reflects good financial stewardship. In September 2021, FMS began force clearing PCard, TCard and advance transactions aged over 60 days on a quarterly basis.
FMS will force clear these aging transactions to the card’s guarantee PTA (for PCards and TCards) or to the org’s AP Default Account (for Advances). Budget units will be charged $35 for each transaction that is force cleared. For current fiscal year deadlines and reminder dates, see the Aging Transactions Clearing Deadlines calendar on this page.
When an expense is force cleared it is still critical to create and store supporting documentation for audit per Admin Guide 3.1.5 Retention of Financial Records as well as move charges to an appropriate PTA and expenditure type if the force clear PTAE was not appropriate. For more information, visit Managing Aging and Outstanding Expense Transactions/Force Clearing of Aging Transactions.
FY22 Deadlines
These timelines and calendar contain the important dates and deadlines to clear aging transactions. If necessary, FMS will force clear advances to the org’s Accounts Payable (AP) Default PTA, and clear PCard and TCard transactions to the card’s guarantee PTA, charging a fee for each transaction they clear.
Force clearing also triggers a tax reporting expense, which may have personal financial consequences for the payees.
Timelines of FY22 Aging Transactions Clearing Deadlines
These timelines provide a visual representation of the clearing deadlines. This is the timeline for the third quarter of FY22.
This is the timeline for all of FY22.
FY22 Aging Transactions Clearing Deadlines
This chart shows the clearing deadlines for all of FY22.
| When PCard, TCard, or advance aging begins* | FMS sends reminder to deans about approaching deadline; departments review aging reports | Last day for departments to resolve (or clear) transactions | FMS clears remaining uncleared transactions from report and charges fees ($35 per transaction line) | Date departments can run Force Clear Report (to see what was force cleared) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09/01/2021 through 11/30/2021 | 01/19/2022 | 02/02/2022 | 02/04/2022; posted to FEB-2022 | 03/02/2022 |
| 12/01/2021 through 02/28/2022 | 04/20/2022 | 05/04/2022 | 05/06/2022; posted to MAY-2022 | 06/01/2022 |
| Through 05/31/2022 | 07/20/2022 | 08/03/2022 | 08/05/2022; posted to AUG-2022 | 08/31/2022 |
| Through 08/31/2022 | 10/19/2022 | 11/02/2022 | 11/05/2022; posted to NOV-2022 | 11/30/2022 |
*Note: PCard starts aging on posted date, TCard starts aging on posted date if there is no expense end date, and advance aging begins with the expected clearing date.
