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Accounts Receivable Overview
a) The standard set up for Departments using the devolved Accounts Receivable module is: i) Raising Sales Invoices (SINV documents) for sundry or miscellaneous income. Departments will be responsible for raising invoices on line. After invoices have been raised they will be approved on line by central Finance staff (Commercial and Taxation Unit). Invoices will normally be printed centrally but by agreement with Finance Division some Departments may be authorised to print invoices locally and arrange despatch. This may be approved where the nature of the service requires attachments to be added to a large number of the invoices. All credit control will be carried out centrally and the maintenance of the master debtor records will be a central Finance responsibility eg setting up of new debtors and any subsequent amendments. ii) Receipts Receipts relating to Sales Invoices raised on the system should normally be sent direct to the UCL Cashier. If any items are received by departments they should immediately be taken to the cashier. SREC forms are used to record ‘invoiced’ receipts. Non Invoice Receipts In certain cases where, exceptionally, the nature of the operation justifies it then further devolvement may be agreed by Finance Division. At present full devolved procedures have been agreed for Histopathology only. b) Devolved data input by Finance offices There are certain units or sections which carry out some of the finance functions otherwise dealt with centrally. There is a long established Faculty of Clinical Science Accounts Office and following the recent mergers the former separate Finance Departments still carry out a number of finance operations. Devolved Accounts Receivable procedures have been agreed on a case by case basis. The current situation is set out below. i) Faculty of Clinical Sciences Accounts Office SREN input is devolved. FCS staff use standard SREN forms and send these with original back up documentation to Finance Division Accounts Payable section. Banking is done by FCS staff and Bank Control sheets are sent to Treasury & Investment Accounting section in the normal way. FCS Accounts office do not enter SREC, invoice receipts. ii) Royal Free Campus Finance Office Similar arrangements apply as for FCS Accounts office. RFC Finance office enter SREN receipts and bank direct. Batch headers and original back up documentation is then sent to Finance Division Accounts Payable section and Bank Control sheets are sent to Treasury & Investment Accounting section. RFC Finance office does not enter SREC, invoice receipts iii) ICH Finance Office Devolved SREN input and raising of Sales Invoice has been approved. ICH enter SREN data on to the system and bank receipts direct into the UCL bank account. Batch headers and original back up documentation is then sent to Finance Division Accounts Payable section. Bank Control forms are sent to Treasury & Investment Accounting section. Sales invoices are raised by ICH staff under the standard set up. These are approved centrally and all credit control is a central Finance responsibility. Customer Coding Customer coding is split into discrete groups in order to make identification and searching as easy as possible. As the system utilises pull down menus the first character and wildcard can be used to provide the list of codes specific to a particular area (see example below). All General debtors are prefixed G. Research grants are prefixed R. The two sections use the identifier prefix then 2 alpha characters followed by 5 numeric. In addition to the two major areas of Credit Control there is one fully devolved unit, the department of Histopathology, which has specific customer codes. Histopathology codes are prefixed with an H and may be shorter than the standard codes. Examples Customer Non Migrated Departments The standard system for miscellaneous income is set out below. a) All invoices should be raised using UCL pre-printed sales invoices forms (SINV). The forms should always be sent to Finance Division for review before despatch to customers. Any exceptions to this must be approved in writing by Finance Division. Departments wishing to deal with customers for the first time should consult with Finance Division prior to the provision of goods and services. Finance Division should also be contacted prior to the provision of goods and services over £5000 for new and existing customers. Finance Division will examine credit worthiness. Finance Division will deal with credit control and chase customers for payment. Departments will be notified if there are problems. Departments will be liable if income is credited to their account but later proves to be a bad debt. b) Departments will not normally receive receipts relating to invoiced amounts. Special forms, SREC’s, are used by Finance Division to record all receipts relating to official UCL invoices. If Departments receive income relating to a UCL invoice they should contact Finance Division for further guidance. c) Departments receive various sundry receipts which do not relate to an invoice previously issued by UCL. Details of such receipts should be entered on SREN forms and taken to the UCL cashiers office. Appropriate back up documentation must be included and VAT must be accounted for correctly. Definition of Miscellaneous Income Miscellaneous Income does not include specialised categories of income such as research grants and contracts, tuition fees and halls of residence charges, where there are alternative established UCL procedures for invoicing and debt collection.
This page last modified June 3, 2011 by Web Editor |
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