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Office of the University Controller Indiana University

1.0 - Fiscal Officer Responsibility

Source: Financial Management Services

Original Date of Issue: August 2010

Date of Last Revision: August 2017

Rationale: To outline the Fiscal Officer's responsibility to ensure accurate and timely payroll processing within their department(s).

Procedure

  1. The Fiscal Officer is responsible for ensuring a proper segregation of duties in their area in order to prevent fraud. This includes doing the following:
    1. The Fiscal Officer must ensure that the Fiscal Approver is not a Payroll Processor by running the HRMS Departmental Security IUIE report to identify their departmental Payroll Processors and Fiscal Approvers. The report is located in the following IUIE Master Catalog folders:
      1. Departmental Reporting > Bloomington Business Officers Group > HRMS Reports > HRMS Departmental Security
      2. Departmental Reporting > IU Indianapolis Fiscal Officers Group > HRMS Reports > HRMS Departmental Security
      3. Departmental Reporting > Payroll Reports-Departmental > HRMS Departmental Security
    2. When Payroll Processors leave the department or change roles within the department, the Fiscal Officer must request that the Payroll Processor's HRMS access is either modified or deleted using the HRMS Access Request form .
    3. The Fiscal Officer must ensure that somebody other than the Payroll Processor approves the Payroll Processor's timesheet.
  2. The Fiscal Officer is responsible for ensuring that the Fiscal Approver reviews the fiscal approver report for inaccuracies prior to payday. The Fiscal Officer may also run and review the report in IUIE, although they are not required to do so if they have designated a Fiscal Approver. Items that must be reviewed include:
    1. The names on the report to verify that those listed are employed by the department.
    2. The amounts paid to individual employees to ensure they are reasonable in amount. Sort the amounts in descending order to identify outliers. 
    3. Hours worked to validate that they are reasonable for the person doing the job. Sort the hours in descending order to identify outliers.
    4. Additional items that should be reviewed include:
      1. Review overtime for reasonableness. Excessive overtime should be addressed with the employee and the employee’s supervisor.
      2. Verify that any terminal pay is consistent with the department's expectations.
      3. Review any additional pays for accuracy. These can be identified by object code on the report.
      4. Check the total payroll payment for reasonableness. This amount will vary depending on the size of the department. The Fiscal Officer should work with the Fiscal Approver to set a standard for variance in the total payroll.
      5. Review all Associate Instructor and Adjunct Faculty appointments at the beginning of each semester to ensure that they are still employed by the department.
      6. Quarterly, send lists of hourly employees to each supervisor, asking them to identify any who have terminated.
  3. The Fiscal Officer is responsible for ensuring that their Fiscal Approvers are the most appropriate person for that role. The Fiscal Officer should also periodically review their list of Fiscal Approvers to verify that they are still active employees.

    1. The Fiscal Officer is also responsible for ensuring that their Fiscal Approvers and Payroll Processors are approving their timesheets and that their Payroll Processors are approving the department’s payroll vouchers. The Fiscal Officer should use the Auto Approved Timesheet Detail IUIE report to identify Fiscal Approvers and Payroll Processors who are allowing the timekeeping system to super approve the department's timesheets.

    2. When Payroll Processors do not approve their payroll vouchers, it is incumbent on the Fiscal Officer to rectify these situations.

  4. The Fiscal Officer is responsible for ensuring that, prior to payroll closing, Payroll Processors search for routing eDocs that will affect payroll. If any potential issues arise as the result of a routing eDoc, it is the Fiscal Officer’s responsibility to ensure that the Payroll Processor takes action to avoid any resulting payroll issues. The eDocs that may potentially affect payroll are:
    1. Hire eDoc: If new employees’ hire eDocs are not final prior to the payroll closing, the new employees will not be paid on the on-cycle payroll. These employees should therefore be paid on the next off-cycle payroll.
    2. Termination eDoc: If employees’ termination eDocs are not finalized before the payroll is confirmed for their last pay period, the terminating employees must be removed from the payroll so they are not overpaid.
    3. Maintain pay rate eDoc: If employees receive pay changes during the pay period, avoid over- or underpayment by verifying that they will be paid the correct amount.
  5. The Fiscal Officer is responsible for ensuring that their department complies with all University Payroll administration policies .
  6. The Fiscal Officer must monitor overpayments and take the proper action to ensure that the overpayment is collected. Additionally, the Fiscal Officer must ensure that proper procedures are in place to prevent overpayments. These procedures include, but are not limited to, those listed above.

Other resources include the Overpayment Policy ( FIN-PAY-050 ) and the Overpayment Processing Procedure ( PSOP 2.0 ).

Definitions

Approver:  A person who is responsible for reviewing and approving a non-exempt staff member’s hours recorded in a university-managed timekeeping system. The Approver should have direct knowledge of the non-exempt staff member’s hours worked and attendance; typically, the Approver is the non-exempt staff member’s direct supervisor.

Fiscal Officer:  A person who is trained and hired for the purpose of providing fiscal, policy, and internal control management of all funds in a unit. They also ensure that processes and related controls have been established to achieve the organization’s mission and objectives. 

Fiscal Approver:  A person authorized by the Fiscal Officer pursuant to policy to approve all payroll transactions for a given organization.

Payroll Processor:  A person responsible for ensuring the completeness and timeliness of all time and attendance information. The Payroll Processor reviews the non-exempt staff members’ hours worked, benefit time taken, and earn codes used for compliance with university policies and procedures.

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