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January 2021

06 January 2021

Revenue Budgeting Review

With the enrollment fluctuations and unexpected Covid revenue, now might be a good time to review both revenue and expenditure budgets. On the revenue side, note the following: Compare your current enrollment with the enrollment used to prepare the original budget. If there are material differences, use MDE’s revenue projection model to review/change the revenue budget. When using the Revenue Projection Model, on the Gen Ed tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet, don’t forg...

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December 2020

02 December 2020

Cares Funding and UFARS Reporting

Here are some reminders: The revenue for finance 154 must be spent by 12/31. Coding expenditures for all CARES funding should mirror the application. The application can be found under MDE>Data>Center>Data Reports and Analytics>UFARS/SERVS Budget Comparison. https://public.education.mn.gov/MDEAnalytics/DataTopic.jsp?TOPICID=126

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02 December 2020

Coming Soon...It's 1099 Time

We will be emailing 1099 instructions in the middle of December. All 1099s must be efiled by 01/31/2021! This leaves little time for corrections without jumping through hoops to e-file correcting 1099s. Initial accuracy is at a premium. In preparation, please review your initial 1099 balances by going to Vendor Setup > Vendor 1099 Balance. Enter 2020 in the Year column and click Find.

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02 December 2020

Career Tech

Just a reminder that it is important to code all eligible expenses for Career Tech correctly in UFARS. Finance code 830, Program Codes 301,311,321,331,341,361,365,371,385,399,and 610, and Object codes 140,143,185,305,365,366,394,396,406,433,490.Career Tech revenue is based on eligible expenditures. If your UFARS expenses are lower or higher compared to the estimate when you certified your levy, you will have adjustments on future revenue.To review your Career Tech expenditures in SMART Finance, ...

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October 2020

07 October 2020

It's Time to Review UFARS Reporting Errors!

After Region 1 submits your UFARS data to the State, it’s time to review and correct UFARS reporting errors. To see if you have UFARS compliance errors, go to the MDE MFR web sitehttps://public.education.mn.gov/MDEAnalytics/DataTopic.jsp?TOPICID=9If you see ‘No Edit Errors Were Found. Congratulations!’ you have completed UFARS compliance. Otherwise, review the listed errors and post necessary JEs for corrections. Contact Stacy, Kameron, or Wayne if you need ass...

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07 October 2020

Budget Publication

According to MDE, the deadline to publish your Budget Publication report is November 30th, or within one week of the acceptance of the final audit report by the board, whichever is earlier. There are four reports in Smart Finance to help districts complete this Budget Publication. These reports automatically separate restricted from unrestricted fund balances, revenues, and expenditures. They are located under Custom Reports > Custom Ledger Reports > Budget Publication&helli...

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September 2020

01 September 2020

Finding Negative Expenditures

To find negative expenditures (which MDE doesn’t like when we send UFARS data), here is a short cut:Go to Account Analysis and enter Periods 202001 to 202013, enter an E in the L column and click Find. Once the screen is populated, click on the End Balance heading. All negative expenses will appear at the top of your screen. Negatives in chargeback objects 195,295,365,398,and 895 are ok and a negative in object 589 is ok. Click Reset to switch back to Account Code order...

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01 September 2020

UFARS Additions for Covid

For FY 21, related to the CARES Act, finance Code 154 will be added for the Coronavirus Relief Funds (CRF) that the state of MN recently requested. Finance Code 174 will be added for the County provided Coronavirus Relief Funds (some counties have passed along their funds to districts). Region 1 is waiting for MDE to officially release these accounts and update the Chapter X UFARS grid. We will let you know when these new dimensions are added to SMART Finance. For FY20, balan...

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July 2020

06 July 2020

New UFARS Codes

Region I has updated the UFARS dimensions and Chapter X grids to the new requirements for COVID-19. Here’s a link to the PowerPoint slides on MASBO’s website that discuss the new finance and source dimensions. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.mnasbo.org/resource/resmgr/handouts/cares-funding-slides.pdf) Each district will need to build the finance dimensions in Account Segment Setup before building the new accounts. For revenue accounts, use source 400 with new finance dimensions ...

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May 2020

04 May 2020

Bank Reconciliation Tip

To be more efficient, you can attach a copy of your bank statement(s) directly to the Bank Reconciliation. Scan your bank statement(s) and save to a PDF file. In your Reconciliation Worksheet create a note and add the attached bank statement PDF file. The bank statement will now be available for you and your auditors at any time.

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SMART Finance News You Can Use