Obtaining Approvals

Once a journal has been determined to be appropriate and necessary, it should be approved based on department and system procedures.  Many departments have specific procedures and internal controls for preparing and approving journal activity. Department procedures should be followed in addition to the mandated procedures of Financial Operations and the University's Standard Practice Guide. To determine if your department has specific procedures related to journal processing please contact your financial Unit Liaison, Department Manager or higher financial administrative authority.

Departmental Approvals

All journals should go through an approval process.  Departments should determine their approval process for journals taking into consideration that journals with any single line $10,000 or greater will route systematically for approval to Department Managers or their designated approver in MPathways.  Journals with lines under $10,000 do not go through approval workflow, so approvals before being processed are required. The Department Manager can designate an individual as an Authorized Approver, this individual should have the appropriate system role to approve JE’s.

Central Approvals

All Sponsored JE’s go through approval workflow in MPathways.  Sponsored journals must include proper documentation  to support the need for a journal entry.

Internal Controls: Every journal entry should be reviewed and approved by the appropriate individual to ensure it is accurate and appropriate.

Department Contacts

Creator
 

The person who entered (processed) the journal entry into M-Pathways.

Requestor

The person who identifies the need for a journal to be processed and requested the journal entry. The unique name of the creator and the requester are stored in the Journal Header for all posted, user-initiated journal entries. In addition to the unique name, the telephone number of the requester, at the time the journal entry was created, is also stored with the journal entry.

Internal Controls: The person who authorizes a journal entry should not be the same individual who requested the journal entry into M-Pathways.

Help Tip: To view the creator’s or requestor’s uniqname for a particular journal entry, open the Journal Entry in M-Pathways, or run the “FN03 JrnlDetail Journal Detail by Journal ID and Date” in Business Objects. Contact Shared Services if you need additional assistance obtaining contact information on a journal entry.