Office of Financial Management Services
          FMS Knowledge Base

Home
VPCFO
AVP - FMS
Access IUIE
FMS Staff Directory
FMS Support Form
FMS Newsletter
Faculty/Staff Salary Listing

Would you please clarify the current policy on the fees assessed for processing of financial transactions by FMS?


In the summer of 1998 Vice President Judy Palmer notified the vice presidents and chancellors that additional transactions intended for the FIS would be subject to fees if paper forms continued to be used. As of February 1, 1999, there is a $10 transaction-processing fee for each paper document (or request for certain financial transactions) processed by Financial Management Support that could have been electronically entered by the department. The specific documents affected by the February 1 fee (in addition to those for which the charge is currently assessed) are:
  • Disbursement Vouchers (with the exception of revolving fund/petty cash reimbursements)
  • Requests to Contract and Grants for Expense Transfers (e.g., General Error Corrections, Distribution of Income and Expense, and Salary Transfer documents)
  • Requests to Capital Asset Management for Asset Transfers, Asset Retirements, and Add-Asset documents
  • Requests to Auxiliary Accounting for the Auxiliary Accrual Voucher

The fee is assessed if paper documents are sent to FMS for data entry, if FMS must route electronic documents  in paper form to non-FIS participants for approval, or if verbal requests are made by departments for FMS to initiate the electronic documents. Please note that documents entered or approved by other units such as IUPUI Accounting Records and Services or Travel Management Services are not assessed this processing fee. An exception to this would be if a paper disbursement voucher were submitted to Travel Management Services that contained a travel payment along with a non-travel payment. In this case the paper document is forwarded to FMS to complete the non-travel portion of the disbursement voucher, and the fee is assessed.

The fee can be avoided by ensuring that all initiators and approvers of paper documents are active FIS users. Another option is to establish a "service center," which could be an RC-level group of support staff to facilitate the processing of paper forms for non-active FIS users. Each responsibility center should determine whether their small departments or centers need this kind of service.

ASSESSMENT OF THE PROCESSING FEE

The $10.00 fee is assessed to responsibility center level accounts associated with the specific operating accounts appearing on the source documents. The RC level accounts used depends on the fund group of the operating account. The RC has the option of redistributing these fees to specific operating accounts. However, the fees cannot be distributed to accounts within the contract and grant fund group.

Non-Contract and Grant Accounts

Each University account has a related responsibility center level account. This account is called the "income stream" account, and can be viewed through account inquiry in the FIS. The income stream account is used to assess the processing fee associated with all accounts not related to the contract and grant fund group.

Contract and Grant Accounts

Accounts related to the contract and grant fund group have a related indirect cost revenue account. This account can also be viewed through the account inquiry under the button labeled "contract & grant." The indirect cost revenue account is used to assess the processing fee associated with operating accounts related to the contract and grant fund group.

Timing of Assessment Transactions

All processing fees are assessed on a monthly basis. The monthly assessment transactions represent fees assessed for the preceding month's documents. For example, fees distributed to the RC level accounts in March represent paper documents processed by FMS during the month of February.

Assessment Transactions

An Interdepartmental Billing transaction is used to distribute the fees to the RC level account on a monthly basis. Each transaction references specific information relating to the documents processed by FMS. This information is detailed through specific reference fields appearing on the monthly operating statement of the RC account.

The vast majority of transactions are now entered directly into the FIS, so this is not a revenue generation process for FMS. Questions or concerns may be directed to the FMS Support Form .

Document Information:
File Name: kb-251
Date: 06/30/2009
User: pjtaylor


Block IU Last Updated 6/30/2009
400 E. 7th Street, Poplars 527, Bloomington, IN 47405 (812) 855-0375
Copyright © 2008 The Trustees of Indiana University | Copyright Complaints