FY23 Expense Report Forced Reconciliation - Fiscal Year End

University Travel Card and/or OneCard cardholder are responsible for reconciling all charges on their Travel Card/OneCard in Concur. 

Information about the Forced Reconciliation of Expense Reports

To ensure compliance and reconcile outstanding liabilities, Payment Processing & Compliance (PPC) has established a procedure to force reconcile expenses in the Concur system that will be more than 90-days old at the end of the fiscal year. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and University Policy FN 28 require Travel Card/OneCard cardholders to reconcile expenses in a timely manner, which is defined as within 30 days of returning from travel or within 30 days of when the expense is incurred for non-travel related expenses. Otherwise, the IRS requires employers to include payments to/for individuals that are unsupported by an approved business purpose and relevant receipts on the employee’s W2 as taxable income.

The forced reconciliation process is a large undertaking for PPC which requires multiple staff members to manually review a large volume of unreconciled individual expenses and construct expense reports so that the expense can be properly recorded. PPC frequently sees expenses removed from these expense reports by the cardholder, without a valid reason* and ultimately not reconciled. Expenses must be fully reconciled which includes attaching the required business receipts and justifying the business purpose of the expense on the expense report. If expenses are not fully reconciled this will result in inaccurate financial statements for the University and the amount of unreconciled expenses will be reported as taxable income on the individual faculty, staff or student’s W2 for that calendar year.

*Note that the only valid reasons for removing an expense from a report created by PPC are: 1) if travel has not yet occurred or 2) if the cardholder is disputing a charge and waiting for the credit to come in from the merchant or bank. Cardholders can request exclusion from the forced reconciliation process for expenses that are un-submitted prior to April 1, 2023 for the above valid reasons by emailing Jessica Rybak, Payment Processing Specialist, by June 1, 2023. If no exclusion is requested, the reports will be processed by Payment Processing starting June 1.

Next Steps, including action requested from you:

For fiscal year close, this expense reporting procedure applies to any and all travel or expenses charged to the University Travel Card/OneCard that were incurred before April 1, 2023 and have not been submitted on an expense report in Concur. Please read the following information and review the procedure carefully: 

  • Expenses on either your former (closed) Travel Card and/or new and existing OneCard must be reconciled by June 23, 2023. If expenses are not fully reconciled, this will result in inaccurate financial statements for the University and that the amount of unreconciled expenses will be reported as taxable income on your W2 for that calendar year. This cutoff is for current expense reports, not part of the forced reconciliation.
  • Please email Jessica Rybak, Payment Processing Specialist, by June 1, 2023 to request an exclusion from the forced reconciliation procedure for un-submitted charges made prior to April 1, 2023 for the valid reasons as described above with an asterisk. If no request for exclusion is received, the reports will be processed as part of the forced reconciliation by Payment Processing starting June 1, 2023.
  • Starting May 1, 2023 charges made prior to April 1, 2023 will be moved to expense reports in Concur. Reports with charges made prior to April 1, 2023 that have not been submitted by May 31, 2023 will be submitted and fully approved through the Concur system by PPC during the first two weeks of June as part of the forced reconciliation procedure. Cardholders should review expense reports with any such charges before May 31, 2023 and submit them when they are accurate and complete. 
  • Cardholders are responsible for ensuring the right account number is selected either by entering the expense report themselves or by reviewing and editing the report, as necessary. Failure to do so could result in inaccurate account number assignments and reporting.
  • Cardholders are responsible for ensuring transactions have appropriate receipts when required. Failure to attach required receipts may result in charges being considered taxable income by the IRS. Cardholders can add receipts after an expense report has been submitted and approved. 
  • To change the account number after it has been expensed, the cardholder will need to submit a journal entry correction for fiscal year-end reporting in accordance with the fiscal year end close schedule that General Accounting publishes on their website. Journal entries cannot correct charges across fiscal years. 
  • Any unsubmitted expenses outside of the IRS and University Policy FN28 requirements will be referred to your RC Business Manager or Director of Administration and may result in taxable income to you if not immediately corrected. This includes charges removed from the expense report created by PPC as a part of the forced reconciliation process without a valid reason as described above.

Resources

Purchase, Pay & Travel has a variety of resources available on our website to assist with reconciling expenses in Concur:

For questions about Concur or expense reporting, please contact Purchase, Pay & Travel Customer Service.