Financial responsibilities and account access

• Overview of Responsibilities

  All employees are entrusted with the responsibility of preserving University resources and using those resources in a prudent manner for their designated purposes, as prescribed by policies, laws, regulations, and rules, as well as contract, grant and donor restrictions.

  Depending on your job duties and responsibilities, you may have the ability to view financial transactions in Banner Finance or Insight Reports, and you may also be given the responsibility to sign off or approve financial transactions on behalf of your department and the University.

  By accepting authority to approve internal and/or external transactions, you agree to fully review all transactions under your responsibility, up to your authorized dollar limit, before approving them to ensure that they meet the minimum requirements detailed below. By approving a document you verify that:

  • Funds are available for the purchase and will not cause a budget or cash deficit.
  • The purchase is being made for official University business and that it supports the mission of the University.
  • There are supporting source documents to support the transaction.
  • The transaction (revenue / expense) is correctly coded to the correct Fund, Organization, Account, Program (FOAP) and Activity codes.
  • There has been proper segregation of duties so that no one employee controls all phases of a transaction and at least two people were involved in the decision.
  • For grant and foundation funds, the financial transaction is in compliance with sponsor and donor stipulations and restrictions.
  • That the transaction meets the ethical standards of the University as required by University of Northern Colorado Board Policies:
  • 1-1-502 Conflict of Interest - A University employee shall disclose to his or her immediate supervisor all facts and circumstances related to any University transactions, activities, contracts or other dealings in which they are involved or may become involved on behalf of the University which might directly or indirectly involve them in a conflict of interest. Under Colorado Law, CRS 18-8-308, failing to disclose a conflict of interest is a class 2 misdemeanor.
  • 1-1-504 Nepotism - It shall be deemed to be a conflict of interest for an employee to serve in a supervisory capacity over a relative or dependent. For the purposes of this policy, a relative shall be deemed to be any person within the 5th degree of consanguinity and a dependent shall be defined by the Internal Revenue Code.
  • 1-1-505 Outside Activities - Employees may not compete with the University or convert business opportunities of the University to their personal gain or advantage or the gain or advantage of another. Employees may not convert confidential information or trade secrets of the University to their personal gain or advantage or the gain or advantage of others

  Finance and accounting provides training to help you understand your role and responsibilities as it relates to financial accountability at the University. Please review Finance Training 1.10 and if you have any questions, individual training is always available from the accounting and finance staff upon request.

  For additional information, please refer to UNC Fiscal Rules.

• Banner Finance Access

  In order to gain access to Banner Finance, your supervisor or Business Manager will need to submit the Banner Security - Finance Module form located in OnBase.

  • Complete the form with the following information:

  • Banner Security Access
    Choose New/Update user, Production

  • Fund and Org Access
    Enter the fund number
    Action is ADD
    Access is Query
    Repeat for Org Access

  • Enter description of needs

  • Choose Submit

  Insight reports FIN040 and FIN041 can be used to check Banner Finance access. These reports may be found in Insight Production under the University, Finance Public or Finance Private views.

• Banner Approval Queues

  Approval queues force financial transactions to filter through management-defined levels of approvers prior to posting to the ledgers.

  Each department determines the approvers responsible for authorizing encumbrance, disbursement and journal voucher transactions, in compliance with the State Department Financial Responsibility and Accountability Act (Colorado Revised Statute 24-17-101 through 105), that requires the University to institute and maintain systems of internal accounting and administrative control that include:

  • Hiring of employees of quality and integrity commensurate with their assigned responsibilities;
  • Restricting access to assets and the University financial system to authorized persons only in the performance of their duties;
  • A plan of organization that segregates duties as necessary to safeguard assets;
  • Adequate authorization and record-keeping procedures to provide effective accounting control over assets, liabilities, net assets, revenues, expenditures and transfers;
  • The department representative (Business Manager, Director, etc.) will set a dollar level limit for approvers;
  • An effective process of internal review that considers changes in conditions;
  • A single person may not create, approve and reconcile a financial transaction; and
  • The approvers on an approval queue should not be the creators of documents submitted for approval.

  Banner Finance Access is required before you can be added to an Approval Queue.
  If you do not have Banner Finance Access, please refer to the previous section to obtain access.

  By being added to a Banner Approval Queue, you will be authorized to view information in Banner fund/organization combinations and you will be authorized to approve payment of documents related to the fund/organization combinations for which you have been granted authority.

  • Insight Approval Queue reports

    A number of Insight reports have been created to easily find out who has access to fund/organization combinations and also who has approval authority on fund/organization combinations. These reports are located in Insight Production under the University, Finance Public or Finance Private views:

    • FIN040 Banner ORGN Access Lookup by ORGN code
    • FIN041 Banner ORGN Access Lookup by User Name
    • FIN045 Banner Fund Access Lookup by Username
    • FIN046 Banner Fund Access Lookup by Fund Code
    • FIN047 Approvers by Fund ORGN
    • FIN048 Approvers by Name
    • FIN049 Approvers by Queue ID
  • Grant Approval Queue Procedures

    Approval queues for sponsored program grants (3xxxxx funds) have additional procedures that must be followed due to compliance and oversight requirements related to grants. Please contact the Office of Sponsored Programs for more information.

  • Forms and Instructions

    Approval Queue Authorization Form (Creation or change to a single Approval Queue)

    • Instructions on how to complete Approval Queue Form

    Mass Approval Queue Authorization Form (Changes to multiple existing Approval Queues)

• Insight Access

  Within Insight, there are many different views. Each view corresponds to different areas on campus.

  University and Academic views are automatically given to each University staff member who request Insight access and does not require additional authorization. Other employee types including, but not limited to, student employees, University aides, teaching assistants and graduate assistants do not have any automatic access to Insight so they will need to submit the Insight Security form for any access needed.

  In order to obtain access, your supervisor will need to:

  • Visit the Information and Technology home page
  • Click on the "Search our Knowledge Base" section
  • Click on Insight Access Request on the left hand side under Popular Resources
  • Complete form and submit