University System of New Hampshire
Financial and Administrative Procedures

INTRODUCTION FROM MANAGEMENT
Procedure i
Issued By: Controller
Issued Date: 01/01/94
Revised Date: 07/01/98

The statements contained in this document are designed to:

  1. Document financial policies and procedures applicable to all campuses of the University System, as approved by the Board of Trustees or the Financial Policies and Planning Council (FINPAC).

  2. Provide an authoritative resource for System-wide financial information.

  3. Serve as a daily reference for both experienced and infrequent users of CUFS

  4. Serve as a supplement to training materials.

FINPAC represents the Chief Financial Officers of each campus and other financial officers at USNH; it is the group charged with advising the Administrative Board on the development of USNH financial policies, procedures and programs. All statements in Chapters 1-19 have been reviewed by interested parties prior to being submitted to and adopted by FINPAC. All statements in Chapters 20-29 have been reviewed by functional managers of the appropriate areas prior to being submitted to and adopted by the Financial Information System (FIS) Steering Committee. The procedures, as written, are effective immediately and will be followed by all units of the University System. Please refer to them often and re-read them periodically.

USNH is committed to the highest level of accountability and stewardship with regard to USNH funds. Each person responsible for making decisions concerning its expenditures should consider whether the expense represents a worthy use of USNH funds. The University System's goal is the optimal use of USNH resources in fulfillment of its mission. With this philosophy in mind, the objectives of this document are to:

  1. Provide guidance and reference for all persons performing financial functions.

  2. Promote administrative efficiency by clearly documenting correct methods of transaction processing.

  3. Promote consistency and uniformity in the treatment of financial transactions.

  4. Prevent costly mistakes -- mistakes which require a lot more time and energy to fix than had they been done correctly the first time.

  5. Complement training of personnel to meet financial reporting and management control requirements.

  6. Reduce the need of central processing support staff to spend unnecessary time answering each individual inquiry on a particular subject. With these documents, departmental users will be referred to the appropriate procedure in the documentation.

  7. Reduce the incidence of inconsistent responses from central processing support staff on departmental user questions because of the way the question was phrased or the staff person's individual perspective on the subject.

  8. Provide greater opportunity for constructive improvement of accounting procedures by periodic critical review of the existing procedures as prescribed by the documentation.

If there is a question on any of the material covered in the procedures, users are urged to contact the staff of the responsible official noted in the left-hand corner of each page next to the title "ISSUED BY."

Comments, suggestions, input and additional draft procedures are needed and encouraged to make this document more complete and useable for everyone at USNH with financial responsibilities. Your continued support is essential.

The official version of this information will only be maintained in an on-line web format.
Any and all printed copies of this material are dated as of the print date. Please make certain
to review the material on-line prior to placing reliance on a dated printed version.