Glossary

Absence Without Approved Leave

Absence without prior approval of supervisory staff or failure to inform supervisory staff and receive approval for an absence constitutes Absence Without Approved Leave. Absence Without Approved Leave is always unpaid. Absence Without Approved Leave may result in disciplinary action up to and including termination. Please refer to The George Washington University Manual of Personnel Polices for the use of Supervisory Staff for definitive policies and procedures. When recording Absence Without Approved Leave in the Time Reporting System, use pay code AWL.

A logical classification in the University's chart of accounts that identifies types of assets, liabilities, revenue, expense, and net assets.

Describes the General Ledger account as it appears in the University's chart of accounts.

The account number that identifies each account in the chart of accounts.

Debt owed to trade creditors. Accounts Payable normally arise from the purchase of goods or services.

Amount due for services rendered or goods provided.

A record in the University's financial systems containing information for each account such as class, group, account description, normal sign code, required entry code, reconcile code, and alerts.

A feature in the University's financial system that enables financial data to be subtotaled or 'rolled up' by account category. Detailed accounts are subtotaled by category of account, account group and class of account.

A special record in the University's financial system that contains the accumulated activity for each account. It is the total of all centers for a specific account. This record is automatically generated for each account any time an account is added. The total amount is automatically posted each time a journal entry is made.

A set of records and procedures designed to handle in routine fashion the transactions and other events which affect financial statements.

The basis of accounting in which inflows of resources are recognized as revenues when the right to them has been earned, and resource outflows are recognized as expenses when resources and services are used.

Non-transaction changes in assets and liabilities and the offsetting changes in revenue and expense items required to meet the earnings and use criteria established under the accrual basis of accounting.

American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Reports produced by the University's financial system which alert that certain pre-defined conditions have been encountered in posting (i.e., system generated balancing entries).

Current allotment represents the original amount budgeted for an account for the year as modified by any budget change requests.

Annual Leave is provided to regular employees for various types of approved absences from work. Regular employees accrue Annual Leave based upon length of service. Refer to The George Washington University Manual of Personnel Policies for use by Supervisory Staff and related approved policy revisions for information on the administration of Annual Leave. When recording Annual Leave in the Time Reporting System, use pay code ANL.

A unique identifier assigned to indicate the source of a set of entries such as Inventory (IV), Student Accounts (SA), Accounts Payable (AP) and so on.

Areas are organizational entities defined in the University's Time Reporting System and administered by Payroll Services to allow additional flexibility for reporting and security. An area is an organization consisting of one or more departments.

The code defined by Payroll Services to an area defined in the Time Reporting System.

A date used in Custom Reporting to indicate a report cut off date.

Something of value owned by an entity, or more formally, any resource, tangible or intangible from which future benefits are expected and the right to which have been acquired as the result of past or present transactions.

A segment of the University's operations that furnishes a service directly or indirectly to students, faculty or staff and charges a fee related to but not necessarily equal to the cost of services. Auxiliary Enterprises are managed as essentially self-supporting.

The amount of the allotment balance remaining in an account after funds have been encumbered, expensed or otherwise adjusted.

A system master file in the University's Budgetary Control System which contains the information necessary to calculate the available balance for all expenditure accounts.

An amount calculated by dividing the aggregate balance by the number of days in the reporting period.

An employee's hourly wage or contractual salary or wage. This should not be confused with the 'regular rate of pay' as defined by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Baylor time is a bonus of some predefined amount, for working a specified number of hours.

The previous year ending balance for balance sheet accounts. This is zero for revenue and expenditure accounts.

Paid Bereavement Leave up to three days is provided employees in regular positions upon the death of a spouse, child, parent, grandparent, sister, brother, mother-in-law, father-in-law, son-in- law, or daughter-in-law. When recording Bereavement Leave in the Time Reporting System, use the pay code BRV.

As part of the Service Award Program, employees in regular positions who have completed ten years of full-time equivalent service are eligible for one day of Birthday Leave. Birthday Leave must be taken ten calendar days before or after the birthday. When recording Birthday Leave in the Time Reporting System, use the pay code BDY.

A plan or plans for the future that outlines projected actual performance.

Accounts used to enter the formally adopted annual operating budget into the general ledger as part of the management control technique of formal budgetary integration.

(1) The control or management of a university or other enterprise in accordance with an approved budget for the purpose of keeping expenditures within the limitations of available allotments and revenue. (2) One of the modules of the university's accounting system used to help control and manage the university's spending.

All buildings and structures, including all permanently attached fixtures, machinery, and other apparatus that cannot be removed without cutting into walls, ceilings or floors, or otherwise damaging the building or the items so removed.

Building components consist of classes of building construction (building structure or shell, foundation, framing, floor structures, roof structures) and construction finish (floor covering, interior construction).

Call back time refers to time an employee works as a result of being called in. When reporting call back time in the University's Time Reporting System, use pay code CBW.

Asset intended for long-term, continued use or possession, such as land buildings and equipment. Synonymous with fixed asset or capital expenditure. The current threshhold for capitalizing an asset is $5,000

Expenditure intended to benefit future periods; addition to a capital asset.

To record an expenditure that may benefit a future period as an asset rather than to treat the expenditure as an expense of the current period.

A basis of accounting under which transactions are recognized only when cash changes hands.

The lowest level within George Washington University's financial systems for recording financial transactions and maintaining account balances.

The name which describes the responsibility or report center defined by George Washington University's financial systems.

The code (an alpha character followed by 5 numbers) that identifies a center. This is equivalent to the Banner Index.

A record established for each account/center combination. It contains information such as status code, active/inactive date, required entry code, reconcile code, and alerts. This is equivalent to the Banner index code.

A complete list of accounts, systematically classified by title and number, developed to be compatible with the University's organizational structure and in agreement with the financial reports to be presented. The chart of accounts also serves as an index to the ledger. George Washington's chart of accounts consists of 8 classes of accounts (See Class of Account).

One of eight categories of the chart of accounts. The following classes of accounts have been established at George Washington University: 1 - Assets 2 - Liabilities 3 - Net Assets 4 - Revenue 5 - Expenditures 6 - Estimated Revenues 7 - Appropriation 8 - Encumbrance Charts of accounts are further broken down by assigning groups within class. (See Group.)

A special type of account containing totals for each account class and each group within a class. Since these accounts carry summary amounts, they can be pointed to Custom Reports. The system automatically maintains these totals every time the system posts to accounts.

An option that allows journal entries to be posted to closed periods in an open year.

Closed periods are those periods in an open year that have been finalized and closed to normal journal entries.

The net asset account/center used at year-end for closing out revenue and expenditure.

Entries recorded at the end of each fiscal period to transfer the balances in the various revenue and expense or expenditure accounts to the permanent equity accounts of an entity.

The state existing when the person for whom services are rendered has the right to control and direct the individual who performs the services, not only as to the result to be accomplished by the work, but also as to the details and means by which that result is to be accomplished.

This classification includes all projects for the construction of buildings, other improvements, and equipment which are in progress at the end of the fiscal year.

These are reports that the system generates for control and audit purposes. Some, like the Batch Proof List and Alert Reports are automatically produced each time the system is run. Other control reports include various cross reference reports. Control reports provide audit trails and are used to maintain control over system processing.

A code used in prorations or explosions that indicates whether one sided (all debits or all credits) or two sided (debits and credits) entries are generated. These are used to distribute or generate journal entries.

Cost Accounting Standards defined in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Part 99, contain educational standards effective January 1995 and incorporated into the revised OMB Circular A- 21. The standards applicable to educational institutions are: § 501, Consistency in Estimating, Accumulating, and Reporting Costs; § 502, Consistency in Allocating Costs Incurred for the Same Purpose, § 505, Accounting for Unallowable Costs, and § 506, Consistency in Using the Same Cost Accounting Period. In addition, the Cost Accounting Standards require a Disclosure Statement disclosing all relevant cost accounting policies and procedures.

See Center ; An account that normally has a credit balance, such as liability, net asset and revenue.

An account that normally has a credit balance, such as liability, net asset and revenue.

A journal entry that decreases an account center balance for assets and expense or expenditure, and increases it for liabilities, net asset and revenue.

Reports which list the chart of accounts. They also list different types of relationships such as account/center, center/report center, report/center/report group, account/report/page/line, etc.

College and University Business Administrators.

The "as of" balance by period for the current accounting year. For the current period, this is the balance as of the last posting. For prior periods, it is the balance as of the last day of each period.

The Custom Control File (CCF) is a system master file that contains descriptive and control information. It holds center descriptions, report titles, report definitions, fiscal calendars and other data required for system processing.

A module of the General Ledger Accounting System that reports financial and statistical actual, historical, budget and cost allocation information.

A collection of information. In the General Ledger Accounting System, the data base includes the General Ledger Open and Closed Years Segments, Budget and Planning Segments, and Cost Allocation Segments.

An account that normally has a debit balance, such as assets and expense.

A journal entry that increases an account center balance for assets and expense and decreases it for liabilities, net asset and revenue.

A two position code used to identify debit and credit entries for financial and statistical journal entries. Any system generated entry resulting from explosions, balancing and so on, are identified by a unique debit/credit code.

Payment of interest and matured principal; outlay needed or accrued for meeting such payments during any accounting period.

The department number in the University's Time Reporting System refers to the Banner index code. Department codes will translate to the current center code in the University's financial systems.

The department number that identifies each department (cost center).

An expense which results from the process of allocating the cost of certain long-lived assets to the periods of benefit.

A 30 position field used to describe a line item of a journal entry. This description appears on control and ledger reports to help provide an audit trail.

A 12 position field which can be used as an extension of the description 1. This field may also be used by itself and produce reports that sort on it, i.e., description 2 analysis, and account reconcilement.

A type of ledger report that lists, sorts and totals entries based on their description 2 contents.

A 10 position field which can be used to further describe entries. This field prints on reports designed using Information Expert.

A definition with which the characteristics and length of accounts, responsibility centers and report centers are defined. It is used to edit "add" maintenance transactions and for entry in online.

The date on which a given journal entry is reflected in a set of books for purposes of adjusting balances and/or aggregates.

Person who performs services for another person or entity in return for compensation. Any individual is an employee if the relationship between the employee and the person or entity for whom the services are performed is the legal relationship of employer and employee as defined under common law. An Employee may work on a per-hour, per-diem, or on a flat salary basis. The Internal Revenue Service, The U.S. Department of Labor and other governmental organizations each have regulations specifically defining an Employee.

Group of employees having common FLSA status, leave eligibility, benefit eligibility, premium pay, pay frequency, etc.

A function of the Time Reporting System which allows departments to define and maintain certain information on the employee's file in the University's Time Reporting System.

The employee number in the Time Reporting System is the employee's Social Security Number.

Commitments related to unperformed (executory) contracts for goods or services.

The record of a transaction or other event in the University's journal or ledger.

See Posting Date.

Except for Library books and museum and art collections, which are accounted for separately, equipment includes all personal property having these characteristics: (1) an acquisition price in excess of $5000.00, (2) an expected useful life of more than two years, and (3) an identity which is not altered materially through use.

A value established for each page/line of a custom report that is used to flag exceptional variances.

A feature in custom reporting that flags variances based on predefined exception amounts and/or percents.

A feature in custom reporting that enables the exclusion of an account or account center from a range assigned to a page/line of a custom report.

Worker such as an executive, administrative, and professional employee who is exempt from the minimum wage and overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act if certain tests regarding duties and salaries are satisfied.

All tangible personal property other than nonexpendable personal property.

Decreases in net spendable resources; these include current operating expenses that require current or future use of net current assets, payments toward the retirement of general long term debt, and outlays for long term assets.

An expired cost, that is a cost consumed in the process of operating.

The generation of multiple entries from a single entry.

A federal law enacted in 1938, setting minimum wages per hour and maximum hours of work. It also provides that employees are paid one and one-half time the worker's regular hourly wage for work beyond 40 hours per week.

Federal Insurance Contribution Act. (FICA is commonly referred to as Social Security Tax.)

A group of characters treated as a unit, such as a name field or a time field.

A group of records treated as a unit containing information to be used for a common purpose.

The basic period for measuring financial performance. The George Washington University has defined its fiscal year as July 1 through June 30.

Fixed Assets are sometimes referred to as permanent assets, plant assets, or simply property. For purposes of clarity, George Washington will use the NACUBO's definition to include all long- lived property, both real and personal, that is owned by the University or in its custody by loan, lease or other specific agreement. The major classifications of fixed assets are (1) Real Property, (2) Personal Property, and (3) Construction in progress.

Fixed equipment consists of building services equipment (attachments to buildings such as wiring, electrical fixtures, plumbing and heating systems, air conditioning systems, etc.) and building fixed equipment (consists of furniture and equipment affixed to the building including, built-in cabinets and other carpentry work, ceramic tile, caulking, conveying equipment, etc.) The general characteristics of fixed equipment is (a) affixed to the building and not subject to transfer and (b) a fairly long life, but shorter than the life of the building.

An employee whose duties and assignments may vary depending on workload requirements and who moves from one department or job to another depending on the workload demand.

Goods shipped F.O.B. (Free On Board) destination become the property of the purchaser upon delivery. The vendor is responsible for goods in transit, for filing claims, and for paying freight charges.

Goods shipped F.O. B. (Free On Board) origin become the property of the purchaser at the vendor's point of origin. The buyer is responsible for goods in transit and for filing claims. Freight charges are paid by the vendor and charged back to the buyer by adding the amount to the invoice.

Fringe benefit charges cover the employer's share of those benefits afforded all employees.

A series of steps in the General Ledger system that collects, edits, prorates, explodes, validates, balances and reports maintenance and journal entry activity.

Options used to determine how the system should handle error entries before posting.

Employee normally scheduled for 35 hours or more per workweek.

A journal entry whose effective date is in the future relative to the current posting date.

A levy against an employee's wages, salary or other income. A garnishment is usually mandated by the court system and requires the employer to deduct a certain amount from the employee's wages and issue a check to the garnishor.

Name of the company that sells and supports the General Ledger System. Formerly called MSA.

The University's accounting system that records and reports accounting activity according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

A segment of the general ledger data base that stores historical balances by period by year for each accounting distribution.

A segment of the General Ledger Data Base that stores the current year balances by period for each accounting distribution. The previous history year period balances during the year-end cycle are also be stored here.

Equipment partially or completely acquired by George Washington with government funds under research grants or contracts which provide for transfer of ownership (title) to the University.

Equipment in the possession of, or directly acquired by, the government and subsequently loaned to George Washington. The item may come directly from the government or from a non- government sponsor. Ownership (title) remains with the government unless and until ownership is transferred to George Washington. If that occurs, the item then becomes George Washington owned.

Equipment partially or completely acquired by George Washington with government funds under a contractual agreement which assigns ownership (title) to the government.

All government furnished or government owned property for which ownership (title) is held by the government.

A nominal period before or after a scheduled start or stop time during which employees may arrive or depart and still be paid from the scheduled start or stop time. Unless restricted by union contract, the grace period defined in the Time Reporting System is seven minutes.

A further breakdown of class of accounts. Nine different groups within each account class are available in the General Ledger System. (See Class of Account.)

GWCOMM is a set of public domain DOS-based programs developed by George Washington University which uses KERMIT scripts to facilitate menu-based communications between IBM- compatible personal computers and various campus computers and network services. GWCOMM is available to all departments of the University.

Holiday Leave

All employees in regular positions will be given an observed holiday off with pay or receive a substitute day off with pay. Employees in Temporary positions are not eligible for holiday pay or a substitute day off. The Time Reporting System is programmed with the University's observed holidays. If employees take the holiday on a substitute day, the pay code used to report the holiday is HOL.

Pay received by a salaried employee when the employee does not work on the holiday and that day is NOT a regularly scheduled day off.

Compensation other than overtime for hours worked on an observed holiday.

The organization within the University where an employee is assigned. The home department may or may not be the funding department or cost center.

Payment primarily to confer distinction on, or to symbolize respect, esteem, or admiration for the recipient.

Hours worked include all time an employee is required or allowed to work, including all time an employee is required to be on duty or on the employer's premises or at any other prescribed place of work. Paid and unpaid holidays or leave periods are not time worked. In addition, bona fide meal periods, defined as authorized periods of time during the workday are not time worked.

The date a given account center becomes unavailable for posting.

A classification of workers hired to do specific jobs over which the person hiring has no right to control the manner in which the work is done. The workers generally have a distinct trade or business that is offered to the public, and are often paid a lump-sum amount for the completed job. An independent contractor is not considered an 'employee'.

Expenses commonly incurred and therefore not readily identifiable with any one department or center but are real costs to the University, for example maintenance and general administration.

A reporting tool that is used with the General Ledger data to report detail (debit/credit) or summary accounting activity and the change in balances for a given accounting period. Information Expert reporting can be used to provide trial balances, detail journal listings, account analysis and audit reports.

Financial Statements covering less than a full fiscal year.

A term used to identify a position occupied by an employee when the employee is employed in more than one position at the University.

One or more debits and one or more credits used to record an accounting transaction in the General Ledger or on various journals.

KERMIT is a family of programs developed by Columbia University which simplifies communication between computers. It provides two main functions: terminal emulation and file transfer.

Land improvements are improvements to land other than buildings, including streets, roads, bridges, pavements, fences, landscaping, and utility distribution systems.

The last date an account center was posted to or was updated.

Any entry whose effective date is older than the current posting date.

Equipment in the custody of the University on lease or long term loan must be included in the equipment records. Leased equipment must be identified so that these items can be removed for financial reporting purposes. When a lease includes an option to purchase, the stated purchase price must be recorded, and if the purchase option is exercised, adjustments made to the property records.

Improvements to leased property. (These charges are to be amortized over the expected service life of the improvement or the remaining life of the lease, whichever is shorter.)

Leave of Absence may be provided to regular employees at the discretion of the department head for unusual personal situations provided the operational needs of the department are not adversely affected. Leave of Absence is always unpaid leave. When reporting Leave of Absence for regular employees in the Time Reporting System, use pay code LWP. Do not report Leave without pay for temporary employees.

Leave for jury duty is provided to employees in regular positions who are summoned to jury duty. Eligible employees will be granted paid leave for scheduled work hours missed to comply with the summons for jury duty. Refer to The George Washington University Manual of Personnel Policies for the use of Supervisory Staff for University requirements on administration of jury duty leave. When recording leave for jury duty in the Time Reporting System, use pay code JRY.

Leave records must be established and maintained by supervisory staff in accordance with procedures set forth by the Director of Human Resource Services. Leave records must include accrual rates, accrual dates, and leave accumulation and usage. Leave records are property of the University and are subject to audit by Internal Audit.

Probable future sacrifices of economic benefits arising from present obligations of a particular entity to transfer assets or to provide services to other entities in the future as a result of past transactions or events.

Maintenance transactions that are entered on a one-for-one basis. This term is used to distinguish between regular file maintenance and high volume maintenance where many maintenance records are generated from one input record.

One of the system's accounting defined alert features. A minimum balance limit for an account or specific account center is established and the system reports alerts if the balance drops below that limit.

Another accounting defined alert feature similar to that described above. In this case, lower limit alerts are established for journal entries.

Major moveable equipment will include assets having an original cost in excess of $500.00 and a minimum life of two years.

Master Control File (MCF) is a system master file that contains accounting definitions for custom reporting. It is the link between the General Ledger data base and reporting and contains report modeling, organization and pointing definitions for custom reports.

Maternity Leave is provided for medical disability resulting from pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions on the same basis on which leave is provided for other medical disabilities. When recording Maternity Leave in the Time Reporting System, use pay code LWP.

The lowest allowable hourly wage permitted by the government for an employee performing a particular job. Effective April 1, 1991 the Federal minimum is $4.25 per hour.

A group of programs designed to perform a specific application in the University's financial and information systems.

Company that developed the University's General Ledger System. Now named GPAC

A mainfram computer operating system developed by IBM. The General Ledger and Banner system run using MVS

National Association of College and Business Officers

An employee who does meet the exemption criteria established by the Fair Labor Standards Act is subject to overtime and minimum wage provisions of the act.

All tangible personal property having these characteristics: (1) an acquisition price in excess of $5000.00, (2) an expected useful life of more than two years, and (3) an identity which is not altered materially through use.

An alert feature that allows the indication of whether a particular account should be generally regarded as a debit or credit account. The system can alert to abnormal balances or entries.

On Call refers to those situations when an employee is standing by at home or quickly available to be called to work in case of need.

Circular A-21 was issued so that the federal government would bear its fair share of total costs associated with research and development, training, and other sponsored work at educational institutions. The circular outlines specific principles for determining costs applicable for federally sponsored grants, contracts, and other agreements with educational institutions. Guidelines contained in A-21 define items that are considered allowable (or unallowable) when determining costs associated with federally sponsored programs.

A relational database used by the Banner systems.

Time worked in excess of an agreed upon time for normal working hours by an employee. Hourly or non-exempt employees must be compensated at the rate of one and one-half times their normal hourly rate for overtime work beyond 40 hours in one workweek.

Itemized listing accompanying shipment of goods. All packing slips for goods received by the University must contain the appropriate purchase order number, blanket purchase order and release number or reference number.

A code used to define a type of pay in the Time Reporting System.

Pay configurations are the system rules defined in the Time Reporting System which departments assign to an employee. Configurations determine how an individual's time is calculated.

The time duration (week, two weeks, month) within which the amount a worker has earned is determined so that the worker can be paid properly.

An input form or screen used to select run options and control processing.

Employee normally scheduled for fewer than 35 hours per workweek.

An e-mail system used in various departments in the University to manage and deliver e-mail.

For purposes of the General Ledger system, period refers month. The system provides for thirteen periods of which twelve are used.

A reference code on the fiscal calendar definition which represents each defined accounting period.

The system process of establishing a new accounting period for posting, and closing prior periods to posting.

Net assets subject to donor-imposed stipulations that they be maintained permanently by the University. Generally, the donors of these assets permit the University to use all or part of the income earned on related investments for general or specific purposes.

Personal property includes all fixed assets that are not real property.

Separate departmental cash fund for paying limited business expenses.

Phone Codes are used in the Time Reporting System to simplify the recording of hours worked. Employees who phone in their time will use these codes.

Established for faculty with limited service appointments, for temporary hourly employees, and on a limited basis for departments with large numbers of employees in the same classifications.

The recording of journal entries to account balances on the General Ledger.

A system master file that retains journal entry detail each time transactions are posted to the General Ledger.

The date journal entries are entered into the system. The Posting Date defines the point in time in the accounting cycle.

Premium pay refers to amounts, other than compensation paid for overtime, which are paid to employees in designated positions in addition to the base rate/salary. They may include, but are not limited to, shift differential, weekend differential and on-call pay. Refer to The George Washington University Manual of Personnel Policies for the use of Supervisory Staff for definitive University guidelines on premium pay.

The year-to-date balance as of the last posting run.

The as of balance by period (month) for previous accounting years. This is the balance as of the last day of each period.

PROCOMMPLUS is a set of commercial DOS-based programs which facilitate menu-based communications between IBM-compatible personal computers and various campus computers and network services. PROCOMMPLUS may be used by those departments holding a current license for the software.

Project codes are optional codes defined in the Time Reporting System which may be defined and used by departments to track time related to special projects, either temporary or semi-permanent.

Request for vendor to provide goods or service at a mutually agreed upon price.

Real property includes all land belonging to the University, and all improvements thereon.

A unique value identifying the type of record within a file.

An additional identifier for similar types of records.

A date used to tell the system when to stop a set of recurring journal entries. This date should be one day greater than the last day the entry is to recur.

A journal entry that posts on a regular basis with the same account/centers, descriptions, and amounts. The date is the only thing that changes. Entries can be defined to recur on a posting (daily), weekly, periodic (monthly), or quarterly basis. See also Standard Journal Entry.

An employee in a position which meets one of the following conditions: (a) Full-time: Established for a period in excess of six months or (b) Part-time: Established for a fiscal year and scheduled for 14 hours or more each workweek.

All remuneration for employment paid to, or on behalf of, the employee. An hourly rate actually paid to an employee for hours worked in a given week. The rate is determined by totalling the workweek earnings and dividing by the number of hours worked. The regular hourly rate must be used to calculate overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

One or more responsibility or cost centers grouped together for reporting purposes. Since the General Ledger System is designed to carry balances at the lowest level, all other summarizations are achieved through the use of report centers.

A number or combination of numbers and letters that identifies a report center.

An alert feature that enables the identification of accounts or account/centers that must have an entry every normal posting run. If no entry is made, the alert occurs.

See Center.

A journal entry submitted that automatically reverses itself (changes debit/credit codes) at some point in the future.

A date in the future which is supplied with an original entry to tell the system when the entry is to be reversed.

Extra compensation paid as an inducement to accept shift work. Those employees willing to work evening and midnight hours usually receive a shift differential.

Sick Leave is provided to regular employees for continued salary during absence from work resulting from personal illness, injury, for medical or dental treatment, and for dependent care. Refer to The George Washington University Manual of Personnel Policies for the Use of Supervisory Staff and related approved policy revisions for information on the accrual and use of Sick Leave Benefits. When recording Sick Leave in the Time Reporting System, use pay code SIC.

A place on the journal entry to indicate journal entry number, voucher number, check number and so on. Source codes may be entered on each journal entry, or calculated by the system.

Same as a recurring entry except that the amounts may be changed. These entries may be established one time, the amounts changed and then resubmitted in the online system. See Recurring Entry.

The basic financial statement that discloses the assets, liabilities, and equities of an entity at a specified date in conformity with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

An indicator that defines whether an account/center is postable (active) or non-postable (inactive).

The standard time or number of work hours established for a particular work period. An employee working straight time is not being paid overtime.

The collection of information an application program needs to accomplish a specified task. Subsets of the logical data base.

A formal arrangement by which responsibility for a sizeable portion of the scope of work is transferred from the University to a third party.

A reserved center ID which defines the highest reportable center. The Summary Center is automatically assigned each time an account is added. See Account Summary Record.

The Suspended Batch Master file (SBM) is a system master file used in the Front End to recycle error batches and hold future, reversing and recurring batches.

A special type of reserved account/center that is used to record balancing and error entries. This special account/center must be the highest postable account/center, but lower than the class/group summary accounts.

Net assets subject to donor-imposed stipulations that may be or will be met either by actions of the University and/or by the passage of time.

Temporary Disability Leave is provided to employees in regular positions if an employee is physically or mentally unable to work. (Temporary disability resulting from a work-related illness or injury subject to Workers' Compensation laws are addressed in The George Washington University Manual of Personnel Polices for the use of Supervisory Staff). Temporary disability is always unpaid leave. An employee must exhaust all accrued Sick and Annual Leave prior to being placed on Temporary Disability Leave. When recording Temporary Disability Leave in the Time Reporting System, use pay code LWP.

An employee in a position which does not meet the conditions for regular positions.

The Time and Attendance Collection System is a component of the University's Time Reporting System which is connected to the University's telephone system and is used to collect time and attendance data when employees make telephone calls to the system.

A function of the Time Reporting System which allows departmental personnel with approved security access to enter and correct employee time data on-line.

The University's Time Reporting System is a computer system for managing and reporting employees' time through telecommunications and computer technologies. The system consists of two components: a Time and Attendance Collection System designed to collect time and attendance data through normal telephone calls to the system and a Time Processing System which calculates hours to be paid for electronic transmission to the Human Resource system.

Codes on all transactions that identify the type of transaction and the master file it affects.

The Transaction Conversion File (TCF) is a system master file that contains various accounting defined rules for exploding entries, distributions, prorations, updates of cost allocation factors and generating offsetting entries, etc.

The Transaction Processing System is a component of the Time Reporting System which receives time and attendance data from TACS, and calculates payable hours.

A list of the balances of the accounts in the ledger kept by double entry, with the debit and credit balances shown in separate columns. If the totals of the debit and credit columns are equal, or their net balance agrees with a control account, the ledger from which the figures are taken are said to be in balance.

Units are organizational entities defined in the University's Time Reporting System to allow additional flexibility for reporting and security. A unit is a subdivision of a department.

Code assigned in the Time Reporting System to identify an organizational unit.

UNIX is a computer operating system. The Human Resource, Alumni/Development, Student and Time Reporting Systems run on UNIX. It allows multiple users to access systems simultaneously.

Net assets that are not subject to donor-imposed stipulations.

One of the system's accounting defined alert features. A maximum balance limit is established for an account or specific account/center and the system produces alerts if the balance exceeds that limit.

An accounting defined alert feature similar to that described above. Here upper limit alerts are established for journal entries.

Total compensation paid for services whether in the form of wages, salaries, commissions, or bonuses, including the cash value of remuneration paid in a medium other than cash.

Portion of an employees wages retained be the employer for the purpose of paying for various taxes, insurance plans, pension plans, union dues, and other deductions.

A fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours -7 consecutive 24-hour periods, defined by the Fair Labor Standards Act. The University's standard workweek is Sunday through Saturday.

The system process of updating the net asset account/center with the excess of revenues over expenditures amount.

The system process of establishing a new fiscal year for posting.

The number of years of historical balances and aggregates retained in the General Ledger data base. Normally the University stores 5 years of accounting history online.

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Index: A B C D E F G H  I J K L M N O  P R S T U W Y
| Financial Administration | Accounting Services | Accounts Payable | Payroll Services | Fixed Asset Accounting |

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Last Update : June 12, 2000