TUTUION REMISSION / STATE SUPPORTED TUITION
It is the intent of the College’s policy to comply with the State’s Tuition Remission policy and submit funds received and collected by the college for State-supported Tuition and Misc Other Income to the Commonwealth on a regular basis. State-supported Tuition and Misc Other Income are defined as revenue transactions occurring in source ‘801’ named ‘State Treasurer’ in the general ledger of The College. This institutional process is referred to as a ‘tuition sweep’. The Tuition Sweeps occur and are completed at the very least on a bi-annually basis, one for each major semester; and preferably, if needed, a final by June 30th of each fiscal year-end.
AUTHORIZATION TO INITIATE TUITION-SWEEP
The General Ledger Accountant (GL Accountant) is responsible for electronically transferring the funds from The College’s General Fund bank account to the College’s Tuition and Fees (Sweep) Account and entering the data into the MMARS system upon direct authorization from the Vice President of Finance (Finance VP). The Finance VP notifies the GL Accountant that a Tuition Sweep is scheduled to begin. The Finance VP submits to the GL Accountant a Tuition Remission reconciliation sheet that provides summary information regarding the specific items and amounts that are to be included in the Tuition Sweep. The reconciliation report is a GL trial balance of source ‘801’, and when presented, is the official documentation needed from the Finance VP authorizing the GL Accountant to forward the indicated amount of funds and complete the sweep to the Commonwealth.
TRANSFER OF TUITON-SWEEP FUNDS TO THE COMMONWEALTH
The Commonwealth’s Office of the Comptrollers, in conjunction with Commonwealth’s Office of the Treasurer, are authorized, on a daily basis, to ‘sweep’ any and all funds existing in the colleges ‘Tuition and Fees’ account. The General Ledger Accountant (GL Accountant) is authorized to utilize the College’s on-line banking system and electronically transfer the authorized amounts from the ‘General Fund Checking’ (Sort) account to the Colleges ‘Tuition and Fees’ account. In order for this process to be completed the GL Accountant must be an authorized user and possess login information that will facilitate access to the Colleges Sovereign Bank Interactive Reporting and Initiation Services (‘IRIS’). The GL Accountant creates the cash transfer transaction by using the ‘Account Transfer’ application on IRIS. To generate documentation of the ‘Account Transfer’ transaction The GL Accountant will use the ‘Information Reporting’ application on IRIS. To complete the cash disbursement transaction a journal entry is posted recognizing a credit to Gen. Fund Checking Cash and a debit to the ‘State Treasury’ source decreasing the original recognition of the liability to the Commonwealth. A sample of the required journal entry is outlined in ‘exhibit 1’.
REPORTING TUITION SWEEP INFORMATION / ENTERING IN MMARS SYSTEM
The fund transfer information in the completed Tuition Sweep is reported to the Commonwealth via MMARS. The college is required to report the Tuition Sweep transactions to the Commonwealth by processing MMARS documents ‘RE’ and ‘CR’. The ‘RE’ and ‘CR’ will function in the Accounts Receivable system of MMARS.
REPORTING TUITION SWEEP INFORMATION / ENTERING IN MMARS SYSTEM CON’T
A ‘RE’ document functions as and represents a Receivable Event with respect to the Commonwealth’s benefit. The ‘RE’ transaction processed by the College is recognized and reported on MMARS as a ‘Billed Earned Revenue’ reporting category within a given fund on the college’s MMARS Statement of Revenue report. In the case of the College’s tuition sweeps, the RE transaction will reference and will be allocated to the College’s MMARS Gen. Fund #0010 and the Tuition and Fees Revenue Source #0530. The college maintains just one summary RE receivable number for tuition remission transaction across the fiscal years. In general the receivable (RE) amount for any given tuition sweep transaction requires an increase, a positive (+) event; however, a negative event may also occur, depending on the circumstances. The original Receivable is modified by completely blanking out the dollar figure on the accounting Line Amount and entering the new actual amount. An accounting of any increases or decreases to the summary totals will be calculated and maintained by the GL Accountant. The effect of the MMARS RE document processed should reflect an accurate and material representation of the reconciliation in the College’s general ledger trial balance for the liability.
A ‘CR’ document functions as and represents a Cash Receipt with respect to the commonwealth’s benefit. Note that in general a ‘CR’ transaction processed by the College will be recognized and reported on MMARS as a ‘Collected Earned Revenue’ reporting category within a given fund on the college’s MMARS Statement of Revenue report. It may remain in that given fund or it may be allocated and transferred to another fund depending on the information generated in the CR. In the case of a tuition sweep, the funds are no longer property of the College and will become property of the Commonwealth.
Upon receipt of the swept funds, the Office of the Treasurer will process in MMARS a Cash Deposit (CD) document that corresponds to and reports the cash funds that were swept out of the College’s account and into the Commonwealth’s treasury (TRE). The ‘CD’ transaction processed by Office of the Treasurer will be recognized and reported on MMARS as a ‘Collected Earned Revenue’ report category within a given fund on the College’s MMARS Statement of Revenue report. Currently, all funds swept out of the college’s ‘Tuition and Fees’ bank account will be allocated by the Treasurer to the College’s MMARS Cash Sweep Clearing Fund #0699 and to the Misc Revenue Source #6900.
In the case of a positive receivable event, the College would process a ‘CR’ document for tuition remission, and would consist of two ‘Accounting Lines’, one positive and one negative. Therefore the Cash Receipt (CR) document amount-total, that represents the sum total of line items within the document, should always be entered as ‘$0.0’ (zero) in the ‘Line Amount’ field of the ‘CR’ document. The CR document processed by the College, in effect, transfers the swept and deposited fund items and allocates them to a specific Receivable Event referenced in the document. Note: the RE summary document number issued as a result of processing an RE, as detailed above, must be entered and referenced in the ‘Vendor Section/Reference Information-field’ of the ‘CR’.
Therefore, Line-1 of the college’s ‘CR’ document functions as a negative and decreases the same fund (#0699) referenced by the Office of the Treasurer in their Cash Deposit (CD) document. Line-2 of the college’s ‘CR’ document functions as a positive and will result in an allocation to the corresponding RE referenced within the ‘CR” document.