Cost Transfer Invoice

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Cost Transfer Invoice

Guidelines for Use of the Cost Transfer Invoice (CTI) Guidelines for Use of the Cost Transfer Invoice (CTI)

Approval to issue Cost Transfer Invoices

Project Cost Accounting Codes Required if Requested

Methods for Submitting CTI charges

Filling out the CTI form

Record retention

Purpose

o The COST TRANSFER INVOICE (CTI) should be used exclusively for transferring the costs of services or supplies between budget entities at the University.

o If the providing budget is a service center or auxiliary enterprise using a budget number which begins with the numerals 08, 14, 15, 16, or 25, another form, the INTERNAL SALES DOCUMENT (ISD) is normally used instead of the CTI. See —Guidelines for Use of the Internal Sales Document (ISD)

o Only authorized budget numbers may be used on a CTI; the University’s Financial Accounting System will accept CTI transactions from departments only when departments use budgets authorized for this purpose.

o The following transactions should not be recorded on a CTI; they should be recorded on a Journal Voucher (see below):

§ Transfers of employees’ salaries. (See information about Retroactive Salary Transfers (RST).)

§ Correction of posting errors by others. (See information about Journal Voucher Process.)

§ Expenditure object code reclassifications. (See information about Journal Voucher Process.)

§ Any other cost transfers not associated with the provision of goods and services

o All transfers to federal grants must be made in accordance with Grants Information Memorandum #15.

Approval to Issue Cost Transfer Invoices

o To establish authorization for an existing budget to issue CTIs, create an email message with the following included:

A "cc" to your Dean or Director (this is required for approval)

Budget Number

Budget Name

Department Administrator Name and Phone Number

Department Name

Description of costs to be transferred

Estimated number of transactions per year

Estimated dollar volume of transactions per year.

Send the email to -

accountg@u.washington.edu only if the budget is not a Grant and Contract Accounting (GCA) budget* (GCA Budgets begin with 11-XXXX, 20-XXXX, 60-XXXX through 69-XXXX, or 80-XXXX), or to

gcaques@u.washington.edu if the budget number is a Grant and Contract Accounting (GCA) Program Income Budget (65-XXXX). Please note:

*Only on very rare occasions will a GCA budget other than a program income budget be approved to issue CTIs. If you think that your budget may be one of these exceptions, send an email to gcaques@u.washington.edu.

o In some cases, it will also be necessary to establish a special category for cost transfers. The Budget Office, 543–5430, can advise the department when this is necessary.

Timeliness

A charge should be billed before the close of the month following the date the good was received or the service was performed. For example, if a good was received or service was performed during the month of January, it should be billed no later than February close.
Financial Accounting monitors the timeliness of billings and has the authority to remove a department's authorization to issue CTIs. To report a late Cost Transfer Invoice (CTI) billing to Financial Accounting, please send an email with the following information to accountg@u.washington.edu:
- Your budget number
- Month the late charge was posted to your budget
- Transaction amount
- CTI number

Project Cost Accounting Codes Required if Requested

To facilitate its project cost accounting, the Receiving department may request the Billing department to complete the “Task”, “Option”, and “Project” fields of the CTI form. The Receiving department will provide the specific codes to be entered by the Billing department.
It is the responsibility of the Billing department to complete these fields when requested by the Receiving department.
For more information about these "Task", "Option" and "Project", fields, and about Project Cost Accounting, visit the MyFinancial.desktop help pages.

Methods of Submitting CTI Charges

Manually prepared CTIs are to be completed on the COST TRANSFER INVOICE (CTI) or a similar customized form that contains the same content and is similar in size and layout.
Paper CTI forms should be submitted to Payables Administration, Box 351120, for processing into the accounting system.
A preferred automated method of preparing and transferring CTIs, called FASTRANS, is also available to CTI issuers who store transactions on a database or in spreadsheet format.
Regardless of the method used to process the CTI, the issuing department must provide the details of all transactions directly to the charged department.

Filling out the CTI Form

The "Date" section of the form (Field 1) should reflect the date that the goods were delivered or services performed, not the date that the CTI was prepared. (Exception: The date may instead be the last day of the month in which the service was performed—if this is more convenient to the issuing department.).
Charge only the actual cost of providing services or supplies.
Do not issue charges until the services or supplies have been provided.
Do not transfer costs unless they have been incurred by the issuing budget number.
Use the "Reqn. No." (requisition number) column (Field 4) only when liquidating encumbrances.
Use only the expenditure object codes for departmental charges (see Field 11) that are listed in Object Codes for Expenditures.
Issuing departments must use one or more of the following sub-object codes, under "Issuing Department" (Field 10), to indicate the nature of the costs being transferred:

Note: Object Code 21 is preprinted on the form and only the second and third pairs of digits indicate the nature of the costs being transferred by the issuing department.
The "SSub" (sub-sub-object), "Task," "Optn" (option), and "Project" columns (Field 11) are features of the Financial Accounting System for use by receiving departments in performing cost accounting functions. Issuing departments should accommodate the receiving department’s request to apply these codes to their CTIs.
If more than one sub-object code is needed for the issuing budget, then issue multiple CTIs. If it is not feasible to issue multiple CTIs, use the code that represents most of the costs. If the cost components cannot be determined, object code 21–39 may be used.
To credit a budget (rather than to charge it) place brackets around the dollar amount in the "Charged Departments" section of the form (Field 11).
Only valid budget numbers may be charged. If the CTI contains charges to several budget numbers and one is invalid, only the invalid transaction will be rejected and referred to the issuer for correction and resubmittal; all valid charges will be accepted and the issuing budget adjusted automatically.
The issuers’ phone numbers must always be attached to the transaction(s).

Record Retention

All CTI issuing departments must maintain adequate accounting records to substantiate charges for goods and services. Records must be retained for six years and be available upon request for audit purposes.

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