1. Introduction
In terms of Section 40(1)(c) of the Public Finance Management Act, this department must submit annual financial statements to the Auditor-General by 31 May 2009. For the 2008-2009 financial year, which ends on 31 March 2009, it is necessary to close the Department's books before 30 April 2009. The envisaged closing date is 16 April 2009. Forced closure will be activated by the National Treasury in the event that a department fails to close its books on time. For this reason, an urgent appeal is made to all parties to take note of the following to ensure that the requirements are met.
2. Payments on BAS for March 2009
Technically speaking, payments can be processed up until 27 March 2009. However, an urgent appeal is made to all role-players to process all payments for the current financial year by Monday, 23 March 2009 as the BAS Payment function will be disabled by the BAS Syscon for all users in order to eliminate incorrect posting dates. All LOGIS payments must be completed by no later than 26 March 2009.
3. Transport and subsistence (T&S) advances and claims
T&S advances do not affect the closing of the financial year, but the normal BAS payment run dates will still apply. However, because T&S expenditure is charged against voted funds only once the claim has been processed, it is important that all claims outstanding for the 2008-2009 financial year are processed timeously. As these claims and advances are processed on PERSAL, they must be submitted by no later than 23 March 2009. Any claims submitted after that date will be charged to the 2009-2010 financial year. All differences, in the event of a claim being less than the advance, must be repaid by 27 March 2009.
4. Receipts (Districts and DFA)
All offices responsible for issuing BAS receipts must ensure that receipts for March 2009, irrespective of deposit date, are accounted for in the accounting month March (03) and that all pending receipts have been allocated on BAS. Authorisers must also ensure that all cancelled receipts are duly authorised.
5. Petty cash expenditure (Districts and DFA)
All petty cash expenditure up to 31 March 2009 must be accounted for during March 2009.
6. Accounting month March (03) (Districts, DFA and DPM)
It is imperative that the correct posting date is used on BAS at all times, especially when journal entries i.r.o. corrections for the 2008/2009 financial year are being captured during April. All authorisers must also ensure that journals captured for March 2009 are authorised timeously within their workflows.
7. Outstanding transactions on BAS
All outstanding transactions with a status of open, reject, to be rejected, incompl, tobeact, tobeau and rejauth must be maintained, authorised or cancelled. An outstanding transactions report per functional area (payment, journals, etc.) can be requested on BAS at the reporting function (Other Reports). The responsible users can be identified from this report for the purposes of finalising the outstanding transactions. Alternatively, an outstanding transaction enquiry dialogue can be viewed for outstanding transactions in the Creditor Management and Creditor Payment functional areas. The due date for the clearance of outstanding transactions is 23 March 2009.
8. BAS interfaces and exceptions (DFA)
The responsible officials must ensure that all bank and Persal interface exceptions are cleared before final closure. The BAS System Controller must ensure that all Persal runs have interfaced with BAS and that the bank interfaces have taken place.
9. Reconciliations (DFA)
The Banking Section must ensure that all urgent payments (NAPS) have been captured on BAS for the 2008/2009 financial year. A bank reconciliation must be compiled for March 2009 to balance to the bank statement as at 27 March 2009.
10. Assets & liabilities accounts (DFA)
In order to disclose assets and liabilities accounts correctly in the financial statements, it is imperative that the necessary steps are taken to clear these accounts to reflect the correct balances, e.g. credit balances on debt accounts. In instances where debit amounts do not relate to credit amounts (and vice versa), these debits and credits must be specified and aged separately by the responsible officials for the purpose of the financial statements. In this respect, the necessary supporting documentation must also be submitted. In the case of investment accounts for special funds, the balances must be reconciled for final statement purposes.
11. Claims payable and claims receivable (DFA)
In respect of amounts owing by and to other departments, it is a requirement that certificates of confirmation of amounts outstanding are submitted for audit purposes for each department with whom the WCED has transacted. The confirmation letters must be sent out no later than one month after the year-end (16 April) and returned by no later than 15 May 2009, so to enable departments to disclose the correct balances in their financial statements.
12. Revenue payovers (DFA)
All revenue received for the financial year should be allocated and paid over to the Provincial Revenue Fund by 31 August 2009.
13. Closure of the financial year (DFA)
The closure of the workflows for 2008-2009 financial year, ending 31 March 2009, will take place on 9 April 2009. This means that only the Accounting Control Section of the Directorate: Financial Accounting, will be able to process further adjustments (journals) for March 2009 before preliminary closure, which will take place on 16 April 2009. All BAS users are requested to ensure that all the necessary adjustments are authorised before 9 April 2009. The audit's final closure will take place only after the auditing of the Department's financial statements has been completed by the Office of the Auditor-General.

Your whole-hearted co-operation and adherence to the requirements of this minute will be much appreciated.



SIGNED: LJ ELY
HEAD: EDUCATION
DATE: 2009:03:05