The purpose of this minute is to address important issues relating to the compilation of journal transactions on the prescribed forms, the capture and authorisation thereof on the Basic Accounting System (BAS) and to provide officials of the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) with guidelines in this respect.

The journal entry process is detached from any other functional area on BAS. Journals will be drawn when an account (revenue, expenditure or asset and liability) is erroneously debited or credited, when accounting for revenue or expenditure in a clearing or suspense account because the classification has not been resolved (pending final allocation) or when clearing suspense and control accounts.

As a result of issues raised by the Office of the Auditor-General in the above respect, it has become necessary for this office to address the matter and to provide guidelines to ensure compliance forthwith. This instruction replaces any previous instructions in this regard.

Once the need has been identified for the passing of a journal entry, a BAS Journal Entry Processing Maintenance form (and a BAS Journal Entry Processing Allocation Attachment form, if necessitated), must be completed by hand. It is important that all the relevant fields are completed on this form. Special attention should be paid to the following fields:

• Journal description - A concise description of the purpose of the journal should be entered in this field, e.g. correction of erroneous allocation. This should make the purpose of the journal clearly understood by any official/auditor examining this journal.

• Description - This description will appear in the Detail Report on BAS and must elaborate on the description as indicated above, e.g. correction of Item, Asset, Fund, etc. Discretion must be exercised in completing this field as more detail may be required depending on the transaction being rectified, e.g. a persal no, a payment no., etc. It is important to supply the information required by the account affected.

• Segment details - This would be the allocation details with which the compiler should be familiar. It is also regarded as correct accounting practice to complete the debit leg of the transaction first and thereafter the credit leg.

• Reason for journal - This is a new addition to the journal form and must be completed with a detailed description of the reason for the journal. The WCED's BAS System Controller will issue the new forms to users.

• Compiled by - This section must be signed by the official compiling the journal.

• Authorised by – This section must be signed by the official checking the journal form for correctness. The minimum requirement here is an Administrative Officer or equivalent (State Accountant) or any higher rank. Officials acting on this level or higher are also permitted. Deviations from this instruction will not be allowed.

It is of utmost importance that the relevant supporting documentation applicable to the journal transaction, e.g. a copy of the latest Detail BAS Report/Vulindlela Report relating to the transaction to be rectified, is attached to the journal as evidence of the previously incorrect transaction being rectified. The transaction to be rectified must be clearly marked/highlighted on the supporting documentation. Blank portions of the journal form not utilised should be ruled out in black ink. Officials authorising the journal form should not sign off if any of the above are not adhered to. This will ensure compliance and prevent the duplication of such transactions.

Any journal transactions relating to erroneous allocation of expenditure and which will ultimately affect responsibility managers’ budget allocations and originating outside of Finance, Head Office, must be submitted to the Directorate: Management Accounting (DMA) for verification and confirmation by means of a signature on the journal form before submission to the Directorate: Financial Accounting (DFA) for capturing on BAS. Only original forms will be accepted for further processing. Journal transaction forms should not be stockpiled by officials, but submitted on a regular basis as this places unnecessary pressure on the limited personnel at Head Office responsible for processing the journals on the system.

Only officials with access to the BAS journals functionality, as set up by the WCED’s BAS System Controller, will be enabled to process journal transactions on the system. No journal transactions may be captured on BAS before having completed the necessary journal form. This practice is unacceptable and should be discontinued with immediate effect. BAS generated journal reports are not acceptable as source documents as all the necessary fields are not present on these print-outs.

On submission of the manually authorised journal forms, the official with access to the journals capturing functionality on BAS must ensure that all the aforementioned requirements have been met before actually capturing the transaction on BAS. If the requirements are not met, the journal/s must be returned to the source. If they are met, the capturer must complete the appropriate fields for the "system user only".

After successful capture of the journal transaction, the authoriser on BAS must once again confirm that all requirements are met before authorising the transaction. Journals which have been captured on BAS will be queued for authorisation within the workflow. This function is only entrusted to supervisory officials. It is also a requirement that authorisers should ensure that all journal transactions captured within their workflows are authorised within three (3) working days of the capture date on BAS. Failure to adhere will result in the removal of such journals from BAS in order to prevent duplication. If all is in order the authoriser will also complete the appropriate fields for the "system user only".

All journals successfully processed on BAS must be stamped ˇ§processedˇ¨ on the face of the journal form and kept in safe-keeping until month closure, after which the authoriser will then also be responsible for the timeous submission of all his/her processed journals, under the cover of a Document Control Report, to the Section: Financial Capacity Building.

In the event of an official acting in a higher rank, timeous application must be made for authorising functions on BAS accompanied by a copy of the letter of acting appointment.

Kindly bring the contents of this instruction to the attention of all officials dealing with the compilation and processing of financial journals.

Any enquiries in this respect can be directed to the following persons in the Directorate: Financial Accounting:

• Assistant Director - Financial Reporting: Mr MJ Comer - tel. no. 021 467 2736
• State Accountant - Accounting Control: Mr SDD van Wyk - tel. no. 021 467 2738