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The World According to GLARP

Jon Vanvick & Bin Chen

So, you’d like to see what makes up the stated assets and liabilities of the University. Who you gonna ask, Ghost Busters? Hardly! Until recently, the answer to that question was known only to the people closest to any given general ledger account. Further, there has been no formal process in place to provide assurance that account balances are properly stated.

During this past year, Financial Accounting chartered the General Ledger Account Responsibility Project (GLARP), and formed a two-person team, Jon Vanvick and Bin Chen. At the initial stage, the goal was either to identify the persons responsible for each account and/or to purge those accounts which are no longer needed. This stage of our work is complete. The team has identified the persons responsible for 691 accounts, spread over 15 different departments, both within and outside of Financial Management. They have purged the remaining 284 accounts.

The team looks forward to becoming further acquainted with the people actually providing the account oversight, and the work that they do to keep the accounts in balance. The GLARP Team, others in Financial Accounting, and others within FM will be available to help as necessary. For example, the Payroll Office has been turning out some exemplary reconciliation work in recent years. They have graciously volunteered to share their procedures with departments seeking to improve their own processes.

Going forward, the GLARP team will periodically review and update the database of persons responsible for GL accounts, with a priority on purging unneeded accounts. Over time, this will reduce the likelihood of errors.