The SWIFT Financial Management System (FMS) will be unavailable on Friday, August 9, 2019, beginning at 6 pm for hard close. The system will become available on Monday, August 12, 2019 at 6 am.
What happens at hard close?
First, the fiscal year (accounting year) is closed and agencies can no longer enter an accounting date prior to July 1, 2019, meaning nothing further can be processed against that year.
• This facilitates reporting by allowing MMB to develop the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) against data that can no longer be changed.
• It also performs the important function of closing income statement activity into fund balance to create an accurate starting point for the new fiscal year.
• Remember, the fiscal year is different from the budget fiscal year (BFY). Budget fiscal year (budget period or budget date) is used to control spending authority as required by law and is not closed as part of this process.
Second, any unencumbered balances in BFY 2019 appropriations, depending on the appropriation type, are either closed or rolled forward. Exceptions include continuing or education aids appropriation types where the closing process does not affect unencumbered balances.
After the close, agencies can make payments against encumbrances and can cancel encumbrances if no longer needed. Agencies can still deposit receipts to the closed budget fiscal year.
The PO Reconciliation (PO Close) job is scheduled to run this weekend as part of the hard close activities.
The PO Close job closes purchase orders that have been fully matched by setting the PO Status to “Complete”. See the SWIFT Procurement Year End Processing Tips document for additional information about the PO Close job, along with other procurement year end document processing options and tips.
Remember, you can prevent the PO Close job from closing a fully matched purchase order by clicking the “Hold From Further Processing” checkbox on the purchase order header page should you plan on increasing the order at a later date.
