It is the responsibility of every employee who is involved in any financial activity on behalf of the University to be fiscally responsible and to exercise appropriate financial controls.

Fiscal control is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the achievement of objectives in the following categories:

  • Produce reliable financial information
  • Promote effectiveness and efficiency of operations
  • Ensure compliance with applicable regulations and University policy
  • Safeguard University assets (by minimizing financial loss and abuse risks)


Control Procedures should observe the following principles:

Authorization Limitation:  Transaction authorization responsibility should be limited to business manager and his/her designee(s).  A limit should be set on the number of authorizers within any given department.  Any delegation of authority should be documented.

Separation of Duties:  At least two people should look at a transaction.  No one person should have the ability to initiate, approve, review and physically control a transaction.  Note: When these functions cannot be separated due to limited staff resources, or for transactions related to the approver, a secondary review of transactions should be performed periodically by an individual who is not the authorizer of the transactions but who has a clear line of authority or responsibility for the transaction.

Review of Financial Reports:  Financial reports must be reviewed on a timely basis.  The individual reviewing an account must have knowledge of the transactions and a clear line of authority and responsibility for the account.  This responsible individual should review the reports available in Discoverer and work with the appropriate office(s) if they have questions about any transactions.

Physical Controls:  The department must maintain proper physical control over its assets and records.  The University's Property Management Department is responsible to manage physical inventories at a university-wide level.  They will tag equipment when necessary and will work with departments to conduct periodic audits of the departmental inventory.  Departments should keep detailed records of the location of all physical assets to ensure the appropriate control.