In financially closing a project budget it is important to note that the process includes not only revenue and expense items, but also balance sheet items (i.e. assets; liabilities; and fund balance) that must be cleared before the project can be closed. It is NOT sufficient to simply deduct the total expenses (accounts 6xxxx +7xxxx) from the total revenue (accounts 5xxxx) and conclude that it equals the project fund balance. Assets (accounts 1xxxx) and Liabilities (accounts 2xxxx) must be cleared before the fund balance can be disposed of and the project closed. An annotated list of UNDP’s accounts is attached (Annex 2) showing restricted accounts; valid and invalid accounts; as well as a separate annotated page of the key accounts in clearing the balance sheet. This annotated list of UNDP’s accounts can be run from Atlas Query UN_GL_ACCOUNT_TBL_STATUS. Those accounts that are no longer active are labeled “I” in the “Status” column and shaded red. Account codes that have restricted access are labeled “Y” in the “Control Flag” column and shaded red. Business units should not use any of the restricted access accounts. If the project to be closed has a balance under any of these accounts, the Business Unit should contact OFM for assistance in clearing these items.
It is important to note that resource balances may be from multiple funding sources within one project. For example, a project may be funded by Allocation Funds (non-cash) from TRAC resources and/or a Trust Fund as well as through Cash based revenue (e.g., cost sharing contributions). Regardless of the funding source, balance sheet items must be cleared in order to “release” any unused amounts for other purposes – i.e., refunded to donor or designated for reprogramming.
