A cash flow forecast is a short term projection of cash movement and its implications for the liquidity position of an organization. Depending on the size of the organization and business purpose, the time horizon for the forecast can be daily, (also called daily cash positioning), monthly, quarterly, and annually, on a rolling basis.
Cash Operations is defined as currency notes physically held on a CO’s premises to meet operating needs in a country in which normal banking services are unavailable. COs are sometimes required to operate in a crisis environment where banking facilities are unavailable. In such instances, COs may find it necessary to conduct all financial transactions in cash. Cash Operations create significant financial risk for UNDP, as well as physical security risk for staff who handle the cash.
The Cash Transfer Modalities to be adopted shall be based on the Partner’s Adjusted Risk Rating, which is derived from the results of the micro assessment with due consideration to the specific programming context, with exceptions documented.
The certified financial report gives a comprehensive view of how contributions are recorded and utilized, reflecting the operational status, revenue, expenses, and balance of the contributions provided by individual non-programme country donors. The recipients of these reports are these donors and the relevant UNDP country offices.
The individual values in the Chart of Accounts, which in combination, describe a specific financial activity. With the aid of reporting and query tools, chartfields provide access to accounting data needed for budget control, management reporting, and statutory (or formal and final financial) reporting.
The Chart of Accounts (COA) plays a role in Quantum financial systems for control, budgeting and reporting. The correct use of the COA is critical for accurate financial, management and donor reporting.
Used to establish a hierarchical structure, which visually represent a set of summarization rules for a particular chart field. For instance, a tree for account code 11000 (Cash and Near Cash) would have as components accounts 11005 and 11006 that would roll up to a total for reporting in code 11000.
According to Rule 121.01 paragraph (a) of the UNDP Financial regulations and Rules (as amended on January 1, 2012), the Chief Procurement Officer of UNDP is accountable to the Administrator for all procurement functions of UNDP for all its locations, except for those procurement actions governed by paragraph (c). The Chief Procurement Officer may further delegate authority to staff at headquarters and other locations, as may be appropriate in fulfilling the purposes of these rules.
Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), is defined as a non-profit organization, group or institution that operates independently from a government and has humanitarian or development objectives.
The Clean-Up of the Accounts Payable (AP) refers to an exercise that ensures that there are no pending vouchers with an accounting date on or before the month end date.
The clean-up of POs requires that all pending purchase orders with budget date on or before the month-end date to be reviewed. The goal is to ensure that there are no old pending purchase orders. If there are, it will create inconsistencies between reports from Budget Control, Projects and the GL.
Closed trust funds have in the past been created in agreement with a single donor and the contributions to the trust fund were restricted to that donor. The trust fund donor agreement also served as the terms of reference for the trust fund. Closed trust funds are now discouraged and cost sharing agreements should be used instead.
A legal obligation arising from a contract, agreement or other form of undertaking by UNDP or based on a liability recognized by UNDP, either against the resources of the current year in respect to UNDP programme activities or against the current budget period in respect to the institutional budget
Common services are provided to several UN agencies resident in a given country, on the basis of mutual agreement between resident UN agencies on which agency will manage the common services. Example of services includes provision of office space, janitorial, travel, ICT, security, administration of UN clinic and related services.
Used for the recording of contributions. Information will be entered relating to the agreement and the necessary accounting information to ensure that revenue is recorded in the General Ledger and reflected correctly in UNDP accounts.
Cash or in-kind resources (the latter being in the form of goods, services, or real property) provided to UNDP. Contributions are used to cover UNDP programme activities as well as programme support, management and administration, and support to operational activities of the United Nations, including costs associated with the administration of contributions received for special purposes; costsharing - a co-financing modality under which contributions from Other resources can be received as a supplement to Regular resources for specific UNDP programme activities, under the relevant cooperation framework.
Cost recovery refers to the requirement for the organization to recover costs from other resources that are not directly linked to providing the required organizational structures for projects and programmes. The fundamental aim of cost recovery is to achieve a proportional funding of organizational costs between regular and other resources. This demands that UNDP must avoid using regular resources to subsidize activities funded from other resources, including the use of regular resources to cover costs related to the management and support of programme activities funded by other resources. The fundamental principle and benefits of the application of the cost recovery methodology contribute to a more equitable sharing of costs of management activities between regular and other resources. By funding qualified development effectiveness activities, where appropriate,
Allows donors to earmark their contribution to a project whose terms of reference falls within the broader trust fund terms of reference. From a donor’s perspective, the advantages of “cost sharing within a trust fund” include separate reporting of their contribution and the possibility of refunding resource balances to the donor rather than to the general resources of the trust fund. Replaced sub-trust funds.
Scheduled audit: These refer to systematic and independent examination of data, statements, records, operations and performances of a partner. A scheduled audit is either an internal control audit which is conducted for Partners which are rated “Low” risk and “Medium” risk or a financial audit which should be conducted for all other Partners including non-assessed Partners.
Refers to the financial contribution to a government budget, managed in a national account by a government entity for a specific set of sector or programme results.
For UN Agencies who do not use Quantum (the “non-Quantum Agencies”), a dedicated Service Clearing Account (SCA) is established for each Agency. Through the SCA, all global prefunding received from UN Agencies are recorded, and all services provided by UNDP Offices to these UN Agencies are recorded. A dedicated Service Clearing Account is not applicable to Quantum Agencies (UNFPA, UN Women, UNU, UNCDF, UNV, UNITAR).
Signatories are staff who have been designated by the Treasurer to operate UNDP bank accounts. The Signatory Panel for any UNDP bank account is made up of those individuals designated by the Treasurer or under the delegated authority, by the Resident Representative to operate that UNDP bank account.
Categories of costs of a cross-cutting nature that (a) involve material capital
investments, or (b) do not represent a cost related to the management activities of the organization.
Periodic on-site reviews (spot checks) are performed to assess the accuracy of the financial records for cash transfers to the IP and the status of programme implementation (through a review of financial information), and to determine whether there have been any significant changes to internal controls. The spot check is not an audit hence, the extent of expenditure testing is generally lower than what would be undertaken during an audit. Spot checks should be completed prior to the operational and financial closure of the project to ensure supporting documents are still available for review and any adjustments required in Quantum are made.
Standard services are those that are provided in the same way each time they are requested, and following the standard procedures in more or less the same fashion across UNDP offices. A list of standard services is included in the Universal Price List (Annex 2 - UPL). All costs are computed using the existing guiding costing methodology (Annex 1). If a UNDP office assesses that the UPL does not fully cover the total costs for providing services, they can establish locally negotiated prices using transparent, prevailing market rates. These rates should be communicated to the UN entities prior to implementation.
The Statistical Annex reflects the financial situation of UNDP both at the aggregate and detailed levels, presented in the form of statistical tables. It contains the following information:a. 10 year-trend of UNDP Programme expenditureb. Overall Revenue, Expenses and Accumulated Surpluses, by resource categoriesc. Total Expenses by cost classification, region and expense categoryd. Programme expenses by executing entity/implementing partners, responsible party; by country, region or territory; by expense category; by trust fund, territory and country
Or “archiving”, deals with the preservation and maintenance of non-current records on a temporary or permanent/indefinite basis in accordance with an established retention schedule.
In collaboration with BERA, the Structured Funding Dialogue is prepared in response to Executive Board decision 2018/16, which requested that UNDP review the format and content of the annual report on contributions and revenue projections for future years to improve the quality of the Structured Funding Dialogue, including by providing an overview of the funding in relation to funding requirement for the implementation of the current UNDP Strategic Plan and the resource estimates for the next Strategic Plan. BMS/OFM inputs focus on the financial situation which is detailed in annex I and the section relating to Working with United Nations system assets where feedback is sought from relevant areas such as UNV, UNCDF.
These are series of cheques automatically produced by Quantum in the pay cycle batch process. Cheque numbers are assigned automatically. The starting number is increased by one unit each time a cheque is generated for a particular bank account. The user downloads the payment file generated during the pay cycle for cheque printing. Offices can use the cheque-writer software developed specifically for use with the System Check format to customize cheque formats and add special characters.