Accounting and Financial Management (AFM) is responsible for the preparation of the Annual Financial Report (AFR) every year as mandated by the State of Texas. UT Austin’s AFR is consolidated into UT System’s report along with the other UT institutions. It is prepared in according with GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and GASB (Governmental Accounting Standards Board). The AFR is comprised of many schedules including a Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and Statement of Cash Flows as well as many other supporting and supplemental schedules.
It takes many different groups within AFM and campus to accurately report the financial data for the University. Payroll, Student Accounts Receivable, Plant Accounting, Inventory, Cash Management, Federal Costing and Financial Accounting and Reporting all have a hand in preparing the AFR as well as Office of Sponsored Projects and the Budget Office. Work typically begins in the summer months leading up to our fiscal year end date of August 31 with integrity checks, validation of data, and testing of year-end tie outs. Once the month of August closes, around the third or fourth business day of September, the thirteenth month is open and year end processing begins. Many year-end entries are required to put financial data in compliance. These entries are processed within the first couple of weeks of September. The AFM team begins work on Balance Forwards. Payroll completes the final payment cycles. SAR is typically the first group to complete their AFR process. Plant and Inventory work on their schedules around the middle of September. Office of Sponsored Projects and Federal Costing work together to close out grants. These are some of the many dependencies that affect the overall timeline of the AFR process. Once all dependencies are completed, Cash Management will finalize the cash position and AFM will begin to consolidate the data and finalize all of the remaining schedules.
In addition to reporting to UT System, considerations have to be made with reporting tied to other institutions, the Texas Comptroller’s office, and the federal government. The Final AFR reporting package is typically due to UT System around October 5 each year and is available for publication on our website around April of the following year.