Accounting Variances Disclaimer
The transparency portal provides you, the taxpayer, with real-time expenditure information of the Treasury Department's day-to-day expenditures including payroll, contracted services, operating expenses and claim payouts.
There are, however, some things to consider when viewing the data:
| Variance Item | Explanation | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Accruals | Payment for goods and services will typically be paid subsequent to the date services are rendered or goods are received. Due to the time lag, some expenses are moved back to the period (may cross fiscal years) that the services were rendered or goods were received. These accruals are not reported in the transparency portal. | The first payroll of a new fiscal year typically includes a few workdays from the previous fiscal year. The few workdays are accrued within the previous year to properly record expenditures. |
| Centralized Billings | Some services that are common to all state departments are billed centrally. Some won't appear in the transparency portal because they're done by general ledger adjustments (see next box). | Examples include some telephone charges, records storage, state insurance policy charges, auto maintenance, and federal audit charges. |
| General Ledger Adjustments | General Ledger adjustments are done periodically to reclassify or reallocate expenditures. The transparency portal expenditure database does not pick up these general ledger adjustments. | If Treasury utilizes the services of another department (for example Capitol Police, or Correctional Industries) Treasury pays by moving the charge via a journal entry from Treasury accounts to the other department. These adjustments will not appear in the transparency portal expenditures. |
| Cancelled Invoices and Returned payments | Cancelled invoices and returned payments will not change the initial transaction reported in the database. Rather, a second transaction is posted as a general ledger adjustment that is not reflected in the transparency portal database. | If a payee has a change of address; if a duplicate invoice is inadvertently paid; if Treasury is mistakenly double-billed for a good or service; or, if Treasury returns an item because of inferior quality. These adjustments, or credits, will not appear in the transparency portal expenditures. |
