Monthly transactions are reported to users through monthly accounting statements, primarily the MIT Summary Statement and the MIT Detail Transaction Report. The financial information in these reports can be viewed in SAP, in BrioQuery, or online through Cognos.

These guidelines encourage using one of the available electronic tools since more detailed information is available when questions arise. However, any one of the choices described below is acceptable.

FRC Monthly Review Application

MIT community members may carry out their monthly account reconciliations in the FRC Monthly Review application, a collaboration between MIT community members, Information Systems & Technology (IS&T), and VPF.

The tool can be accessed online at http://frc.mit.edu or through Atlas by selecting Reports then FRC Monthly Review Application.

This tool is designed to assist those who perform Financial Review and Control duties for their DLC by highlighting high-risk transactions, providing web-based tracking of line items reviewed and issues to be resolved, and serving as an electronic record of FRC review for the DLC.

SAP

Users who review a small number of cost objects, those who would like to review their transactions in real-time, or those who use SAP's drill-down features extensively may prefer to do the financial review using SAP online.

Detailed documentation on the SAP Summary Statement and Detail Transaction Report can be found on the SAP website.

BrioQuery

Note: BrioQuery is still in use at MIT but is no longer supported by the company that acquired it from Brio Software.

MIT's Data Warehouse is a relational database developed at MIT to support ad-hoc reporting on financial, personnel, space, employee, and student data. Data from several MIT administrative systems, including SAP, is extracted daily and loaded into the Data Warehouse.

A query tool, BrioQuery, is available to MIT users for reporting on Data Warehouse data of all types. Templates developed using BrioQuery can be saved and rerun with different variables.

Several standard BrioQuery templates have been developed and are available from the Data Warehouse website.

The template Financial Review & Control Procedures Reporting supports MIT’s FRC process and is particularly useful for users who would like to:

· Review more than one fiscal period at a time

· Review multiple cost objects

· Focus on certain transaction types or dollar amounts over (or under) a certain level

· Sort transactions in a nonstandard way (by posting date, PO number, or by vendor, for example).

Cognos

Cognos is a web-based reporting tool that accesses information stored in the Data Warehouse (similar to BrioQuery) and can be found at reports.mit.edu.

Several standard Cognos reports are available to the community to assist in reviewing financial transactions.

The FRC Monthly Review Report can be accessed by selecting Departmental Reports -> Financial DLC Reports -> Financial Review and Control. Users can select and filter data using criteria such as Fiscal Period, Profit Center, Supervisor, or Cost Object.

This report is designed to assist those who perform FRC duties for their DLC by highlighting a sampling of transactions that may be considered high-risk.