You have 30 calendar days from when a new FlexCard invoice is imported to Gateway to allocate and approve the transaction to the appropriate CCOA. If a transaction is not approved within 30 days, the expense will stay on the FlexCard's default CCOA. You do not want this to occur for several reasons:
If the default CCOA is not appropriate, your department will need to prepare a Transfer of Expense (TOE)
If use tax was added incorrectly, your department will need to prepare a financial journal
It is a best practice to receive goods and services before allocating and approving a transaction, but this is not always possible; although merchants should not charge the card before goods are shipped, some items may have a long delivery time and not be received within 30 days. If this is the case, the department should proceed with the allocation and approval, as long as the charge matches the order and can be distributed correctly.
The following subsections provide guidance to assist the Allocator and Approver in completing their duties.
Fraudulent charges must be approved in Gateway. The bank and the merchant have already been paid by the time that the transaction is received: you cannot stop payment by refusing to approve it. The Cardholder must work with U.S. Bank to reverse the fraudulent charge. You are not approving the legitimacy of the charge, only the CCOA to be charged. When the fraud reversal credit is received from U.S. Bank, you should allocate it to the same CCOA so the two transactions net to zero.
If you encounter any problems while processing transactions or have any questions, do not hesitate to contact FlexCard Administration via flexcard@bfs.ucsb.edu. Our mission is to help you in any way that we can!