PA General Fund Budget Report – Expenditures
Pennsylvania School Districts need the ability to create a file that can be processed by the Data File Load (DFL) option of the GFB package provided by the State of Pennsylvania. The file will contain expenditure information in the format required by the GFB Access database.
To access the PA General Fund Budget Report – Expenditures select the following menu path: Budget Preparation -> State -> State -> PA GFB Report - Expenditures.
Report Specific Set-up
There are a few pieces of information that must be setup about your district in order for the GFB Reporting to be accurate.
GFB PROFILE
To update the districts profile for the GFB Reporting, select the 'Profile' option from the ribbon bar on the main window.
Enter the information as specified in the table below and click 'OK'.
Field Name | Description |
|---|---|
District Type | Select the type of district for the school |
General Fund | The district's General Fund. |
Organizational Level of Function | The Function Level of the district's budget code structure as defined on the Fund Accounting Profile |
Revenue Function Level | The revenue level of the district's budget code structure as defined on the Fund Accounting Profile. |
Revenue Function Starting Position | Enter the starting position of the revenue code. |
GFB Expenditures Crosswalk
This will allow the district to maintain the state defined list of reportable expenditure function and object code records for various fiscal years. There are three ways to maintain the GFB Expenditures Crosswalk codes, manually enter/maintain the codes, import them from an external text file or copy the codes from one year to another. Each option is explained as follows.
To update the GFB Expenditures Crosswalk for the GFB Reporting, select the 'Crosswalk' option from the ribbon bar on the main window.
Enter the information as specified in the table below.
Field Name | Description |
|---|---|
Year | This is the fiscal year that will be associated with the function/object codes. |
Fund | State defined expenditure fund code. |
Function | State defined expenditure function code. |
Object | State defined expenditure object code. |
School District | Check this box if the expenditure is for a School District |
Charter School | Check this box if the expenditure is for a Charter School |
Career and Tech Center/Area Vocational Tech School | Check this box if the expenditure is for a Career and Technology Center/Area Vocational Technical School |
Special Program Jointure | Check this box if the expenditure is for a Special Program Jointure |
To import the state defined expenditure codes from a text file provided by the PDE, select the 'Load' option from the ribbon bar at the top of the window.
The plain text file for 'Expenditure Data File Codes' can be downloaded from the PowerSchool Customer Support website. The file name will be gfbexpcodes.txt and should be saved onto the application server.
Enter the information as specified in the table below and click 'OK'.
Field Name | Description |
|---|---|
File Name | Enter the location on the application server and name of the plain text file to be loaded in the File Name field. |
Year | Enter the fiscal year to be associated with the expenditure function/object codes. |
To copy the state defined expenditure codes from one fiscal year to another fiscal year, select the 'Copy' option from the ribbon bar at the top of the window.
Enter the information as specified in the table below and click 'OK'.
Field Name | Description |
|---|---|
Year To Copy | Enter the fiscal year of the expenditure function/object records to be copied from. |
Year To Create | Enter the fiscal year of the expenditure function/object records to be copied to. |
Loading the Data
Select the 'Load' option from the ribbon bar on the main window.
Select the fiscal year and location in the budget process of the budget expenditure records to be loaded and then click on the 'OK' button.
If records already exist for the selected fiscal year, a window will open and inform the user that current records for the year selected will be deleted. The user can click the 'Cancel' button to exit the process or the 'OK' button to proceed with the load.
If errors occur during the load, they will be reported in the file GFBexp_load.log. The information in the log will be grouped by error message. It is important to review the information in the error log and take the appropriate action. The user will receive a prompt to determine where to print the load log the choices are to file or screen.
While records are being loaded, a progress window will appear and track the progress of the records.
The 'Load' option generates budget expenditure ledger records (bexpledgr) for the selected fiscal year and budget location that are to be paid by the General Fund with the associated data needed for the Data File Load (DFL). The first character of the budget expenditure ledger account code is removed if it contains an alphabetic character. The fund/function is determined from the budget expenditure ledger key organization based on the levels of the organization specified in the GFB Profile.
The amount is calculated as the sum of the budgeted expenditures through period 13 for the specified fiscal year. Each fund/function code is compared to the list of acceptable state defined expenditure fund/functions in the GFB Expenditure Crosswalk based on the District Type from the profile. If the expenditure fund/function is not found for the district type, the process attempts to roll-up the fund/function by replacing the last non-zero digit of the fund/function with a zero and searches the state defined expenditure fund/function list again. This process continues until the state defined fund/function code is determined. Each four-digit expenditure account is then compared to the list of acceptable state defined object codes in the GFB Expenditure Crosswalk along with the district type. If the expenditure object is not found, the process attempts to roll-up the account by replacing the last non-zero digit of the expenditure account with a zero and searches the state defined object codes again. This process continues until the state defined object code is determined. If a state defined function and object cannot be determined an error message is reported to the error log.
After the load has finished if there were no errors during the process the user will receive a prompt. Click the 'OK' button to close this prompt.
After the load has finished, the user will be taken back to the progress window. An OK will now appear at the bottom of the window. The user must click on the 'OK' button to exit the load process.
The details of the GFB expenditure code and calculated amounts have now been saved for each expenditure key organization and account.
Maintaining the Data
After records have been loaded for a fiscal year, the data may be updated, new entries may be added or records may be deleted via the PA GFB Report – Expenditure Detail window.
Generating Reports and Files
To generate the PA GFB Report – Expenditure and file to be submitted to the state click the 'Reports' button in the Actions section of the ribbon bar.
This window can be used to create a Budget Expenditure Summary or Detail report or the Expenditure GFB File. The Summary report summarizes the data based on the state defined function and object code records found in the State Expenditures Crosswalk table.
To print a report or create the GFB file (Data Load File), select the appropriate 'Report Type' and enter the fiscal year to be reported. Check the 'Zero Dollars' if accounts that have no dollar amounts associated with them should be included. The 'Zero Dollars' option is not available when the 'GFB File' report type is selected. The GFB File will always summarize the data and exclude entries with zero dollars.
The default File Name for the Expenditure GFB File is GFBExpFile.txt. The default directory will depend upon client-based system variables.
File Layouts and Data Mapping
Valid Data Files and Content
The data files must contain data summarized to the account level required by the GFB to be loaded to the GFB. Crosswalk any amounts showing on the crosswalk page to valid GFB accounts. Any amounts included in the data file with invalid function or object codes will not be loaded into the worksheet.
The data files should include records only for those account codes that have a balance.
Amounts should be reported in whole dollars only.
Each record in the data files must contain ALL the amount fields specified in the record format. Separate amount fields with commas.
Do not include commas within any amounts in the data files.
If any negative numbers must be included, they must have a minus sign ( - ) preceding the number. Example: -0443
The last record in the file should contain data. Depending on how the file is generated, the last row (or record) might contain only a special character such as an end-of-file character (EOF). Eliminate this if possible. Although the DFL attempts to trap and correct these situations, depending on the character, this could still cause a problem with the loading.
The data file must contain a Header line at the top of the file.
Valid Expenditure Data File Format for DFL:
Format: Comma-delimited ASCII
Zero in amount fields if not reported
No commas in amounts
Minus sign before negative amounts
Record length: Variable
Sort: Ascending by Expenditure Function and Expenditure Object
Expenditure Data File Format (PDE-2028)
Data Item | Field Name | Description | Length | Position | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Expenditure Fund | gfb_fund | Expenditure Fund – Two digits required | 2 | 1st element | pa_gfbexp |
Expenditure Function | state_func | Expenditure Function – Four digits required | 6 | 2nd element | pa_gfbexp |
Expenditure Object | state_acct | Object Code – Three digits required | 5 | 3rd element | pa_gfbexp |
Expenditure Amount | amount | Expenditure Amount – Format 9(10) | 10 | 4th element | pa_gfbexp |
Purging the Data
To purge the PA GFB Report - Expenditures data for a specific year click on the 'Purge' option in the actions area of the ribbon bar.
This window allows for the purging of Expenditure data for the specified fiscal year.
Enter the year of the Expenditure data to be deleted and click on 'OK'.
After the OK button has been clicked, the user will be asked to confirm their intentions before the data
is purged.
The Expenditure data for the specific year will be deleted from the Pennsylvania expenditure table, pa_gfbexp.
Cautions and Restrictions
This application only provides the expenditure information required for the Pennsylvania GFB Report for school districts (PDE2028). Each district is responsible for creating the remainder of the report using the GFB package provided by Pennsylvania Department of Education.
The integrity of the data output to the file is dependent upon the profile information being setup correctly.
This method assumes that the site is using the state defined function codes and that they can be cross-walked to the state accepted codes using the state definitions.
This application is NOT currently designed to create the General Fund Budget Report for Intermediate Units.
As of October of 2014, the web link to information about the General Fund Budget Report – PDE 2028 found on the PA Department of Education's web site is:
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/general_fund_budget/12777/pde-2028___sd_ctc_cs/606285