eUpdate December 20, 2012

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Latest update includes:

• Issuing and Filing of IRS Forms 1099 for Tax Year 2012
• MMARS Saturday and Holiday Hours
• Weekly Fraud Awareness and Prevention Fact - What are the Concerns for Management?
• Upcoming Training Sessions and Meetings
• MMARS Hint of the Week – How to Determine Whether a Department is an Authorized Chargeback Department

Issuing and Filing of IRS Forms 1099 for Tax Year 2012
The Fiscal Year memo regarding the issuing and filing of IRS Forms 1099 for Tax Year 2012 will be issued shortly.  Please make sure the relevant staff are aware of the cut-off dates for processing transactions.   The deadline for depositing returned vendor checks into the department sweep account is Friday, December 28, 2012.  All timely deposits should have the appropriate Expenditure Refund (ER) transaction processed by Thursday, January 3, 2013 to correctly report vendor payments on the Form 1099 for tax year 2012.  The table below provides the cut-off dates for the transactions that impact 1099 reportable amounts for Forms 1099 G, 1099 MISC, 1099 INT and 1099S:

 

MMARS Saturday and Holiday Hours
MMARS and LCM will be available Saturday, December 22, from 9:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. The Help Desk will not be staffed and any Saturday Help Desk calls will be returned on Monday, December 24.

MMARS and LCM will be available on Christmas Day, Tuesday December 25, from 7 A.M. - 7 P.M. A normal LCM cycle, but no financial cycle will be run. The Help Desk will not be staffed and any holiday Help Desk calls will be returned on Wednesday, December 26.

Weekly Fraud Awareness and Prevention Fact – What are the Concerns for Management?

According to a recently released survey of executives on fraud:

• 32% of executives expect some form of fraud or misconduct to rise in their organizations over the next year.

• 65% reported that fraud and misconduct are a significant risk for their industry.

• The greatest concern for 71% is the potential for a loss of public trust.

Please visit the Fraud Prevention section of our Internal Controls Page for a link to the Toolkit for Departments to Combat Fraud, Waste and Abuse and the Combat Fraud, Waste and Abuse Brochure. 

If you have any questions regarding this or previous Fraud Awareness and Prevention Facts, please contact the Comptroller Help Desk at 617-973-2468 or via email Comptroller.Info@State.MA.US. To report Fraud, Waste, or Abuse contact one of the Commonwealth’s Whistleblower Hotlines.

Upcoming Training Sessions and Meetings

• Intro to State Finance MMARS Navigation – Thursday, January 3, 9:00 A.M. – 12:00 P.M. One Ashburton Place Boston, 9^th Floor Training Lab
• Encumbrance Management – Tuesday, January 8, 9:00 A.M. – 12:00 P.M. One Ashburton Place Boston, 9^th Floor Training Lab
• Establishing a Federal Grant in MMARS – Thursday, January 10, 9:00 A.M. – 12:00 P.M. One Ashburton Place Boston, 9^th Floor Training Lab
• Payment Management – Friday, January 11, 9:00 A.M. – 12:00 P.M. One Ashburton Place Boston, 9^th Floor Training Lab

Register for these sessions via the Comptroller's Training and Meeting Schedule which lists classes scheduled for three months and Payroll User Groups through December 2013

MMARS Hint of the Week – How to Determine Whether a Department is an Authorized Chargeback Department
You can look up whether a department is authorized to be a Chargeback Department on the VCUST table. Authorized Chargeback Departments are assigned an Internal Vendor Code beginning with the first 5 characters “ISELL”. The 6th character will be “B” for budgetary chargeback, “S” for statutory chargeback or “A” for administrative chargeback. The 7-9th characters indicate the type of goods/services, and last 3 characters are the MMARS department ID.  An example of this is the ISELLBMAROSC Internal Vendor Code is used by the Comptroller's office for the MMARS Accounting System Chargeback.

Please note that the 6-9 characters also represent the alpha Revenue Source code that is established to record the revenue for each chargeback.  Therefore, a department with legislative authorization for multiple types of charges will have an Internal Vendor Code and matching Revenue Source Code for each separately authorized fee.

Click on “Search” and, under “Vendor/Customer”, enter “ISELL*”. The search will display the list of Internal Vendor codes for authorized chargeback departments. (Make sure you include the asterisk “*” or it will not display the full listing.) The “Legal Name” will identify the type of Authorized Chargeback goods or services. Click on the “Address” link and, under “Contact Information”, you will see the name and email for the Principal Contact Person at the Chargeback Department.

Departments seeking to become a Chargeback Department, or for policies governing Chargeback business, see the Chargeback Department Authorization Form and the Contracts Policies page on the CTR Web Portal.