What is OneGMS Financial Reporting?
The Different Types of Financial Reporting
Financial Reports Activation
Timelines Management
What is OneGMS Financial Reporting?
Financial Reports are a CERF requirement for all CERF-funded projects, used to ensure that project activities are on track to meet the proposed project objectives.
Recipient agencies at the project level, will submit their financial reporting on the expenditure of CERF funds, to CERF Secretariat.
For CERF financial reporting, both entry of agency report inputs, and agency report submission to CERF Secretariat for review and approval, is performed using OneGMS.
Financial reporting should reflect the expenditure incurred for all project activities.
Please note: Implementing Agency Focal Points in Country are not tasked with financial reporting, and have “Read Only” access to financial reporting in the OneGMS system.
The responsibility of filling out and submitting Financial Reports rests with the headquarters of the implementing agencies (Agency HQ).
There are two Agency HQ user roles in the system who are notified on CERF financial reporting matters;
- the Agency HQ Financial Team, and
- the Agency HQ Financial Team Read Only.
Other users may read Financial Reporting, but these two Agency HQ user roles will find financial reporting instances, together with the other active reporting instances, listed on the right side of their OneGMS homepage.
The Different Types of Financial Reporting
There are two types of CERF Financial Reports in OneGMS:
Interim Financial Reports: each of these reports in a project covers the cumulative period of project implementation; from project start, up to the date covered in the report.
The number of Interim Financial Reports required for a project may vary, and is ultimately set at the discretion of the CERF Secretariat.
Final Financial Report: this report covers the entire implementation period of the project. It is is due at the mid-year mark after project completion. The Final Financial Report should reflect the budget expenditure of the entire project.
The degree of reporting granularity required for both types of CERF financial reports, is at the budget category-level, as laid out in the Project Proposal.
Financial Reports Activation
At disbursement, when a CERF project moves to the status of implementation and reporting in OneGMS, the system determines the initial number of financial reports which will be due.
The Due date and Active date, which are visible to all users, will set when the report should be open in the system, and when will it be due.
- Active Date: indicates the date when the reporting template is made available to the Agency HQ Financial Team user role in the system.
- Due Date: indicates the date by which the Agency HQ Financial Team will need to submit the report to CERF Finance in the system.
Active and Due dates are initially determined by the system, but again, these, and the number of required reports but may be modified by the CERF Finance Officer.
The Final Financial Report may be identical to the previous Interim Financial Report if project implementation was completed and covered in full, in the August report.
The CERF Finance Officer may amend any of these requirements at their discretion, from the Timelines page of the Project Proposal.
All OneGMS users can access the Financial Report Timelines via the Project Proposal template.
Within the Project Proposal template, in the tabs set off to the right-hand side, the tab marked TIM features several reporting timelines, as the system generates them.
A list of report timelines for financial reporting may be found in the table under the section Financial Report Timelines.
The CERF Finance Officer may add additional Interim Financial Reports to the reporting requirements from the Timelines tab of the Project Proposal.
In the Financial Report Timelines section, the CERF Finance Officer may click on the button [+Add Financial Report], at the bottom of the section to the right, to add a report.
A new line dedicated to the new report, will appear in the table.
In the Report Type column for the report, using the dropdown menu options, the CERF Finance Officer may assign the report as an Interim Financial Report or as the Final Financial Report.
Please note: this action will define the nature of the report and cannot be amended once the report is activated.
The Report Name column will remain empty until the report is activated, at which time the column will display the hyperlinked report name, which can be clicked to redirect the viewer to the desired report in a new browser tab.
In the Due Date column, using the popup calendar, the CERF Finance Officer may enter the desired due date required for submission.
In the Active Date column, the CERF Finance Officer may use the popup calendar to select the date for the desired financial reporting template to be activated.
In the “Is Mandatory?” column, using the checkbox, the CERF Finance Officer may determine whether an Interim Financial Report is mandatory or not.
Please note: for Final Financial Reports, the check-mark will be auto-populated, and the field will remain greyed-out, as the Final Financial Report is mandatory.
In the Trigger Alert column, using the checkbox, the CERF Finance Officer may set a trigger alert, for an email notification to be sent to the Agency one month prior to the financial report due date.
The Status column at this stage will be empty, but as the [Save Financial Report Timelines] button (below the table) is clicked, an [Activate] button will appear in the row, which may be used to activate the new report.
For further guidance on report activation please click here.
The Action column allows the CERF Finance Officer to:
- view the history of the financial report by hovering over the user icon (
) - delete a reporting requirement, by clicking the delete icon (
).
To finalize the addition of a new Interim Financial Report, when all columns in the reporting line have been filled, the CERF Finance Officer may click the [Save Financial Reporting Timelines] button at the bottom of the section to the left.
As the changes are saved, to visually confirm the creation of the new reporting instance, as mentioned, a new [Activate] button will appear in the Status column of the table for the new reporting requirement.
Please note: In addition to adding new reports to the requirements, the CERF Finance Officer may amend any existing reporting dates by clicking on the desired date in the column, and using the popup calendar, select a new date.
