What is OneGMS Financial Reporting?
Who is Responsible for Submitting a OneGMS Financial Report
Financial Reports Timelines
Financial Reports Activation

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 to the CERF Secretariat through OneGMS.

Each Financial Report covers the cumulative financial reporting to date, up to the end of the reporting period. The number of Financial Reports required for a project may vary. These are set by the system, and are tied to any remaining outstanding balance.

The last report is due after project completion, and after all firm budget commitments which extend past project are liquidated. The last Financial Report should reflect the budget expenditure of the entire project. 

The degree of reporting granularity required in CERF Financial Reports, is at the budget category-level, as laid out in the Project Proposal.

Who is Responsible for Submitting a OneGMS Financial Report 
The responsibility of filling out and submitting Financial Reports rests with the Agency headquarters financial focal points, who have the system user role name Agency HQ Financial Team.

Agency focal points at headquarters, with the user roles of Agency HQ, or Agency HQ Financial Team Read Only, will have read only access to the report on their task view, listed on the right side of their OneGMS homepage

Please note: users may have multiple roles, allowing them to conduct actions as Agency HQ or Agency HQ Financial Team. The granted roles can be navigated by selecting from existing user roles at the top of the user homepage above the navigation menu. Below the fund name, the user may access the drop-down options under the ‘Role’ field available to them, to select the desired system user role.

Agency Focal Points in Country are not tasked with financial reporting, and are limited to read only access on financial reporting in the OneGMS system. 

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.

Financial Reports Timelines Management
When a CERF project moves to implementation and reporting in OneGMS, the system determines the initial number of financial reports which will be required for reporting to CERF, and lists them in the timelines of each project. Additional reports to the initial timeline might be requested through the reporting period depending on CERF requirements, those will be generated in the system as the reporting is reviewed by CERF Finance team.  

The financial reporting timelines are accessible to all users  via the Project Proposal, in the tab set off to the right-hand side, marked TIM.

The Due date and Active date, featured in the timelines page of each project will define when the report will be automatically activated in the system, and when will it be due, based on CERF requirements.

Please note: The CERF Finance Officer may manually activate a report before its scheduled activation date from the Timelines  page of the Project Proposal. For more on timeline management, please click here. 

The Financial Report Timelines section features a table displaying the following information, in columns from left to right:

• Report Name: will remain empty until the report is activated, at which time the column will display the hyperlinked report name, which may be clicked to redirect the viewer to the desired report in a new browser tab. The reports are named for the order in which they are due (1st Financial Report, 2nd Financial Report, etc). The last report is dubbed the Final Report.
• Due Date: displays the due date for report submission; this date is automatically generated based on CERF requirements and cannot be amended.
• Active Date: indicates the time from when the Financial Report will be open to the Agency. The date is calculated by the system, based on the report Due Date.
• Trigger Alert: a checkmark in this column indicates that a notification email will be sent. Clicking on the list icon (), will generate a popup where the notification email recipients will be listed. The text of the email, with an explanation of the due dates may be viewed by clicking the view icon () in the popup.  
• Status: displays the status of the current and any submitted Financial Reports. Any warning icons () for rows below the current report, indicate that those reports may not be opened.
• Action: Mouse-hovering over the user icon () in this column, allows the user to view the history of the activation of the report.

Financial Reports Activation 
An “active” Financial Report is a report which the system has opened for Agencies to fill out and submit. A Financial Report remains active until it is approved by the CERF secretariat.

There are two ways to activate a Financial Report:

• Automated Activation: the Financial Reports are automatically activated by the system, and the reporting template is made available to the Agency HQ Financial Team when entering the calendar date indicated as the report’s Active Date.
• Manual Activation: the CERF Finance Officer may manually activate the upcoming reporting instance before the system-determined Active Date, by clicking the [Activate] button in the Status column of the table, and confirm the activation in the popup that appears.

 
Please note: when activating a Financial Report, only one Financial Report may be active at a time; as such, it will not be possible to activate another Financial Report on the project until the active report has been approved.