Preparing the Cities FTR from a mapped trial balance

The Financial Transactions Report is due seven months after fiscal year end, with no extensions. Agencies that build it from a mapped trial balance spend their time reviewing numbers instead of assembling them. This routine assumes the ledger is either coded with CACOA codes or mapped to them.

Once: map the chart

1. Export the chart of accounts with every segment.
2. Assign each account a CACOA fund, object, and (for spending and functional revenue) function. Most accounts map by range; only exceptions need individual attention.
3. Keep the mapping as a table in the ledger or alongside it. Next year only new accounts need mapping.

Each year

1. Clean the trial balance. Clear suspense and clearing accounts, balance transfers and interfund balances, and post the year's conversion entries (capital assets, debt, compensated absences, pension and OPEB) to the government-wide ledger.
2. Take the post-closing trial balance after audit adjustments are posted as journal entries.
3. Apply the crosswalk. Each account lands on its FTR line through its CACOA codes. Revenue coded to a function is functional; revenue at function 0000 is general. Spending with function 0000 uses its department's default function.
4. Review by form, against the audit. Total revenues by source, expenditures by function, fund balance by classification, and net position for each enterprise should agree with the audited statements. Differences should be explainable by design.
5. Prepare the schedule forms. Debt (31-35), conduit financing (14), and parcel taxes (42) come from their registers. Tie the debt forms to the audited long-term debt note.
6. Compare with last year in LGRS and look into every large swing.
7. File. Enter or upload the report in LGRS, sign the cover page electronically (or print, sign, and mail it), and send the audited financial statements.
8. Keep the package: the trial balance, the crosswalk version, the mapping, the reconciliation, and the filed report.

Where the time goes, and how to get it back

• Unmapped accounts. Map new accounts when they are created, not in January.
• Functional revenue. Code the function on revenue when it is recorded. The State Controller's two tests (direct services, or an external requirement) decide it once.
• Conversion entries kept in spreadsheets. Posting them to fund 980 turns form 40 into a query.
• Overrides in the report. Fix numbers with journal entries in the ledger, so the fix survives into the audit and next year.

CACOA resources

The FTR finder shows where any code lands; the crosswalk workbook lists every rule; the FTR guide explains each form.