Avoid P-Card Batch Errors In STARS
Some agencies find P-Card batches that error because the effective date of the transactions are post in the wrong month. Agencies have asked, “How does P-Card determine the effective date?”
The effective date in P-Card is determined by the transaction date, which becomes the Document Date in STARS.
The easiest way to avoid this type of error is to execute the Posted Pending process at the end of each month.
The Posted Pending process will post all transactions in the correct month, even though they are pending approval. Otherwise, transactions may post in the wrong month, and a STARS Edit Mode 3 error batch will be generated. (All P-Card batches are indicated by an asterisk *, sometimes called a “splat” batch. An asterisk does not mean the batch is in error.) The fiscal person for the agency must then change the Batch Effective Date of the batch in the STARS S054 screen.
When the agency’s P-Card administrator executes the Posted Pending process, P-Card will search for all transactions that have not been finally "Approved". P-Card then 'flags' those transactions as "Posted/Pending". Posted Pending transactions will be sent to STARS at the end of the day (5:00PM MST).
When run, P-Card will generate a TC 228 or TC 235 to post the expenditure to STARS and establish a liability in the GL 2105 P-Card Liability account in the correct month. P-Card batches do not affect cash. Cash is only affected when you pay the bank and when P-Card makes its automatic adjustment transactions.
Any transactions that do not have a STARS Vendor Number and Suffix at the time Posted Pending is run will be assigned POSTPEND0 00 as the vendor number. This will allow Posted Pending transactions to process in STARS without error.
When these transactions are finally approved, P-Card will make the correct adjustments in STARS automatically so that the transactions post with the proper fiscal coding. The adjustment transactions will repost with actual STARS Vendor Numbers entered on the transactions.