Moving money from one code to another

You may need to move money (income or expenditure transactions) from one code to another on My Oracle because: 

• expenditure or income items on your budget report have been posted to you in error 
• you need to recharge costs to another team or function 

The process for moving money is called a ‘journal’. 

This guide takes you through the steps you need to follow if you need to move money on your budget report from one code to another. 

1. What to consider before you move money 

Before moving money, consider whether it is essential.  

Think about whether the change affects your ability to manage the overall financial position for your service. 

Moving money within your service will not: 

• change your forecast position 
• change any decision on how you run your service 

As such, requests for this type of move will not be approved. 

Avoid moving small amounts of money 

One thing taken into consideration when a request is made to move money is the amount. Moving small amounts of less than £1,000 (one thousand) is generally not worthwhile and will not normally be processed.   

On a budget of £1m (one million), £1,000 (one thousand) equates to only 0.1% of your forecast position.  Even an amount of £10,000 (ten thousand) only represents 1% of your budget and will not seriously impact your forecast outturn. 
 
There may be times when multiple items less than £1,000 (one thousand) may have a bigger impact, particularly when you’re recharging to other services.  If this is the case, think about grouping these amounts together on one journal template and then submitting on a monthly or quarterly basis. The Finance team are unlikely to process any consolidated templates less than £1,000 (one thousand). 

2. Complete a journal template 

If you do need to move money to another service, you will need to complete a journal template (XLS, 1MB). 

Make sure that your narrative only includes the letters A to Z, numbers 0 to 9, or the special character !:,.–()&/-?. The template spreadsheet will indicate there has been an error if invalid characters have been used. 

If any information is incorrect, for example an incorrect cost centre, your template will not be processed and will be returned to you for correction by your finance contact. 

3. Authorising the journal 

When moving money (expenditure or income) from your service to another budget holder you will need to obtain their agreement for this money to be moved - this can be obtained by email and must clearly state what is being authorised.  

Unless both parties agree to the transfer of money, the journal cannot be completed. 

4. Submitting the journal template for processing 

Once you have agreement to transfer the money, send both the completed journal template and the email authorisation to the Finance Hub for upload overnight. 

Journals will normally be processed and notified to you within 3 working days of receipt. If there are any problems in processing the journal template, Finance Hub will contact you and let you know what needs adjusting on the template.

5. Reviewing your transactions after your journal has been processed

Once the Finance Hub has processed your journal, it will be reflected on the Financial System General Ledger and in the Business Intelligence (BI) reports the following working day. 

You should review your transactions on the BI reports to make sure your journal transfer has had the desired effect.