/Finance & Administration
Office of the Controller

IFR Frequently Asked Questions

An IFR should be used whenever the activity is state activity. All activity should go through an IFR unless there is an approved exception as stated below.

SBF accounts should only be used when the revenue is from gifts or contributions.

ASA accounts should be used for the benefit of individual students, faculty or staff members or appropriately recognized organizations.

RF S&F accounts should be used when there is an employee paid with Research funds.

The following are the steps you should use when requesting an IFR account:

  1. Determine what the account is to be used for. How much revenue will this account generate? What will your expenses (budget) be? This information should be shown on the IFR Allocation Worksheet.
  2. Once you have determined this information you should then receive approval from your Dean or Chairperson.
  3. Along with the Dean’s or Chair’s approval, submit your request to your VP area for approval.
  4. Upon VP approval, the VP coordinator will submit the request to the Office of the Controller for processing. 
  5. The Office of the Controller will inform you and all interested parties once the account has been created.

If the IFR account will be for a service that you will be charging a user fee, there are additional steps:

  1. Determine what the account/service is for.
  2. Obtain approval from your Dean or Chairperson.
  3. Submit request to VP area for approval.
  4. Visit “Service Center Guidelines” for information on how to determine the user fee. This will be achieved by determining the projected annual expenses and the annual unit of service (i.e. annual hours, annual analyses). This information will be input on the rate schedule (see attached) to determine the rate. 
  5. Once the rate has been calculated, it is then submitted to the VP area for review and approval. The VP coordinator will request the Office of the Controller to create and account.
  6. The Office of the Controller will submit to the University Controller for final approval.
  7. While awaiting the University Controller’s approval, the request will be sent to SUNY System Administration to create the account. 
  8. Upon final approval, the Office of the Controller will inform you and all interested parties of the account.

A simple way to answer this question is to think of  your own checking account. The ending cash balance would be equivalent to what the bank says you have after certain checks and deposits have cleared. The uncommitted cash balance is what you say your real balance is after you adjusted the bank balance by any outstanding deposits or checks. The ending cash reflects your account balance after payroll, purchase orders, journal transfers and any IFR assessments have been processed and paid, while the uncommitted cash includes not only the processed and paid expenditures but the encumbered payroll, purchase orders and accrued IFR assessments. Note the Uncommitted Cash does not reflect future revenue.

Refer to Fringe and Overhead Rates

Fringe benefits will continue to be assessed on expenditures. The IFR overhead assessment will be charged on the revenue prior to any fringe benefit charges. As the revenue is deposited to your account, the assessment will be charged. This charge is a direct reduction to your account’s cash balance. It DOES NOT affect your account’s allocation.

When, Purchasing processes a purchase order, they make an encumbrance against your account’s allocation, not your cash. When you request your account’s initial allocation, your request should be based on your anticipated annual revenue and expenditures. If your cash is greater than anticipated, you may request, through your VP coordinators and ultimately the Office of the Controller, additional allocation. Basically, you need your allocation to spend your cash, and you need your cash to get your allocation

All deposits are made at the campus Bursar’s Office. Every 15th and 30th (or 31st) of the month a revenue summary report is generated identifying the total of all deposits made to each account. The Office of the Controller reviews this report and subsequently enters the revenue information into the SUNY system. When you look at your AES report’s cash page or the SUNY system, the cash amounts reflected for each month are for the last 15 days of the prior month and the first 15 days of the current month. For example, if you look at the month of January, the cash would be for the periods of December 16-31, and January 1-15.

Details for the total cash per month for an IFR account can be found in the Collection Analysis report within the SBU Reporting application.

Contact the Office of the Controller explaining the error and indicate the correct account. The Office of the Controller will process a transfer of cash between the accounts. A transfer of cash may generate assessments.

When IFR allocation is in short supply and projections indicate that you will not require all of your requested allocation, some may be transferred to other accounts that are short at the VP coordinator’s discretion. This does not mean that your money has been taken, your cash balance is unaffected.

Unlike state purpose funds, IFR accounts do not “lapse”. Although the allocation is unspent, the cash balance rolls forward, and is one of the factors used to determine the account allocation for the following year.

An account director is responsible for keeping logs of all information supplied on the rate schedule for the service center. This includes the expenses as well as the annual units. The information maintained in the logs will be required during the campus rate review process. This is an audit requirement.

Excess external revenue is anything that is charged above the approved external rate. The excess external revenue may be kept by the department and used at the department’s discretion. The account director is responsible for maintaining logs, which identify the amount of external revenue collected. During the rate review process the logs are used to identify the amount of excess external revenue, which may be contained in the account balance. This is also an audit requirement.

A request should be sent to the Office of the Controller with a copy to the Assistant Controller.