6-3: Correcting receivable errors

Effective: July 1, 1998
Revised: July 2, 2026
References: 6-1: Receivables general policies and procedures, 6-6: Past due receivables, 6-8: Write-offs and allowances

Purpose

This policy explains how to correct errors in a receivable (RE) transaction or in a cash receipt (CR) transaction that references an RE.

Definitions

Agency – Any agency, board, bureau, commission, office, department, or other administrative subunit of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of state government.

CR – Cash receipt transaction in Vantage Financial.

GovOps – The Department of Government Operations

IDT – Interdepartmental transfer transaction in Vantage Financial.

ITA – Internal Transfer Agreement transaction in Vantage Financial.

OSDC – The Office of State Debt Collection.

RE – Receivable transaction in Vantage Financial used to record and track amounts owed to the state.

State finance – The GovOps Division of Finance.

Policy

A – Agencies must promptly correct receivable errors

1 – Agencies must promptly correct errors in RE transactions and related CR transactions to ensure receivable balances are accurate.

2 – Agencies must support the corrections with documentation explaining the error, the correction made, and the reason the correction was necessary.

3 – Agencies must review and approve all corrections based on the policy for that correction type and transaction method.

4 – Agencies must not use RE modifications or cancellations to avoid required write-off, collection, or returned check procedures.

B – Agencies may correct errors to an RE by modifying or cancelling the RE

1 – When an RE is modified or canceled in Vantage Financial, the system creates a new document version and keeps all previous versions for historical records. However, the State Data Warehouse imports only the versions that change the financial amount, accounting codes, or fiscal year; it excludes versions that change only the description.

2 – Agencies must carefully record receivable modifications and cancellations to avoid introducing new errors.

3 – Agencies may modify an RE to:

correct the amount (see B4);
correct the accounting codes;
correct descriptions; or
send a past due RE to OSDC for collection purposes.

4 – Agencies may cancel an RE for the following reasons:

The incorrect customer number was entered (re-entry is needed);
the incorrect billing profile was entered (re-entry is needed);
the incorrect customer name was entered when using a miscellaneous customer code (re-entry is needed);
the billing was issued in error, or the amount was never actually owed (no re-entry is needed); or
a duplicate billing to the same customer was entered (no re-entry is needed).

4a – Agencies can’t cancel an RE if part of it is referenced by another Vantage Financial transaction, such as a CR transaction.

4b – Agencies can’t modify an RE after it’s cancelled.

5 – If agencies modify or cancel an RE after sending it to OSDC, they must notify OSDC of the modification or cancellation.

C – Agencies may correct an RE that is referenced by a CR

1 – Agencies may modify a CR that references an RE to reverse a payment applied to the RE or the customer account.

2 – If an RE with an error is referenced by a CR, agencies must correct the CR and RE by completing the following steps in order:

Modify the referencing CR to zero out the referenced accounting lines related to the error and approve as ‘Final’.
Modify the RE to correct the error and approve as ‘Final’.
Modify the referencing CR a second time to apply the error corrections and re-enter the dollar amounts removed in the first step and approve as ‘Final’.

3 – While it’s preferred to correct REs referenced by CRs as explained in C2, agencies may use an IDT transaction in Vantage Financial to correct coding errors in an RE. However, agencies must not use IDTs to adjust receivable amounts or customer balances, or to reverse or cancel receivables.

3a – Agencies must use event type CA45 to modify revenues and CA44 to modify expenditures. Agencies must not use any other event types when correcting RE coding errors with IDTs.

3b – Agencies must ensure corrections to referenced REs and CRs don’t result in duplicate revenue, duplicate cash, or unsupported customer balances.

D – Agencies must ensure CRs correctly reference REs

1 – Agencies must apply payments to the correct receivable to maintain accurate financial records. Misapplying payments causes errors in customer balances, receivable aging, collections, and financial reporting.

2 – Agencies must monitor open receivables and be aware of expected payments, including amounts and timing.

3 – Agencies must use available remittance details to apply cash receipts to the correct RE. Agencies must not apply a cash receipt to an RE unless they can reasonably confirm the payment belongs to it. If the remittance information is unclear, agencies must promptly record the cash receipt and hold it in an appropriate coding block until they can research the payment and apply it to the correct RE.

4 – Agencies must modify a CR to fix the receivable reference if:

the CR is missing the RE reference;
the CR references the incorrect RE;
the CR amount was overapplied, underapplied, or incorrectly split across multiple REs; or
the payment was temporarily placed in a holding or suspense account pending research.

5 – If an agency records a CR in error for a payment belonging to another agency’s RE, the agency that recorded the CR must transfer the funds to the correct agency using an ITA transaction. Because an ITA transfer does not close the RE, the agency receiving the ITA must manually cancel the related RE and attach documentation of the ITA transfer to the cancellation.

E – Agencies must contact state finance for complex or prior-year corrections

1 – If agencies make an error referencing an RE in any transaction other than a CR, such as a WO transaction, they must contact state finance for assistance.

2 – Agencies must record corrections in the proper fiscal year and fiscal period. Agencies must contact state finance before correcting receivable errors that affect a closed fiscal year or prior-year financial reporting.

3 – Vantage won’t allow RE modifications and cancellations in a closed fiscal year. After a fiscal year is closed, any needed modifications or cancellations must be made in the current fiscal year.

4 – At year-end, when 2 fiscal years are open in Vantage Financial, agencies must ensure they record corrections in the correct fiscal year and fiscal period. If an agency records an error in the wrong period, they must contact state finance.