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Experiences in Commitment Control

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Session Number: 27116
Track: Public Sector
Sub-Categorization: Budgeting/Commitment Control
Session Type: Tips and Tricks
Presenter: Rhonda Sommer (City of Chesapeake)
Co-presenter: Donna Hildebrand (City of Chesapeake)

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Target Audience: Functional
Audience Level: General
Level of Customization: None or N/A
Project Phase: Production
Project Go Live: Earlier than 2007
Version Presenting: PS 8.8
Product: PeopleSoft
CPE Eligible: Yes

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We will explore the methods used by the City of Chesapeake to implement commitment control for General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Capital Projects and Asset Management Modules. The City does not control at a detail account level as we felt that would over burden our capabilities to keep up with transfers and was not parallel to the responsibility and authority afforded to the Department Heads. We placed the control at the “bucket” level – personnel costs, fixed charges, operating costs and capital. This provides Department Heads with the same flexibility given them by management to control their budgets. Based on this type of commitment control an item will pass budget check for operations when that particular operating chartfield account may be depleted but there is still funding available in the operations bucket overall since that is really our concern. When that operations bucket is depleted, no further expenditures will pass budget checking. Projects control focuses on project and funding source controls.

The implementation of commitment control has required the Departments to take more responsibility for their account coding as the codes must match the existing budget. They must learn the various budget messages and the necessary steps to correct them. We feel that Departments are more involved in their budgets now than prior to commitment control and would like to share our experiences with others.