Northeastern Illinois University’s Controller’s Office serves as a central hub interfacing with both internal and external customers. Our customer base ranges from students, faculty and staff to external auditors, government agencies, and various vendors just to name a few. Although our teams work independently to cover their main focus areas, we’ve learned to work more cohesively and collaboratively within our department and organization-wide. The Controller’s Office has kept up with financial, compliance, and tax reporting to meet the needs of the university, our governing bodies and agencies.
The mission of the Controller's Office is to provide accountability of the University's assets, obligations, revenues, expenditures and funds held for other purposes by the University. This office is responsible for developing and communicating fiscal policies and procedures, maintaining financial accounting and reporting systems, complying with regulatory requirements, investment and cash management, banking activities, coordinating annual external audit activities and issuing the University’s annual financial reports. The Controller’s Office provides business services in the areas of General Accounting, Accounts Payable, Grants Accounting and Tax Compliance.
General Accounting
The General Accounting unit provides operational support to University community for general accounting system and internal control of accounting procedures and financial reporting of University funds. This unit is responsible for the daily input of financial data, preparing journal entries and interdepartmental transfers, maintaining the general ledger, balancing the subsidiary ledgers with the general ledger accounts, reconciling of bank statements, explaining and interpreting accounting reports, complying with state and federal regulations as well as accounting standards, assisting the Controller with preparation of annual financial reports, reviewing and analyzing of accounting data and maintaining the University's chart of accounts.
Accounts Payable
The Accounts Payable unit serves the University community by performing disbursement functions. The unit processes all non-payroll payments for goods or services received, including purchase order invoices, direct invoice vouchers, payroll related deductions, independent contractor or guest speaker payments, and employee travel and expense reimbursements. The Accounts Payable unit issues 1099-Misc tax forms annually and is the liaison between University departments and suppliers for billing discrepancies or other issues. The Unit strives to provide professional and courteous service to both our internal and external customers, helping to ensure an efficient process, while complying with University policies and procedures, as well as federal and state regulatory requirements.
Grants Accounting
The Grants Accounting unit provides accounting services for post-award grants and contracts received by Northeastern. Functions includes project set up, reviewing budget accuracy, billing, receivable analysis, collecting accounts receivable, monitoring expenditures to ensure compliance with federal regulations and differing sponsor requirements, issuing interim and financial reporting per outside funding agency requirements, providing individual consultations and answer requests from Principal Investigators, recording fringe benefits and indirect cost to the General Ledger, and preparing and process Time and Effort Reports. Grants Accounting is also responsible for compliance activities relating to grants as well as serving as the primary liaison for the annual A-133 audit.
Tax Compliance
The Tax Compliance unit is responsible for the University payroll tax deposits and tax returns, and nonresident aliens tax compliance and reporting. The unit seeks to ensure compliance with federal and state tax laws and acts as a resource for the University community with respect to certain tax issues. The unit prepares and files the University's federal and state tax returns, responds to tax-related questions, develops and monitors policies, procedures, and processes that comply with tax regulations, and communicates with federal and state taxing authorities as necessary.
