Trust Accounting Overview

 

The trust accounts are for funded programs at the hospital that are restricted to purposes other than hospital operations, capital projects or research. These could include the Mental Health Homeless Patient Fund, Education Initiatives, Patient Comfort Funds, etc. Funds can come from private donors, fundraisers, pharmaceuticals, etc


Trust Activity/Account Life Cycle:

 

If an activity is to be opened due to a new trust being in place, the signatories (SMH staff) would have to complete a form and sign it in order to authorize the setting up of an activity. The terms of reference and proof of funding must accompany the request to open a new trust account. Following approval from Manager, Research & Trust Finance the Research & Trust Accountant would setup the activity in the Activity subsystem.

Expenses are first incurred by the SMH employee or a vendor submits an invoice for payment. In both instances a payment requisition form is required to process payment.

Upon full utilization of the funds and/or the purpose of the Trust is no longer needed, the Trust Activity is closed. Excess funds are either returned to the donor or reallocated to another trust upon approval from the donor.

It is SMH policy that when submitting expenses for reimbursement, if a credit card is used a copy of the credit card statement must also be accompanied with the request. You can have irrelevant transaction marked/blacked out for confidentiality. This will ensure that the appropriate payee is being reimbursed for their expenses. This is a requirement to satisfy the compliance from our financial auditors.

The statement should include:

  • The payee name
  • The last four digits of the card used
  • Line transactions detailing the expense
  • Certificate of Attendance / Completion for Conference/ Course

This is a requirement to satisfy the compliance from our financial auditors. The Certificate of Participation/ Completion shows that the participant went for the conference or attended the courses. All expenses occurred due to professional development event, not just for personal pleasure. If participants have never received a certificate, we can include their e-mails as backup in the files for reference.

Two Signatures are required for the amount greater than $5,000.00.

 

It is St. Michael’s Hospital policy that we cannot pay for invoices that are dated greater than 1 year. If this is a recurring payment please provide a new invoice.

When applicable, vendors must include GST/HST into the invoice totals.

Additional Tips:

  1.  Coding for Trust accounts need to be provided.
  2. Alcohol purchased with hospital funds (MOH) needs to satisfy    the Trust terms of reference.
  3. If the dollar value and volume of requests is high, a PO should be issued going forward.
  4. Payment to individual for services rendered, if they have no HST number, a sin number is needed.
  5. Accurate payee information is needed.
    1. For reoccurring payments that are to be issued in the future please fill out the attached Recurring form, to assist AP in processing this request.