For 2017 forward, the final expenditures, revenues, and fund equity will be submitted through the Portal to produce the MS-535 report. This process is required for all towns, cities, and village districts. A recording of one of our introductory webinars is available below.

Overview

The MS-535 interface can be accessed from the Financial tab by clicking "Continue" next to "MS-535 Review":

The MS-535 interface has four tabs:

  1. Home: Emergency appropriation and entity information.
  2. Expenditures & Revenues:
  3. Long-Term Debt:
  4. Balance Sheet:

At the bottom of the interface you will find four buttons:

  1. Save & Home: This saves your current progress and returns you to your Home page in the Portal
  2. Save and Recalculate: this saves your current progress and recalculates any totals without leaving the MS-535 interface.
  3. MS-535 Report: this allows you to view the MS-535 report at any time.
  4. Complete Auditor Preparation/Submit for DRA Review: depending on your user level, this will either complete the preparation step or submit the final MS-535 to the DRA.

Home

The MS-535 Home tab is where the system will indicate whether the review has been completed (1), where you will indicate if there were any unanticipated appropriations or revenues (2) and, if applicable, enter your auditor's information (3). Below the auditor's information will be the name and contact information of the user who prepared the MS-535 and entered data into the Portal (4).

If you answer "Yes" to the unanticipated appropriations/revenues question, you will be required to provide an explanation.

Expenditures and Revenues

This tab contains the familiar account codes interface that appears elsewhere in the Portal. Here, you have access two tabs for Expenditures and Revenues (1). Along the left side are the account categories for each (2). The first column contains the account code and the account description (3) followed by a column for the appropriations or estimated revenues, which are automatically populated from data stored in the Portal (4). You are responsible for completing the Expended and Actual columns for Appropriations and Revenues, respectively (5) and the reasons for any changes (6). If you enter expenditures for an account that had no appropriations, you must provide an explanation in the "Reason" column.


At the bottom of both the Expenditures and the Revenues you will find fields for proprietary funds as well as your totals, which will recalculate whenever you switch account categories or tabs or use the "Save and Recalculate" button:

Long-Term Debt

This section will automatically import your prior-year information. The Long Term Debt Summary (1) will recalculate based on the line items that you have in the table below (2). You can update, add, or remove items as needed.


Balance Sheet

Assets, Liabilities, and Fund Equity

The three tabs (1) each contain columns where you will enter or confirm the amounts for each account for the Beginning of Year (2) and End of Year (3), providing explanations if applicable (4). The Current Year Beginning of Year (CY BOY) column will be populated with the end-of-year values reported by your entity from the prior year. These can be adjusted if needed. Liabilities Account 2075 "Due to Other Districts" is populated from the School Reconciliation Worksheet (see below).

General Fund Balance Sheet Reconciliation

Below the Assets, Liabilities, and Fund Equity table is the General Fund Balance Sheet Reconciliation. This section will indicate whether the difference between your total revenues and total expenditures (1) matches the change in your fund equity (2). In order to submit the MS-535, these two values must be equal.


School Reconciliation Worksheet

Next to the General Fund Balance Sheet Reconciliation is the School Reconciliation. The Portal will automatically populate your Beginning of Year School Liability (1) and the district assessment, calculating the current year liability. You will enter the amount for Payments to School Districts (2) and the End of Year School Liability will be calculated when you click the "Save and Recalculate" button.

Submitting the MS-535

Once the MS-535 data has been entered and the Fund Balance Reconciliation has been completed, the MS-535 may be submitted. Auditors or municipal users preparing the MS-535 will click "Complete Auditor Preparation". This will notify the entity's administrator that the MS-535 preparation has been completed. The administrator will log in to the Portal, review the MS-535, and click "Submit for DRA Review" to complete the process. The DRA will review the submitted MS-535 and may request that it be re-submitted. If this occurs, the MS-535 will be unlocked so that you can make the necessary changes.



If you are an auditor or preparer, we recommend that you save a copy of the draft MS-535 for your records after you have completed the process (See: Working with Reports).