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In FY 2021, the former Purchasing Director, who was also over Accounts Payable, worked with KSU's Department of Institutional Research to develop a script through Argos, a vendor-supplied report generating software, that would extract Banner data into an excel file, allowing the creation of an official accounts payable report. This process occurred every two weeks and the report was distributed to the former Controller, the former EVP for Finance, and accounting and accounts payable staff members. At the same time, the former Controller and accounting personnel were tracking the bank balances. KSU utilized an accordion file to maintain a varying number of invoices outside of its accounting system.

KSU utilized an accordion file to maintain a varying number of invoices outside of its accounting system.

and developing cash flow reports identifying how much money they could access at certain points in time. Under the direction of the former EVP for Finance, an amount of how much spending would be allowed week to week was determined and then invoices would be manually selected for payment using that predetermined spending allowance. Notwithstanding the foregoing software script, KSU utilized an accordion file to maintain a varying number of invoices outside of its accounting system. These invoices represented purchases not entered in Banner because a purchase order was not created or approved before the order was placed. As such, these invoices were not included in the biweekly AP reports and were not considered for payment until a purchase order or direct check request was processed.

In December 2020, after the former Purchasing Director’s Fifth Third Credit Card limit was increased from 50,000 to 500,000, the former Purchasing Director began placing some portion of KSU’s outstanding accounts payable on this credit card to pay vendors and give KSU more time to get the next quarterly state budget allotment to pay outstanding bills. State funds allotted to KSU are made available for draw down on a quarterly basis. On January 5, 2021, KSU received nearly 6.2 million from its 3rd quarter state allotment. Figure 5 identifies the former Purchasing Director’s monthly Fifth Third credit card activity between July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021.