F1.9 Abandoned Property

Effective Date: June 20, 2023

Last Reviewed: June 20, 2023


POLICY STATEMENT

Abandoned Property includes any vendor or employee check that has not been redeemed for three years as well as credit balances in accounts receivable. These amounts are required to be remanded to the state on an annual basis. The amounts involved that are owed to the state in most cases are small; however, penalties can be assessed for not delivering the funds to the state.

The Controller’s office must submit any Abandoned Property to the State of Massachusetts annually for all property that has gone unclaimed for the designated abandonment period as of the preceding June 30th.

The following will be performed by the Controller’s office at the end of the fiscal year.

Miscellaneous Checks – Payroll and Accounts Payable

  • The Controller’s Office will review the listing of outstanding checks for payroll and accounts payable for long outstanding checks every three months.
  • If there are long outstanding checks, they will attempt to contact the payee of the check to determine the reason for non-cashing of the check. If contact is made, they may reissue the check to the payee (with proper approval). If no contact is made, they will keep the check on the outstanding checklist and monitor as part of the monthly cash reconciliation process.
  • On June 30th of each fiscal year, a list will be compiled of all checks greater than 3 years old as of June 30th. This listing should list the Full Name of the Payee, the dollar amount owed, the date of the payment and the last known address of the payee.
  • Once determined by the Controller’s Office that these checks qualify as Abandoned Property, they will cancel these checks and issue a lump sum check to the State with the corresponding detail and required form A-1.
  • Payments to the State will be remitted by the due date of November 1st following June 30th of the same calendar year.

Credit balances – Student Accounts Receivable

  • At June 30th, the Controller’s Office will work with Student Financial Services to review the credit balances in the students accounts receivable to determine if any balances are greater than 3 years old. If so, these balances will be voided in the College’s system. These items will be included in the listing of Abandoned Property and the corresponding amounts will be remitted to the State as described above.

In addition, the Controller’s Office annually checks with the state of Massachusetts for unclaimed property in Stonehill College’s name to be returned to the school.