Business Matters June 2017
Business Forum
The next Business Forum is scheduled for Monday, August 7, 2017 from 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. in Baker University Center 240. The meeting will be broadcast via Adobe Connect and can be accessed here: August Business Forum Broadcast.
Beginning with the August meeting the Business Forum will transition from a quarterly meeting to a bimonthly meeting. Each Partner Group will still present twice a year. The majority of the time will be dedicated to Partner Groups, but there will still be time set aside for a Key Announcements section. With the Forum occurring more frequently, each Partner Group will have time to allow for more questions and answers and discussion.
Questions? Contact finadmin@ohio.edu.
New Finance and Administration Website is Live
On May 12, the Finance and Administration Division released a newly designed website with a new URL (www.ohio.edu/finance-administration). The site provides links to all departments within Finance and Administration as well as access to information about offices within the Division including the Business Service Center, Change Management and Communication, and the Office of the Vice President. The redesigned site also provides access to resources for campus constituents such as the Signature Authority document, a dashboard view of the Finance and Administration Project Portfolio, Business Forum information, the OHIO Ready Staff website, and Campus partnerships representation (Work Groups, Partner Groups, and Advisory Councils).
There will be a redirect in place for the next six months to direct any traffic that goes to www.ohio.edu/vpfa to the new Finance and Administration URL. If you maintain a website and currently link to the VPFA website, please update the URL to link to the proper location.
Questions? Contact Finance and Administration Change Management and Communication at finadmin@ohio.edu.
Business Matters Process to Change
This summer a newly redesigned Finance website will go live. The new website will include a news feed that will provide an opportunity to modernize Business Matters by transitioning it away from a PDF document to a web-based news feature. After the website goes live a few more issues of Business Matters will be published in the PDF format, then the PDF version will be discontinued. More information will be provided closer to the website launch.
Questions? Contact Finance and Administration Change Management and Communication at finadmin@ohio.edu.
Payroll Accounting Corrections
Payroll expense accounting corrections for fiscal yearend should be submitted to Payroll no later than July 14. If the correction is past 60 days, an Exception Request Form must be completed in order for Payroll to process the request. Forms submitted without the Exception Request Form will be returned to the originator. Forms can be found on the HR Forms web page. Choose Payroll Expense Accounting Correction (PEDS). The 60-day exception form is on a separate tab within the same document.
Questions? Contact Payroll Services at payroll@ohio.edu or 740-593-1858.
Prescription Plan Changes
In early May, Express Scripts began mailing letters to the homes of employees impacted by the University’s prescription drug Advanced Utilization Management programs. The Advanced Utilization Management program includes Drug Quantity Management, Step Therapy, and Prior Authorization. These programs require additional information from a prescribing physician in order for certain prescriptions to be covered and paid for by the University’s health plans. If you receive a letter, you should contact your prescribing physician and request that they reach out to Express Scripts to provide the information required for your prescription. Failure to respond or take action will result in a prescription not being covered by the health plan starting July 1.
Express Scripts will be sending reminder notifications beginning in June. For more information, please visit the Human Resources Prescription Drug Coverage web page.
End of Fiscal Year Reconciliation of Leave Usage
As the end of FY17 approaches, Human Resources reminds faculty and staff to record all planned and/or confirmed absences through June 30 in the appropriate system to ensure that leave balances are appropriately reflected and carried over into FY18. Classified and administrative hourly staff using WorkForce time entry can view up-to-date usage and balance information through WorkForce as data is entered and submitted each pay period. Salaried faculty and administrators should refer to Absence Management in My Personal Information (MPI) to obtain current leave balances and should report all vacation and sick leave usage in Absence Management.
Questions? See the April Compass article on this topic or contact the Employee Service Center at uhr@ohio.edu or 740-593-1636.
Procurement Updates and Reminders
Expensing to FY17 Funds
All goods and services must be received and/or completed by June 30 to be paid with FY17 funds. Please review open POs for FY17 expenses to identify invoices that have not yet been received and processed and follow up with suppliers.
Send all invoices to accounts.payable@ohio.edu for processing and reference supplier name and PO number in the subject field.
Yearend Close
Staff who conduct procurement activities in BobcatBUY or Concur, and will be off work during yearend close, will need to:
- Designate a backup for approving expenditures in BobcatBUY
- Assign a substitute in BobcatBUY
- Designate a backup in Concur
Invoices on POs over $10,000 and all service invoices over $500 must be approved by the PO owner in order to proceed to payment.
Blanket Purchase Orders
For FY17 only, in anticipation of the Chart of Accounts redesign, Procurement will not close all blanket POs and service agreements at fiscal yearend. As part of the cutover plan for the new chart of accounts in November, all POs will need to be closed and recreated with the new account numbers. To best serve campus all existing blankets will be kept open until November and closed as part of the Chart of Accounts cutover.
As such, Procurement Services will change the dates on FY17 POs and notify the suppliers of the extension of those POs through November 2017. If departments need additional funds added to the extended blanket POs for the additional months, please submit a change order request to increase the PO amount. Change orders can be submitted any time between now and November.
Pre-Entry of FY18 Purchase Orders
Pre-entry for FY18 POs is now available in BobcatBUY. Please use accounting date July 1, 2017. Because the FY17 blanket POs are being extended, there is no need to create new blankets for FY18. Enter blankets only for new suppliers.
Contract Extensions
To guarantee completion of any contract extensions for contracts expiring June 30 or before, please submit requests for extensions to Contract Services by Friday, June 6.
Large Equipment or Vehicle Purchases
Large equipment or vehicle purchases that exceed $50,000, require a Request for Quote (RFQ). Please submit the request to Procurement by Friday, June 9.
Concur Reminders
All PCard expenses must be cleared by yearend. Key deadlines are:
- Concur transactions with date of May 15 or earlier must be submitted by employee and approved by supervisor June 1
- Concur transactions with date of June 15 or earlier must be submitted by employee and approved by supervisor June 22
- All transactions will be held by Concur beginning July 7 (July 4 holiday has delayed this stop)
- Final FY17 Concur reports (for transaction date of June 30 or before) must be submitted and approved by supervisor no later than July 7
For more information, please refer to the yearend calendar.
Questions? Contact Finance Customer Care at financecustomercare@ohio.edu or 740-597-6446.
International Transaction Fee Changes
Over the last few months, J.P. Morgan has made changes to the servicing of the OHIO PCard program by moving to a new processor, which will improve servicing of the program and increase card security. Due to the recent card reissuance in April and May, some changes have had a direct impact on cardholders. Other changes have been behind the scenes.
One change that may directly impact users who do business with international suppliers or travel internationally and utilize the PCard is the “international transaction fee” in Concur. This fee has not been seen before in Concur or on PCard statements, however, this is not a new fee to Ohio University. Previously, this fee was hidden in the transaction when converted to US dollars (USD).
The example below is from a report prior to the conversion to the new processor at JP Morgan. Calculating the USD on the transactions below, shows that the fee was added to the Transaction Amount.
| Merchant Name | Transaction Amount | Foreign Amount | Exchange Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| UFF. GRUPPI MILANO | $2,226.34 | €1,922.80 | 0.86000 |
| WWW.TEATROALLASCALA.TI | $534.94 | €462.00 | 0.86000 |
| F.C. INTERNAZIONALE MI | $1,417.35 | €1,240.00 | 0.87000 |
Example Line 1 above:
With an exchange rate of 0.86, 1 Euro (€) is equal to $1.14 in USD.
€1922.80 x $1.14= $2191.99 instead of the $2226.34 indicated, which includes the international transaction fee of $34.35. The fees were hidden in the converted amount.
The new card processor, in the interest of transparency, shows that the international transaction fee as a separate transaction. Therefore, the conversion to USD will more accurately reflect the true conversion rate for the transactions executed overseas. The foreign transaction fee will be added separately going forward. See the example from Concur below.
| 5/17/2017 | Factotum (Scotland) Edinburgh |
Undefined | GBP2,120.26/$2,764.41 |
| 5/17/2017 | Factotum (Scotland) Edinburgh |
Undefined | GBP2,697.20/$3,501.76 |
| 5/17/2017 | International Transaction - 8007 (Scotland) | Undefined | $41.47 |
| 5/17/2017 | International Transaction – 8007 | Undefined | $52.53 |
Process these transactions through Concur just like the actual expense. Use the same natural account and accounting string used for the expense itself. There will be no separate receipt to attach.
Questions? Contact Finance Customer Care at financecustomercare@ohio.edu or 740-597-6446.
Petty Cash Fund and Change Fund Reconciliations
As of June 30, Finance must have the correct balance of departments’ petty cash or change funds. Finance needs this information to finalize FY17 for financial statement purposes.
On June 8, Nathan Hogue will send an email with the reconciliation forms to all custodians who maintain a petty cash or change fund. Information, instructions and the reconciliation form will be included in the email. Each fund must be reconciled on Friday, June 30. The deadline to return the forms is July 3. Completed reconciliation forms should be submitted to Nathan Hogue at fmsreporting@ohio.edu. For more information, review the Petty Cash & Change Fund Policy.
Questions? Contact Nathan Hogue in General Accounting and Financial Reporting at hoguen@ohio.edu or 740-597-3133.
Internal Billing Authorizations and Accounting Corrections
Final FY17 internal billing authorizations must be submitted to General Accounting and Financial Reporting (GAFR) at finance@ohio.edu by noon on Thursday, July 6. Final FY17 accounting corrections must be submitted to GAFR by Wednesday, July 19.
Key upcoming dates:
- Thursday, June 1, 2017
- Accounting Corrections for transactions posted through April 30, 2017 due in Finance
- Internal Billing Authorizations through May 15, 2017 due in Finance
- Thursday, June 15, 2017
- Accounting Corrections for transactions posted through May 15, 2017 due in Finance
- Thursday, June 22, 2017
- Accounting Corrections through June 15, 2017 due in Finance
- Internal Billing Authorizations through June 15, 2017 due
- Thursday, July 6, 2017
- Final FY17 Internal Billing Authorizations due
- Wednesday, July 19, 2017
- Final FY17 Accounting Corrections due
Fiscal yearend is fast approaching. The FY17 Yearend Closing Calendar is available on the Finance website. All invoices and deposits for any goods or services purchased prior to June 30 must be submitted in a timely manner for yearend.
Questions? Contact Nathan Hogue in General Accounting and Financial Reporting at hoguen@ohio.edu or 740-597-3133.
Budget Updates
Budget Planning and Analysis accepted FY18 Final Budget Sheet submissions through May 23. The FY18 Budget Packet submission deadlines appear below:
Group A - Due June 9, 2017
- President
- Central Reserves
- Honors Tutorial College
- International Studies
- University College
- WOUB Center for Public Media
- VP for University Advancement
- Voinovich School
Group B - Due June 16, 2017
- Intercollegiate Athletics
- College of Business
- College of Communication
- College of Education
- College of Fine Arts
- Athena Cinema
- VP for Research
- Graduate College
- College of Health Sciences and Professions
- Library
- Information Technology
- Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine
- VP for Student Affairs (including Auxiliary Units)
Group C - Due June 23, 2017
- College of Arts and Sciences
- College of Engineering
- Provost
- Instructional Design
- VP for Finance and Administration (including Auxiliary Units)
- University Central Pool
- Regional Campuses (including All Campuses & Centers)
The Budget Office will upload FY18 budgets by August 1. Please reference the Budget Planning and Analysis website for the updated FY18 Budget Timeline.
Questions? Contact your Budget Planning & Analysis contact or e-mail budgetplanning@ohio.edu.
Financial System Enhancements: HR Dashboard Release and Upcoming Training
The Financial System Enhancements (FSE) project represents a combination of initiatives planned to be available in November 2017 and includes the Chart of Accounts Redesign (COA), a new Financial Approvers tool and the new Oracle Grants Accounting Module, and supported by enhanced reporting capabilities within Oracle Business Intelligence (OBI).
Budgeting in the New COA Training a Success
The Budget Planning and Analysis Office successfully facilitated an optional training in May to help units think about how they could budget differently in the current COA to prepare for a smoother transition in November. Representatives from 15 planning units and four Regional Campuses participated in this training and gave positive feedback.
Human Resources OBI Dashboard Release
In June, the first of several enhanced reporting dashboards will be released, starting with the Human Resources (HR) Dashboard. The HR dashboard has multiple pages for various inquires and reports including Employee Information, Absence Management, Appointment Information and Costing, and several other dashboard pages that were vetted with a pilot group comprised of representatives from across campus. Training for this dashboard will be offered through videos and a reference guide; communication regarding training resources and availability will be distributed to impacted users once the dashboard is live. Access to any OBI Dashboard is established by the planning unit’s CFAO.
Planning Unit Mappers to Vet Converted GL
Planning unit mappers have been invited to one of several sessions being held in June and July to begin reviewing their mapped General Ledger data in a newly converted instance. There will be several sessions to guide attendees through the processes and tools to begin viewing sample converted General Ledger (GL) Data. Access will be provided to a test system and data will be viewed via GL conversion dashboards in OBI.
Several updates have been added to the COA website including an updated COA Mapping Introduction presentation which outlines the new General Ledger and Grants COA and an updated COA Quick Reference Guide which is a brief one-page list of commonly used values for the segments in the new General Ledger COA. A training schedule will be published to the website and distributed to planning units in June or July.
Each month, a feature of the Financial System Enhancements will be highlighted to help prepare for the upcoming changes.
FSE Highlight: COA Structure, Segments, and the Organization Segment
Chart of Accounts Structure: The COA Structure identifies how you will account for transactions. There will be two structures: one for the General Ledger and one for “Grants”, which will encompass Internal Awards, Capital Projects, and Sponsored Projects.
Segments: Segments are components of an account string. Each segment has a name and defined length. Natural Account is six digits in the current structure. The new COA Structure will be comprised of six segments, each with a defined segment length and set of possible values.
The Organization Segment
The Organization (ORG) segment is a six-digit value that identifies who administers the funds, such as a planning unit or department. Organization is the lowest level value of the University structure and a department can consist of multiple organizations. Organizations are numbered as follows:
In viewing your area’s new list of organizations, you may find that you have more organizations in the new COA than you have currently. This is because in the current chart of accounts, many organizations are tracked through the project segment. For instance, the Dean’s Office may have one organization, but break out the various Dean’s Office groups as projects (e.g., Fundraising, Communications, IT support, etc.). In the new COA, each of these groups will be an organization that will roll up to the Dean’s Office.
As part of the FSE project, we are implementing Financial Approvers for BobcatBUY and Concur transaction systems. Planning units will be able to specify approvers by Organization values, which will align the approval for spending with the organization that is authorized to administer the funds. If your unit needs different approvers for an operational area, then that operation should probably be an organization.
While organizations are good ways to delineate the structural differences in your planning unit, you don’t want to use organizations that duplicate other segments in the structure. Some examples include:
- The activity segment provides the ability to track different activities across all organizations in the planning unit. This eliminates the need to establish organizations to track the same costs.
| Entity | Source | Organization | Activity | Function | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not recommended (sets up two additional organizations for each department in a planning unit) | 10 General | 100000 Unrestricted | Org A Summer Session (odd) | 1080 Summer Session (odd) | 10 Instruction |
| 10 General | 100000 Unrestricted | Org A Summer Session (even) | 1082 Summer Session (even) | 10 Instruction | |
| 10 General | 100000 Unrestricted | Org B Summer Session (odd) | 1080 Summer Session (odd) | 10 Instruction | |
| 10 General | 100000 Unrestricted | Org B Summer Session (even) | 1082 Summer Session (even) | 10 Instruction | |
| Recommended (uses existing organizations and standard activity values) | 10 General | 100000 Unrestricted | Org A | 1080 Summer Session (odd) 1082 Summer Session (even) |
10 Instruction |
| 10 General | 100000 Unrestricted | Org B | 1080 Summer Session (odd) 1082 Summer Session (even) |
10 Instruction |
This logic is the same if you have another type of activity to track across many organizations in a planning unit. By establishing a planning unit specific activity code, you can track it across all existing organizations in the planning unit.
- Another example related to carryforward:
| Entity | Source | Organization | Activity | Function | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not recommended (sets up a Carryforward organization for each department in a planning unit) | 10 General | 115000 Operating Reserve | Dept A Carryforward | 0000 Not specified | 10 Instruction |
| 10 General | 115000 Operating Reserve | Dept B Carryforward | 0000 Not specified | 10 Instruction | |
| 10 General | 115000 Operating Reserve | Dept C Carryforward | 0000 Not specified | 10 Instruction | |
| Recommended (uses existing organizations and standard activity value for Carryforward) | 10 General | 115000 Operating Reserve | Dept A | 1005 Carryforward | 10 Instruction |
| 10 General | 115000 Operating Reserve | Dept B | 1005 Carryforward | 10 Instruction |
By using the Carryforward activity code, you will be able to run a consolidated report that shows all carryforward spending across the planning unit. This is preferable to needing to run reports for each individual carryforward organization and manually produce a total report.
Hierarchy Structure
The organizations of the University are tracked through a hierarchy structure with organizations rolling up to a department, departments rolling up to a college or planning unit, and planning units ultimately rolling up to officer of the University (president, provost, vice president).
Hierarchy Levels
- Executive (A level)
- Planning Unit (C Level)
- Departments (E level)
- Organization values
Reports can be generated for an individual organization value, or at any parent value in the hierarchy. For OBI dashboards and reports, the user would be able to run the same report for every value/level of their organization hierarchy.
Questions? Visit the COA Website for information, reach out directly to your Planning Unit’s Change Network member(s) to share feedback or ask questions, or contact the FSE Project Team at coa@ohio.edu.