Thursday, November 15, 2012

Endowments Overview Document

The Foundation and Treasury Accounting both manage endowments, but not in quite the same way...



The attached document describes Foundation and Treasury Accounting terminology and endowment practices.  Thanks to Cathy Burke and Marie Rahne for their work on this, and to Laura Cook (UMF) and Jane Pribyl (Treasury Accounting) for their review and edits to this CSE resource.  DJP

Endowments Job Aid.docx


Thursday, October 18, 2012

RRC notes -- 10/17/12

See attached brief notes on this month's RRC meeting.  






RRC 2012-10-17.doc

RRC Meeting Summary -October
17, 2012





Fiscal Cliff:  Fitz gave a presentation that he also did
for the Board of Regents on the so-called "fiscal cliff," which refers to a
substantial reduction in federal funding that is scheduled to go into effect
after the first of the year.  Several
federal student programs and research funding will be reduced dramatically
unless Congress and the President pass a law to stop or change the scheduled
spending cuts.  A link to Fitz's
presentation is at this link (search for Fiscal Cliff):





http://www1.umn.edu/regents/docket/2012/september/index.html





Fee Management System:  The new fee management system will be implemented
in calendar year 2013.  By January, it
should be fully developed with implementation in time for FY14 fees to all go
through the new system.  You will be
hearing more about this as roll out approaches.




Friday, October 5, 2012

ART presentation

Faith's ART presentation is attached. 

A big thank you to Faith Goenner for her presentation on AHC's Account Reporting Tool.  If you missed the presentation, please see the attached PowerPoint presentation.  If you are interested in access and/or training on ART, please let Faith know.

2012-10-03 ART Presentation.ppt


Friday, September 21, 2012

RRC Notes -- 9/19/12

There was an RRC meeting on 9/19/12.  


RRC 2012-09-19.doc

Payroll default.pdf

RRC Meeting Summary -September
19, 2012





Biennial Budget
Request: 
The President announced
that if the legislature provides $14.2 million in incremental funding each year
of the next biennium, then the U will hold Minnesota resident undergraduate
tuition flat for both years of the biennium. 
The freeze does not necessarily apply to graduate and professional
students or non-resident undergraduates.





The current budget framework also models a tentative 2.5%
average pay increase in each of the next two fiscal years, which is subject to
collective bargaining and changing fiscal conditions.  The framework also includes a retrenchment
(AKA: a cut) to collegiate O&M allocations, but it is far too early and
there are too many moving pieces to guess at the ultimate magnitude of the
retrenchment to CSE.





Payroll Default
Chartstrings: 
Please see the
attached document regarding Deptid level payroll default chartstrings.  This is a very important change that is
effective Oct. 3, but the document is clear and concise so I will not restate
it here.  The Dean's Office will monitor
departmental default chartstrings.





Expanded Program
Code: 
Central has implemented
expanded usage of the Program code to give departments more flexibility in
managing chartstrings.  CSE "owns" the entire
range of Program codes that begin with "SE." 
The remaining three characters of new Program codes are at our
discretion.  For example, we could create
program SEGK4 to be virtually whatever we want (with an appropriately assigned
Function value) in order to avoid using optional chartfields.





The only requirements from central are that you cannot
duplicate Fund, Deptid, or Account with a new Program.  This means you cannot create a Program for
"Office Supplies," because that is already reflected in the Account.  You can, however, "duplicate" the purposes of
existing Program codes and create person-specific Program codes.  You could, for example, create a program code
for Prof. Smith's startup fund.  The college
will not mandate anything with this new functionality.  It is up to departments to use or not use it
as you see fit.





The primary benefits of new Programs are to avoid errors in
the optional chartfields and leverage EFS's ability to budget check the
Fund-Deptid-Program.  It also results in
shorter chartstrings that can be committed to memory (Fund-Deptid-Program is
virtually the same length as Fund-Area-Org). 
The downsides of creating new Programs are the transitional effort and
you lose the ability to easily run a roll-up report on a generic Program code.





We will have a discussion of this at the next administrators
meeting.




Friday, August 24, 2012

Commitment sheets updated

New commitment sheets have been uploaded.  

Friday, July 20, 2012

FY13 reminders

A few reminders as FY13 gets going.  

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Change to process for dept head/center director transactions

For FY13, there is a change to the process for department head and center director transaction approvals.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Student Access to UM Reports

Do you have students workers who need to access UM Reports?  Please see this communication from central:



Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Changes to Cell Phone Policy

The University is revising the cell phone allowance policy.  

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Commitments

From now on, please send commitment transfer requests to Cathy Burke.



Monday, April 30, 2012

HRMS Entity Updates

Some information from central regarding HRMS entities...
I'm passing on information I just received:

RRCs,



The attached document was prepared by HRMS for local HR Directors as a
procedural guide for working on changes to Entities.  Requests for
changes to an Entity (description, reporting, activation and
inactivation) that RRC's submit through the BPEL process require prior
local HR approval.  In the past HRMS has often received Entity change
requests only to find out that the local HR unit is unaware of the
requested change.  We would like to avoid this situation.



Please read the attached guideline document and familiarize yourself
with the situations in which your local HR unit needs to be involved. As
Entity changes often affect seniority and bumping rights for employees,
it is imperative that your HR unit be fully aware of any change
requests before they are made.  If you have questions on these
guidelines, or our purpose in sharing them with you, please feel free to
contact myself or your local HR Director.



CJ Madsen

HRMS Production Support Manager

660 WBOB

Phone: 612-626-7963

Fax: 612-626-8924

Entity Change Guidlines.docx


Friday, April 27, 2012

EFS System Performance

A project is underway to analyze EFS performance.   

Hospitality Calculation Spreadsheet

A helpful tool for splitting alcohol and food costs.   
Sheila Jurgens and Katherine Lindsay created the attached spreadsheet to simplify splitting out the tax and tip when a bill includes food and alcohol.  By entering (in the yellow cells) 4 numbers off the receipt, it apportions the tax and tip appropriately to food and alcohol.  Two things to keep in mind.  If a bill includes an alcohol-specific tax, you need to adjust to make sure that is handled appropriately.  And, if someone has tipped over the allowable 20%, you'll need to make manual adjustments.  Thanks for sharing this Katherine and Sheila.  DJP

Tip Calculation.xlsx




Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Budget Entry Training

Training Services added another budget entry class.  

Friday, April 20, 2012

RRC notes -- 4/18/2012

There was an RRC meeting on April 18, 2012.   
See below and attached.  DJP



RRC Meeting Summary -April
18, 2012





Cell phone allowance:  The employee cell phone allowance is
being eliminated.  Employees currently
receiving the allowance will be able to have a flat dollar amount (still
pending, but likely $60-70/mth) added to their base pay.  In the future, if a position requires a cell
phone, that should be noted as a condition of employment, and the base salary
should be set with this in mind.  The
change will officially occur around the change of the fiscal year.





Year end:  There will be only one year-end workshop
this year.  It will be broadcast on UM
Connect and archived.  It is likely to be
in mid-May.  The year-end memo and calendar
should be out next week.  Period 12 and
period 13 will each be one day shorter than usual due to external year-end
reporting deadlines.  More transactions
will be allowed in period 13 than in the past. 
For example, sponsored and cost-share transactions will be allowed.





PeopleSoft upgrade:  Andy Hill (PeopleSoft Upgrade Program
Director) discussed the upgrade of all three PeopleSoft systems.  Several documents pertaining to the upgrade
are attached.  Regarding the EFS upgrade,
Rob Super will chair the EFS Functional Steering Committee, and I am a
member.  Karen Wolterstorff is on the
HRMS Functional Steering Committee.  I
will be soliciting feedback from many of you as the project unfolds over the
next 2 years.





Annual COA account
value updates: 
Attached is a
document containing the COA changes for FY13. 
Of particular note, there is a new A/R Account code for Foundation
billings (110031).  This will allow us to
see Foundation A/R separate from general A/R in reports.





Combo code project:  The combo code modification to HRMS will
roll out next week.  On several pages,
you will be able to either input the combo code or the chartstring, and the
system will populate the other.  See
attachment for details and screenshots.

RRC 2012-04-18.doc

Combo code.pdf

COA changes.pdf

PeopleSoft upgrade.pdf





Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Collegiate Cash Management

In FY13, the Budget Office will not be assessing TIP fines.  

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

New Budget Module Functionality

Before budgeting in EFS this year, please see attached.  
The Budget Module has new functionality this year.  Please use the attachment as a reference when you are budgeting in EFS.

FY13 Budget Prep - New Functionality 2012-04-03.pdf



Monday, March 26, 2012

RRC notes -- 03-21-2012

There was an RRC meeting 03/21/2012.  





RRC Meeting Summary -March
21, 2012





Position
Budgeting: 
Do not use the Upload or
Refresh HR Data buttons until you read a soon-to-be-released job aid from the
Budget Office. 





Capital
Equipment: 
The change to a $5,000
capital equipment threshold will not go into effect until July 1, 2013, i.e.
about 14 months from now.





TIP:  The TIP charge process is being
eliminated in FY13.  RRC managers will
have the responsibility of maintaining appropriate cash balances with budget
office oversight.  FY13 will be a trial
year to see if eliminating TIP fines will work. 
I will have more information in the coming weeks about how we will
manage this in CSE.





Cell Phone Allowance
Policy: 
The University's cell phone
allowance policy is undergoing revision. 
Everything from eliminating the subsidy to modifying the amounts and
documentation requirements is under consideration.  Look for more to come on this.





EFS Upgrade:  All three PeopleSoft systems (HR,
Student, Finance) need to be upgraded in the next 2-3 years.  The upgrade of the three systems will be a
major effort, and it will be an opportunity to make improvements.  Fitz will soon convene a Functional Steering
Committee to work with central on EFS upgrade issues.  The target date for the EFS upgrade is July 1,
2014.  Student and HR may go as early as
Jan 1, 2014.  These dates are subject to
change.  An RFP for an implementation
partner will go out shortly.





Carryforward Balances
Survey: 
This fall, the Budget Office
will be doing a survey of end-of-FY12 carryforward balances.  Keep this in mind as you make year-end
adjustments and corrections, as it will be easier to complete the survey if
your accounts are cleaned up.





Course Fees:  Attached is a DRAFT document from the
Budget Office with updated definitions and guidelines regarding course
fees.  Nothing will be final unless and
until the Regents approve changes.

RRC 2012-03-21.doc

fees draft.pdf




Monday, March 19, 2012

ISO and External Sales meeting

Reminder:  There will be an ISO/External Sales meeting this Friday (3/23).   

Monday, March 12, 2012

Budget training

There will be three different opportunities for budget training in the upcoming months.  

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Budget prep instructions

Central released the FY13 budget prep instructions.  
The deadline for submitting your EFS budgets to the Dean's Office is one week prior to the central deadline for the college.  The central deadline is June 8th, so the deadline for collegiate units is COB Friday, June 1.

See attached.  DJP

FY13_Budget-Entry_Instructions.pdf


Tuesday, February 21, 2012

RRC notes -- 2/15/2012

There was an RRC meeting on 2/15/2012. 





RRC Meeting Summary -
Feb. 15, 2012





Safety Fund:  There is a central fund to support
improvements in workplace safety - the University Safety Fund.  If you are considering such projects or
purchases, you can apply for funds via the form at this link: 





http://www.policy.umn.edu/Forms/formresults.cfm?TitleCode=safety&output=xml_no_dtd





EFS Structural Review
Update: 
Some of us on the EFS
Structure Review Committee provided an update on our recommendations regarding
COA and combo codes.  I also did this at
the recent CSE admin meeting.  The
committee will next turn to workflow issues in EFS.





Budget Entry:  Please see attached document for important
improvements and changes to the Budget Entry module.





Fee Management System:  A new fee request system is under
development.  For FY13, we will continue
to use the old system (for the last time). 

budget entry 2012-13.pdf

RRC 2012-02-15.doc