Publication & Printing Services’ documents are now available for viewing via Management Reports located under ‘Financial & Business Services’ in CIS.  Should you experience a ‘Document Not Found’ error message when using the spyglass to access a document, please wait for a day or two as the document may need to be scanned.  However, if you believe that sufficient time has elapsed for this to occur, contact the Publication & Printing Services department at 581-6171.

A new WEB Server now hosts the University Financial Applications (Management Reports, Chartfield Lookups, etc.). This change should be transparent to the End-User.

Please contact someone in Financial and Business Services immediately if you experience any problems. 

Two new FORMS pages have been added to the FBS web presence.  This will enable visitors to have access to all the FBS forms in one place.  The forms are sorted alphabetically and by department.  A FORMS link on the top row of the FBS website has been added.  This will make it easy to find the form you need especially if you are not sure which department to look in for that form.  This is similar to the FORMS pages in the FBS pagelet in CIS.  On September 15, 2008, the FORMS links on the FBS pagelet will be changed to direct users to the new FBS FORMS pages.

Work Study Deadline 09/30/08

Payroll accounting for potential Work Study employees MUST be correct by the pay period ending 09/30/08.  If the payroll accounting is not correct, the student may lose their Work Study funding and the employer will not be able to hire the student as a Work Study employee after 09/30/08.

Please review your records for the following:

1) You must have a current JRN.  The JRN authorizes the student to work for a specific department for a specified period of time.  The JRN also indicates the authorized account number that must be used in order to utilize Work Study funding.

2) The employee’s chartfield distribution (submitted via e-PAF or PAN Distribution) must include the Org ID and account number that is authorized on the JRN.

3) Please be aware that wages charged to any ORG ID and/or account number other than those authorized on the JRN, are an indication that the student is not set up as a Work Study employee.  Carefully review your Payroll Earnings, Benefits, and Taxes reports.  Errors not corrected within the subsequent pay period may cause the student to lose their Work Study funding.

If you have any questions regarding this notice or about a student’s Work Study status, please contact the FWS coordinator at faws@sa.utah.edu.

It has been discovered that when creating multiple Journal Entries, that the auto-numbering feature may not work correctly.  If a user is creating Journal Entries and clicks “Reset Form” after the first form is complete, the next form does have the correct number.  Hitting “Reset Form” after the second form is complete, may cause the auto-numbering feature to reuse the second number.  This duplicate problem may cause confusion when posting the Journal Entries to the General Ledger.    This is happening in Internet Explorer 7 and not in Firefox.

A setting in Internet Explorer 7 can cause “Auto-numbered” forms to reuse previously used numbers.  Please follow these instructions to ensure that Internet Explorer 7 has the proper settings when you use “Auto-numbered” forms.

Documents in Management Reports are now being displayed in PDF format.  The PDF images are clearer and easier to read. 

A new added feature is the ability to view documents where there are duplicates.  If a duplicate exists, more than one link will be available at the top of the page.  Just click on the other links to view the duplicates.

Each department should ensure the appropriate level of effort of Key Personnel on projects. Key Personnel include all Principal Investigators and others specifically listed on the awarding document.  Recently the auditors of grants and contracts have been concerned that Key Personnel have not been charged as budgeted on federal awards.  Normally a person’s home department has the knowledge of the amount estimated, accumulated and reported effort for each Key Person.

Would you please take the time to review the percent of effort budgeted for Key Personnel on federal awards.  Key personnel must provide effort at the level budgeted.  If there is a reduction of effort for Key Personnel greater than 25% of the budgeted amount, then it is necessary to obtain the appropriate approval from the awarding agency.

In regards to the management reports, it is important that the reports are reviewed promptly upon receipt and retained in the department.  Do not return reviewed reports to the accounting department. It is the responsibility of each responsible person to review his/her monthly Management Reports. Your review (or that of your designee) MUST be documented on the first page of each Activity or Project.

If you have questions, please contact the representative in Grants and Contracts Accounting responsible for your project.

As a reminder, the Purchasing Department will automatically close all annual blanket, lease, and maintenance purchase orders valid through June 30, 2008.  It is not necessary to submit an on-line closure request for these purchase orders.  They will be closed on July 17, 2008, before the June 2008 accounting calendar closes.  Please contact Purchasing, x1-7241, with any questions.

Effective April 23, 2008, we are pleased to announce the new ability to easily request purchase orders be closed through your Encumbrance Management Report.  Confirm and submit your request to close unused or outdated purchase orders without filling-out or printing any forms.  Requests are electronically documented, tracked, and submitted to allow for timely purchase order closure and disencumbrance.

This new feature is accessed by clicking on the ‘Close PO’ link found in the ‘Close Date / Action’ column of the Encumbrance Report.  Simply click on the link corresponding to the purchase order to be closed and follow the easy on-screen instructions to guide you through submitting your request.  You even have the ability to cancel a closure request if you change your mind.  Purchase orders with a status alert, denoted in red text, are not currently eligible to be closed.  Additional information regarding alerts and other help topics are available through the Encumbrance Summary Help section.

The Purchasing Department and Grants and Contracts Accounting are encouraging departments with general and scholarship/fellowship purchase order encumbrances to begin using this new paperless procedure right away.  Paper and e-mail requests to close purchase orders will still be accepted during a brief transition period.

Take advantage of this simple, yet powerful new feature to save time and paper, ensure accuracy, and clean-up both your Activity and Project Encumbrance Reports.  You may contact the Purchasing Department, x1-7241, with further questions.

Accounts Payable replaced two document scanning machines in the fourth quarter of 2007. A little known setting on the new machines was not updated during the installation process resulting in large images that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser cannot open. The large images will display a red ex (‘X’ in a box) in the upper left corner of the image, no image will appear and the system will not return an error message that the image cannot be found or to contact Accounts Payable. The resolution was adjusted when we became aware of this limitation and most images are retrievable through the Management Reports. For those few that display the red ex try retrieving the images using the Mozilla Firefox browser. Feel free to call Accounts Payable if Firefox is not available.