Retirement Credit
August 17, 2009 Finance Contacts:
The NDPERS retirement rate was increased from 9.12% to 9.26% effective July 1, 2009. NDPERS changed that rate in Peoplesoft effective July 1, but since NDUS institutions get paid on the lag, the increase went into effect for the PPE June 30 (paydate 7/15).
To correct this error, the NDUS System ran a special payroll dated June 29, 2009 to issue a credit back to departments for the overcharge of NDPERS retirement. This credit was not accrued back to FY09, so it will appear as a credit in July to your Account 516175. (Journal ID PAY0797810)
When reconciling your funds, you may notice a discrepancy between your General Ledger reports and your Gross & Fringe reports due to the retirement credit.
The revised PI report is now available for your use.
You will have a variety of options for running the report. When running by award, department or PI, the user can select whether they want just a summary or a summary plus the detail and also whether they want all projects or just the active projects. If selecting the summary plus the detail, the summary will be the last page of the pdf file.
The upper portion of the PI report now contains additional detail. Previously, it was one line for salaries
and one line for fringe benefits. Now the report shows a separate line for each type of salaries. There is still only one line for the fringe benefits as they cannot be identified to the various types of salaries
from the finance system.
As in the past, if running the PI report by department, please schedule to run outside of normal business hours as the report will likely run for quite some time which could delay other processes if run during
normal business hours.
Employee Self-Service - Go Live July 31, 2009
July 30, 2009 UND Employee:
On Friday, July 31st, the University of North Dakota will go live with Employee Self-Service. The Self-Service module offers employees access to their own: Personal Information (name, address, etc. – for regular and temporary employees), Benefits (benefits information – for regular and temporary employees) and Payroll and Compensation (payroll information – for all employees, including student employees). All employees do need to become familiar with Self-Service, since this will become the method, in the near future, that you will use to view your paystubs each pay day.
An HRMS Employee Self-Service Training manual can be found at: http://connectnd.ndus.edu/human_resource_management/self_service_training_manual/. If you have more questions after reading the manual, Employee Self-Service Information sessions will be held in the Memorial Union Lecture Bowl on Monday, August 3 at 12:00-1:00 pm and Tuesday, August 4 at 3:00-4:00 pm. Hands-on Computer help sessions will be available to those employees that need special assistance – August 10-14, 11:00 am-1:00 pm, Carnegie Room 7.
ACTIVATE U-MAIL ACCOUNT
UserID’s and Passwords to use Employee Self-Service will be sent to your U-mail email address. It is very important that you activate your U-mail account, if you have not already done so, to receive your UserID and Preliminary Password. You may claim your account by going to: http://www.und.edu/dept/itss/ and clicking on Claim Your Account. Step-by-Step instructions, including how to forward your email to another email address, are available on the UND Payroll website at http://www.und.edu/dept/payroll/html/employeecenter.htm.
ACCESSING EMPLOYEE SELF-SERVICE
On Friday, July 31st, employees who do not currently have access to HRMS, will receive an email to their official campus email address (firstname.lastname@und.edu or firstname.lastname@und.nodak.edu) from the following address: CND.HRMS.SelfService@ndus.edu. This will include your User ID and preliminary password information to access Employee Self-Service. You will sign in to Employee Self-Service by going to:
1) UND Home Page, click on the Faculty & Staff link and then click on the Employee Self-Service button. OR
2) https://www.connectnd.us/psp/ndhp OR
3) https://studentadmin.connectnd.us, click on HRMS navigation link in your menu
Fill in the User ID and Password information and click on Sign In. If this is your first time in HRMS, look for the navigation “Change My Password.” After changing your password, look for the navigation link in the menu titled ND HE Self Service. From there you will be able to navigate to your name/address, benefits and payroll information.
Employees who already have access to HRMS because of their administrative roles will be able to access information with their current HRMS UserID and password. The menu link “ND HE Self Service” will appear on their menu on Friday, July 31, 2009. Employees who work for both Higher Education and State Government, will access their Higher Ed records using their Higher Ed UserID and password, and their State Government records using their State UserID and password.
The addition of this service emphasizes the importance of keeping your User ID and password to these systems confidential. To protect your privacy, refrain from sharing your User ID and Password.
It is important that you communicate any issues or questions you have about this functionality. If you have any problems please call the NDUS helpdesk at 1-866-457-6387.
U-Mail Activation & Employee Self-Service
July 20, 2009
On July 31st, the University of North Dakota will go live with Employee Self Service. The Self-Service module offers employees access to their own: Personal Information (name, address, etc. – for regular and temporary employees), Benefits (benefits information – for regular and temporary employees) and Payroll and Compensation (payroll information – for all employees, including student employees).
An HRMS Employee Self-Service Training manual can be found at: http://connectnd.ndus.edu/human_resource_management/self_service_training_manual/
If you have more questions after reading the manual, Employee Self-Service Information sessions will be held in the Memorial Union Lecture Bowl on Monday, August 3 at 12:00-1:00 pm and Tuesday, August 4 at 3:00-4:00 pm.
ACTIVATE U-MAIL ACCOUNT
UserID’s and Passwords to use Employee Self-Service will be sent to your U-mail email address. It is very important that prior to July 24th, you activate your U-mail account, if you have not already done so, to receive your UserID and Preliminary Password. You may claim your account by going to: http://www.und.edu/dept/itss/ and clicking on Claim Your Account. Step-by-Step instructions, including how to forward your email to another email address, are available on the UND Payroll website at http://www.und.edu/dept/payroll/html/employeecenter.htm.
USERID’S AND PASSWORDS
1. Employees who do not currently have access to PeopleSoft HRMS or Campus Solutions
On Friday, July 31st, employees who do not currently have access to the HRMS or Campus Solutions will receive an email to their official campus email address (firstname.lastname@und.edu or firstname.lastname@und.nodak.edu) from the following address: CND.HRMS.SelfService@ndus.edu which will include your User ID and preliminary password information to access HRMS Employee Self-Service.
You will sign in to Employee Self-Service by going to https://www.connectnd.us/psp/ndhp, filling in the User ID and Password information and clicking on Sign In. First, look for the navigation “Change My Password.” After changing your password, look for the navigation link in the menu titled ND HE Self Service. From there you will be able to navigate to your name/address, benefits and payroll information.
2. Employees who currently have access to Campus Solutions (Student Admin), but not HRMS
On Friday, July 31st, employees who currently have access to Campus Solutions, but not HRMS, will receive an email to their official campus email address (firstname.lastname@und.edu or firstname.lastname@und.nodak.edu) from the following address: CND.HRMS.SelfService@ndus.edu which will include your User ID and preliminary password information to access Employee Self-Service.
You will sign in to PeopleSoft by going to https://studentadmin.connectnd.us, filling in your Campus Solutions UserID and Password information and clicking on Sign In. This takes you into the Campus Solutions system. Then look for the navigation link in the Menu titled HRMS and click on that link. You will be prompted for the User ID and Password you received in the email referenced above. After entering that, you will be in the HRM System. Look for the navigation “Change My Password.” After changing your password (you could make it the same password as the one you use in Campus Solutions), you will be able to navigate to your payroll information.
3. Employees who already have HRMS UserIDs and Passwords
Employees who already have access to HRMS because of their administrative roles will be able to access information with their current HRMS UserID and password. The menu link “ND HE Self Service” will appear on their menu on Friday, July 31, 2009.
4. Employees who work for both Higher Education and State Government
Employees will access their Higher Ed records using their Higher Ed UserID and password, and their State Government records using their State UserID and password.
The addition of this service emphasizes the importance of keeping your User ID and password to these systems confidential. To protect your privacy, refrain from sharing your User ID and Password.
It is important that you communicate any issues or questions you have about this functionality. If you have any problems please call the NDUS helpdesk at 1-866-457-6387.
Letter from President Kelley
July 14, 2009 UND Colleague:
I am pleased to announce that as of July 31, the PeopleSoft Human Resource Management System (HRMS) Self-Service Module will be available to UND faculty and staff. In addition to supporting the University GREEN initiative, this service provided by the North Dakota University System makes the following features available online from any computer with an Internet connection:
· Update home address, home phone number, home email address, cell phone number, emergency contacts, ethnic group, data privacy flag, direct deposit, W-4 tax information
· Request a reprint of a W-2 and a life event change packet
· View pay stubs dating back to 2004
· View flex/comp balances and claims
· View salary history
To prepare for accessing the HRMS Self-Service module, it is necessary for you to activate your U-mail account, since that is where your Self-Service UserID and Password will be sent. A U-mail address looks like this: firstname.lastname@und.edu or firstname.lastname@und.nodak.edu. If you are already using U-mail on a daily basis, no action is needed. If not, you must activate your U-mail account. Please activate your U-mail account no later than Friday, July 24.
Before you can activate your U-mail account, you must "claim" your account by going to: http://www.und.edu/dept/itss/. From this site, comprehensive documentation and contact information for the UND Help Desk (777-2222) are available. Step-by-step instructions are also available on the Payroll Office website at: http://www.und.edu/dept/payroll/html/employeecenter.htm.
If you are using another preferred email address, such as GroupWise, then you must be sure that your U-mail account is activated and set up to forward U-mail messages to your preferred email address. If you still need additional assistance, contact the UND Help Desk at 777-2222.
You will receive more information on the HRMS Self-Service Module in the near future.
-- President Robert O. Kelley
Change to Mileage & In-State Lodging Rates
July 17, 2009 Finance Contacts:
Rates for mileage and in-state lodging were changed during the past legislative session. Both of these changes will take effect August 1, 2009. Senate Bill 2064, Section 1d allows the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to establish an in-state lodging rate not to exceed ninety percent of the rate established by the United States General Services Administration, (GSA), plus applicable state and local taxes. At the time of this writing, ninety percent of the GSA rate for lodging in North Dakota is $63. The GSA may periodically change the rate for lodging and OMB will adjust the in-state lodging rate accordingly during the biennium.
Senate Bill 2064, Section 7, 1c changes the mileage reimbursement to that established by the United States GSA. At the time of this writing the rate was 55 cents per mile, however, the GSA may change the rate several times during the biennium.
Again, both of these changes will be effective for travel occurring August 1, 2009 and after.
If you have any questions please contact any of the following:
Bonnie Nerby, Accounting Services Auditor at 7-2966 or bonnienerby@mail.und.edu Allison Peyton, Director of Accounting Services at 7-2968 or allisonpeyton@mail.und.edu
A new interim University policy, "2.3 Accepting Credit Cards and Electronic Checks to Conduct University Business", was issued June 19 and was effective immediately.
The policy states that "all University of North Dakota departments and colleges that conduct electronic-based financial transactions for the University, which includes credit/debit card or electronic check (eCheck) transactions, must be compliant with: Payment Card Data Industry Standards, all applicable laws and mandates, and North Dakota University System and UND policies and procedures."
FYE Processing & Payroll
July 16, 2009 Department Heads & Finance Contacts:
The final payroll for FY09 has now posted. The 07/15/09 payroll for Pay Period Ending 06/30/09 was charged to your FY09 funds. The payroll has a budget post date in Commitment Control of 07/14/09 and a General Ledger Journal Date of 06/30/09. The Journal ID is PAY0794881.
However, the health premium, which is paid in advance, was reversed from the 6/30/09 (FY09) payroll post and charged to FY10. The health premium reversal has a budget post date in Commitment Control of 7/14/09 and a General Ledger Journal date of 6/30/09. The health premium charge in FY10 has a budget post date in Commitment Control of 7/14/09 and a General Ledger Journal date of 7/1/09. The Journal ID is PAY_HEALTH.
When reconciling your General Ledger to your Gross & Fringe reports, please remember the Gross & Fringe reports combine the Health, Life and EAP premiums and ONLY the Health premium was reversed from the 6/30/09 payroll and charged to FY10.
With the final payroll posting, most departments should be able to run a final reconciliation on their department's FY09 funds.
In closing, we would like to extend a hearty 'THANK YOU' to you for your cooperation and assistance with the Fiscal Year-End Closing schedule. Your diligence in getting your payments, paperwork and deposits to our offices in a timely manner was greatly appreciated and made the transition to the new fiscal year much easier.
Reports & Processes Reminders
June 25, 2009 Finance Contacts:
The CND Finance Team recently sent out a few reminders for running reports & processes. We wanted to share this information so everyones jobs run efficiently during year end processing.
Setting up Run Control and criteria
Please make sure you are selecting the correct criteria in your run control. Some run controls have a section titled Selection Parameters which requires a row for each criterion. The first row requires the selection of business unit and a value for your business unit. Additional rows are added for more criteria.
When you run a report and select the all values button, it overrides the value from and value to fields. Please make sure to not check the all values when you are running for a specific fund/account combination. Also, note there are chartfields in 9.0 that we are not using, please only include the chartfields that apply to the report you are processing.
If you decide to "select all values' the report needs to be scheduled to run after 5:00 as it will run quite awhile. We do not want these reports to run during the day and take up resources. We will cancel these processes if we find them running too long.
Running one or more reports using the same run control ID
The way the process monitor works is that when you save the run control parameters and submit a job (report), the parameters are not actually used until the process starts.
When you submit one job (report) the parameters get used when it starts running. If you wish to submit another one, but use the same run control ID, after you change the parameters and save the run control, if the previous job you submitted is not yet started, it will use the new parameters you just saved for your new report.
The result is that the report will run twice, with one set of parameters - the one you most recently set up. Subsequent reports are manually canceled by the CND Project staff. If the jobs were allowed to process, not only would it slow the system but the reports would return the same information. If you are running the same report multiple times because the system is slow, you are actually contributing to the slow response time of the system. If you wish to use the same run control ID for different values, you still need the first one to process to "Success" before running the next one. Alternatively, you can set up new run control IDs for each set of parameters.
Please be patient and wait for your report "Run Status" to indicate "Success" in the Process Monitor before running the next report using the same run control ID.
Reviewing the process monitor
Click the link to review the list of run statuses and what they mean:
HRMS Access & Pay Confirm
June 25, 2009 HRMS Contacts:
All HRMS department users MUST be logged off and out of HRMS by 11:45 am on Pay Confirm days. You may log back in at 10:15 the following morning to run your HE Actual Reports. In the future, we will send an email, notifying you of Pay Confirm and the time that you must be out of HRMS. In addition, you can also refer to the Payroll calendar.
Several users have been experiencing access problems the past few pay periods. The Security Team believes these problems are caused by HRMS users either logged into HRMS when the access is shut off for Pay Confirm, or trying to log into HRMS when they are locked out.
Please read the additional instructions from the Security Team that should solve any future access problems that you may experience:
It is imperative that users sign out prior to the time that pay confirm is being run. To sign out, you must click on the hyperlink 'Sign out' in the upper corner of your screen. If you click on the 'X' in the upper corner to close the session, you are not
signing out.
Each time that the pay confirm is run, there are certain users who are troubled by not being able to use certain navigations. This is caused by the user not signing out properly and/or by not signing out at all and remaining on the system.
This causes frustration on the part of the users who later cannot use the navigations and also causes extra work for several people to resolve the problem.
To avoid these problems, it is recommended you follow these steps on the day that Pay Confirm is run:
1.Sign out before Pay Confirm is run (See the calendar on the UND Payroll website) - by 11:45 am.
2.Do not sign back in before 10:15 am on the following day
3.Before you sign in the following day, clear your cache and delete your cookies , close your browser , open a new browser and then sign in.
If you have problems with your access, please call the Help Desk at 7-2222. HRMS users that consistently have problems with their access and Security can see that they continue to be in HRMS during a lock out, may lose future access to HRMS and/or be reported to their supervisor.
Patricia Hanson
Director of Payroll
University of North Dakota
264 Centennial Drive Stop 7127
Grand Forks, ND 58202
Telephone: (701) 777-4228
Fax: (701) 777-4721
Mileage Reimbursement Policy Change
June 24, 2009 Finance Contacts:
UND Accounting Services continues to review policies and procedures to improve efficiency and effectiveness for UND and its employees. Beginning July 1, 2009, the UND mileage reimbursement rate for personal vehicles will be consistent with other state agencies and the North Dakota Century Code (NDCC) 54-06-09. Currently, the UND reimbursement rate for personal vehicle mileage is more restrictive than required by NDCC. The in-state mileage rate will be paid to any location 300 miles beyond the borders of the state. Mileage in excess of 300 miles will be paid at the out-of-state mileage rate.
The current reimbursement rate for in-state mileage is $.45/mile; the current rate for out-of-state mileage is $.18/mile. The actual reimbursement rate may fluctuate periodically as established by the ND Office of Management and Budget to align with the US General Services Administration (GSA) rate.
NDCC still requires the use of state-owned vehicles unless the employee's supervisor or their designate has approved the use of a personal vehicle.
If you have any questions please contact any of the following:
Allison Peyton, Director of Accounting Services at 7-2968 or allisonpeyton@mail.und.edu
Bonnie Nerby, Accounting Services Auditor at 7-2966 or bonnienerby@mail.und.edu
Sharon Berning, Controller at 7-3178 or sharonberning@mail.und.edu
New Software Purchasing Policy
June 24, 2009 Department Heads & Finance Contacts:
President Kelley has approved a new software purchasing policy that has led to the development of a streamlined software purchasing procedure. A group of individuals, assembled by Josh Riedy, UND CIO, worked through the details to ensure the functionality of the process. The new Software Purchasing Procedures and a Non-Standard Software Purchasing Form are attached. The new procedures become effective July 1, 2009.
Josh Riedy, UND CIO
Scott Schreiner, UND Director of Purchasing
HRMS Information Update
May 22, 2009 HRMS Contacts:
New Hire Chart Updated: The New Hire Chart has been updated. It is attached and on the Payroll website. A change has been made to the Non-Student Part-time column, #1. If employee was a UND student spring semester and will be a UND student in the fall, Student Financial Aid will approve hiring these employees as students during the summer. Departments must follow the Institutional Hiring processing, including the use of JobX, just as they would with other student employees. This change has been made to allow department to hire these individuals as students, so you do not have to process a termination and rehire through Payroll in the fall. However, you must still do the rehire through JobX in fall (see Student Employment Grid on the Payroll website for process).
Graduate Student Assistants: Since Graduate Student Assistants are paid monthly, they will continue to be paid unless you process the necessary paperwork through Payroll. If they will not be working for your department during the summer as a Graduate Student, do the following: 1) If a Graduate assistant will not be teaching/researching anywhere on campus during the summer and will not be returning to UND in the fall, submit a Job Data change form to terminate. OR 2) If a Graduate Assistant will be doing teaching/research on campus this summer for another department, or will return in the fall, Submit a Job Data change form to reduce their compensation to zero, so they will not receive a check, but their Health insurance will continue through the summer. Termination of a returning Graduate Assistant will cancel their Health insurance.
Summer Paperwork: Due to the large number of hires and terminations that happen during the summer, please submit your paperwork as soon as possible.
Important Information Regarding Identification While Traveling
May 21, 2009 Finance Contacts:
This message is from the Transportation Security Administration regarding the Secure Flight Program.
AIRLINE PASSENGER TRAVEL DOCUMENTS MUST BE AN EXACT MATCH TO PASSENGER IDENTIFICATION DOCUMENTS
Important Information - Effective May 15, 2009
In March, the TSA announced implementation of the Secure Flight Program, which shifts pre-departure watch list matching responsibilities from individual aircraft operators to the TSA and carries out a key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission.
Under Secure Flight, airlines (and travel agents) will gather a passenger's full name, date of birth, and gender when making an airline reservation. The idea behind Secure Flight is to eliminate the possibility of a passenger being mistakenly delayed due to a similar name of someone on the TSAs watch list. By providing the additional data elements of gender and date of birth, Secure Flight will be even more effective in helping prevent misidentification of passengers.
Beginning May 15, 2009, tickets must be issued in the passengers full name as it appears on the government identification they will be using to fly. If the drivers license and passport have different names, the name on the ticket should match exactly to the identification they will use on the specific trip. This means middle name or initial, and anything else noted on the identification, including things like Jr.
In the near future, small differences between the passengers ID and the passengers reservation information, such as the use of a middle initial instead of a full middle name or no middle name/initial at all, will not be an issue for passengers. Over time, passengers should strive to obtain consistency between the name on their government issued ID and the travel information they use for booking flights. The goal is to eventually, by early 2010, require an exact match. Also note, as of August 15, 2009, passengers will need to include their date of birth and gender when booking reservations.
Message forwarded on behalf of Accounting Services.
Email #052109-1
Travel Forms Updated
May 5, 2009 Finance Contacts:
Effective May 4, 2009, the Travel Expense Voucher form and the Non-Employee/Student Travel Expense Worksheet have been updated. All departments are to start using the new form immediately. If you have saved the form to your computer, please delete and upload the most current version of the form.
Please contact Accounting Services at 7-2771 if you have any questions.
The numbers are not final until the legislative session is over, but due to the short turn-around time for budgeting, we are providing you with the information as it is currently in the legislative language. The Final Benefits calculator will be posted to our website at the completion of the legislative session.
1) New Hourly Reporting form is attached and out on the Payroll website. Improvements to this reporting form include: When Period Beginning and Period Ending dates are entered, the dates on the side of the form fill to the correct days of the week; calculation of weekly totals; correctly calculates PM to AM times; spreadsheet is locked so that supervisors and payroll staff are assured the calculations are correct. If your employees use an Hourly Reporting form, we highly recommend that each employee complete the top and save it to the desktop of a computer and the employee enter time directly on the form when the employee punches in and punches out. Requesting the employee to complete it online, will save supervisors time reviewing and there will be fewer errors that will need to be corrected.
2) New Hire Guide is attached and out on the Payroll website. The New Hire Guide has been updated to include the E-Verify procedures. Please review carefully before hiring new employees. Change Reminder: Only the Payroll Office will be E-Verifying GTA's, GRA's and GSA's.
3) Student Employment Grid is attached and out on the Payroll website. Although there has not been a need for any changes, it is always recommended to review this document as we approach summer with student employees.
4) An In/Outprocessing Checklist has been developed for departments to use when hiring and terminating employees. The left side of the list can be used to identify the equipment/access that an employee receives when they are hired and the employee initials when they receive it. The right side of the form is completed by the supervisor or department contact when they submit the paperwork to terminate the employee's access and when the employee returns the department equipment and other items. The form is signed by the employee and the supervisor/department contact when the employee terminates employment. Currently, this form is to be used as an internal department form for your records and should not be submitted to HR or Payroll.
5) Minimum wage will increase to $7.25 per hour on July 16th, 2009. An automated process in HRMS will increase any employee under the minimum wage to the minimum wage. You do not have to submit paperwork, unless you want an employee to be increase over the minimum wage. Departments will be receiving lists of employees that will be increased to minimum wage, prior to July 16th.
6) Remember that I-9 forms need to be completed, prior to the employee starting work. I-9 forms are only completed by an E-Verify site (The Payroll Office is the E-Verify site for any department that does not have an HR office). Please make sure that the employee knows their start date and what identification documentation that is needed prior to appearing in Payroll. New Employee packets will be provided to the employee when the I-9 form has been completed. If you need to have an I-9 form completed for an employee that will never be on campus, contact the Payroll Office and an I-9 site will be located close to where the employee lives.
7) Per NDUS, when a contract benefitted faculty member completes their academic term and submits a resignation for the next academic year, the effective date of the termination should be July 2, 2009 or the last day of work (whichever is later). If a faculty member is teaching or working during the summer for another department on an Additional Pay, do not terminate their employment until they are done, or they will not receive their pay from that department.
8) Remind your hourly employees to submit their Hourly Payroll Reporting forms on time every pay period. Remember to check your Pay Registers and HE Actuals every pay period and report errors. This will save everyone extra work.
Effective Friday, April 3, 2009, a revised version of the I-9 form must be used for all new employees. The link to the new I-9 form is located on the Payroll website: http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/I-9_IFR_02-02-09.pdf. The revision date on the form is 02/02/09.
If you are an E-Verify site or you are providing I-9's to your new employees, please make sure that you are using this new form tomorrow.
NOTICE: Stimulus Tax Tables in Effect for March 31st Paycheck
March 31, 2009 HRMS Contacts:
New "Stimulus" Tax Tables will be Effective with March 31, 2009 payday.
The University of North Dakota has implemented the new 2009 "Stimulus" tax tables, effective with the March 31, 2009 paychecks.
The new 2009 income tax withholding tables issued to implement the Making Work Pay Credit (MWPC) may place some taxpayers in a slightly "under withheld" situation by the end of the year. In particular, married couples with both spouses earning wages, individuals working multiple jobs at one time or anyone that is claimed as a dependent on someone else's tax return may want to adjust their Forms W-4 to have additional withheld.
When you file your taxes, the tax credit that you will receive is supposed to be the lesser of:
(1) $0 for anyone claimed as a dependent on someone else's tax return OR a non-resident alien
(2) 6.2% of earned income OR
(3) $400 for single individuals and $800 for joint filers
Special Note: This credit will be phased out by 2% of the modified adjusted gross income over $75,000 for single filers and $150,000 for joint filers.
The Payroll Office will be unable to tell you what your federal tax will be for the March 31st check, until pay day. If you would like to estimate your federal tax, prior to pay day, there is a Federal Tax Calculator on the Payroll website : http://www.und.edu/dept/payroll/html/calculators.htm Use the calculator named: Federal Withholding Calculator for CY2009-Effective March 31-2009. This calculator uses the new withholding tables that will be used for the rest of calendar year 2009. This calculator can also be used to provide you with different scenarios, if you would choose to change your W-4.
We recommend that you wait and review your paycheck stub on March 31st and if your wages are the same, then if the difference in your federal withholding between your last check and your March 31st check, multiplied by your number of pay periods remaining in the calendar year is more than your anticipated credit above, you may want to submit a new W-4 to increase your withholding. The W-4 form is located on the Payroll website: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf You may print it, complete it and deliver/mail it to the Payroll Office (Twamley 312, or 264 Centennial Drive Stop 7127)
Weather Closure Payroll Information
March 27, 2009 HRMS Contacts:
The University of North Dakota was officially closed from 7:00 am- 11:00 pm on Wednesday, March 25, 2009. Please process your payroll for this closure according to NDUS Policy 20.4:
Institution Closures - An institution or part of an institution may be closed due to severe weather or other reason justifying closure. The action shall be communicated to employees, students and other interested persons through local media or other reasonable means. Only employees designated by the department head may be required to work during the period when the institution is officially closed. All other regular employees shall be granted leave with pay for hours which they would normally work during a closure, except employees not scheduled to work during the closure because of a previous arrangement. If an employee is not scheduled to work because of a previous arrangement, including annual or sick leave, the employee is not entitled to the additional paid leave and should turn in leave slips for the entire time they are absent. All employees properly authorized to work shall receive additional pay for hours worked during the official closing. When the institution remains open, employees unable to report to work shall notify their supervisor and take annual leave or leave without pay.
In summary:
1. Student or non-benefitted employees only receive compensation for hours actually worked during the closure.
2.Hourly, benefitted employees that would have been regularly scheduled to work during the closure, but did not work due to the closure, are to be paid H67 (Official Closure) earnings for the number of hours they would have been scheduled to work. The number of hours reported are NOT prorated for part-time employees. Employees are not required to use vacation or sick leave hours.
3.Salaried and Contract employees will receive their regular pay during the closure, if they are not required to work.
4.All non-exempt employees that were required to work during the closure are to be paid additional compensation for the number of hours actually worked (H01-Regular or H14-Workstudy). If these hours of additional compensation cause the employee to exceed 40 hours for the week, these hours should be coded H03-Overtime.
5.Exempt employees are not required to be paid any additional compensation for the number of hours actually worked during a closure.
Any leave slips and time slips that are submitted, are to be reviewed by the supervisors to assure that this policy is being followed. Notify employees if any changes are necessary and initialed. If you have any questions on the policy, please call the Human Resources Office. If you have any questions regarding the payment of hours, please call the Payroll Office.
Reminder: Spouse/Dependent Tuition Waiver Deadline for Summer
March 18, 2009 UND Benefited Faculty and Staff:
The deadline to submit your 2009 Summer Semester Spouse/Dependent Tuition Waiver form is - Friday, April 17, 2009 at 4:30 pm. Applications for Summer Semester, received in the Human Resources Office after this date, will not be processed.
The amount of the spouse/dependent tuition waiver is 50 percent of the billed tuition per spouse and/or dependent for UND undergraduate and graduate classes excluding professional programs (Law and Medicine) and self supporting continuing education courses (correspondence and on-line studies). Deadline to submit your completed Spouse/Dependent Tuition Waiver form is 30 days prior to the start of each semester. You are encouraged to take advantage of this new benefit.
The value of employee/spouse/dependent tuition waivers for graduate courses will be taxable to the employee (Undergraduate tuition waivers and graduate tuition waivers granted by the Graduate School are not taxable). The applicable federal/state/FICA tax will be deducted over four paychecks following the start of the term. Please contact the Payroll Office (777-4228) with questions regarding this tax.
NDUS Procedure 504, Residency for Tuition Purposes, allows a spouse or dependent of a UND employee to be eligible for the ND resident tuition rate. Please visit http://www.und.edu/dept/studentaccounts/html/residency.htm for more information.
If you have questions regarding the policy, please call the Human Resources Office (777-4361). If you have any questions regarding the actual tuition waiver, please call Student Account Services (777-3911).
Reminder: Official Storm Closure Payroll Process
March 11, 2009
The University of North Dakota was officially closed from 8:00 am- 10:00 am on Wednesday, March 11, 2009. Please process your payroll for this closure according to NDUS Policy 20.4:
Institution Closures - An institution or part of an institution may be closed due to severe weather or other reason justifying closure. The action shall be communicated to employees, students and other interested persons through local media or other reasonable means. Only employees designated by the department head may be required to work during the period when the institution is officially closed. All other regular employees shall be granted leave with pay for hours which they would
normally work during a closure, except employees not scheduled to work during the closure because of a previous arrangement. If an employee is not scheduled to work because of a previous arrangement, including annual or sick leave, the employee is not entitled to the additional paid leave and should turn in leave slips for the entire time they are absent.
All employees properly authorized to work shall receive additional pay for hours worked during the official closing. When the
institution remains open, employees unable to report to work shall notify their supervisor and take annual leave or leave without pay.
In summary:
1.Student or non-benefitted employees only receive compensation for hours actually worked during the closure.
2.Hourly, benefitted employees that would have been regularly scheduled to work during the closure, but did not work due to
the closure, are to be paid H67 (Official Closure) earnings for the number of hours they would have been scheduled to work. The number of hours reported are NOT prorated for part-time employees. Employees are not required to use vacation or sick leave hours.
3.Salaried and Contract employees will receive their regular pay during the closure, if they are not required to work.
4.All employees that were required to work during the closure are to be paid additional compensation for the number of hours actually worked (H01-Regular or H14-Workstudy). If these hours of additional compensation cause the employee to exceed 40 hours for the week, these hours should be coded H03-Overtime.
Any leave slips and time slips that are submitted, are to be reviewed by the supervisors to assure that this policy is being followed. Notify employees if any changes are necessary and initialed. If you have any questions on the policy, please call the Human Resources Office. If you have any questions regarding the payment of hours, please call the Payroll Office.
Accounting Services now has a tax exempt certificate available for Wyoming. There is also an example of how to fill out the certificate when making a purchase or for motel/hotel charges. Both these forms can be found on the Accounting Services Forms page.
1) This next pay period has a short turn around time. Please turn in your Job Data Hires, Job Data Change and Multiple Additional Pay forms for February 1-15 as soon as possible. It would be greatly appreciated if we could get as many as possible today!
2) We have received several calls from HRMS users that sporadically are not able to view HRMS reports and screens. Please keep in mind that when we are confirming payroll, departments are locked out of HRMS from noon on Payroll Confirm day until 10:00 am the next morning. The Payroll Calendar is on our website - please keep a copy handy, so that you are aware when you will be locked out. If you are still not able to view a screen or a report, and you are not locked out by confirm, the Help Desk recommends doing the following: 1) As an everyday practice -when you close out of HRMS, always click on Sign Off - don't just click on the red "X" to close your browser. 2) Clean your cache and cookies - then close your browser and sign back into HRMS and/or 3) If you set up and use favorites, and you run a job or navigate to a screen and get an error, you may have corrupted your favorite navigation. Re-navigate from the main menu to that screen/report and re-save your favorite.
3) If your employees are submitting Hourly Reporting forms, please make sure that you have the newest version from our website. The version with the formulas, can still be used by employees that write their times on their sheets. Completing the sheets online, however, is highly recommended! When completing the forms online, and entering in and out times, remember to leave a space between the time and the AM or PM in the box. Without the space, the time will not calculate correctly. DO NOT use old versions of the Hourly Reporting forms with any type of shading of boxes. These forms do not archive clearly.
4) If you have any employees that have requested an employee/spouse/dependent tuition waiver for graduate credit, you will see an Earnings Code of H85 -Taxable Tuition Waiver with a dollar amount for that individual appearing on your Payroll Registers. (Undergraduate Tuition waivers are NOT taxable) The amount that you see will NOT be deducted from your department budgets, it is only the amount that will be taxed to the employee. However, the employee's funding source will be charged the employer's share of the FICA on that dollar amount. H85-Taxable Tuition Waiver amounts are taxed over six pay periods, starting the month following the beginning of the semester.
5) Remember that new employees must complete their I-9 form at an E-Verify Site, prior to starting work. Please remind anyone in your departments that hire employees, of this requirement. When sending new employees to Payroll to complete their I-9 form, please print out an I-9 form from the Payroll website for them, show them the list of identification on the back of the form that they will need to bring with them, write in the anticipated start on the form or tell the employee when they will be starting work - their start date is very important, since it is entered into the E-Verify system. When preparing the Job Data Hire, the start date should be the date they actually started, which should not be earlier than the date on the green sheet.
6) The March Payroll calendar on the website was revised this week, so if you printed a copy prior to this week, please print another one.
Non-Acceptance of Checks Drawn on Canadian Banks
January 29, 2009
Finance Contacts:
Effective immediately, departments should discontinue accepting checks that are drawn on a Canadian bank.
American banks are subject to very specific rules covering the timely process of checks within the banking system. Checks drawn on Canadian banks are not subject to these time frames. This means the check may be returned to you. Since there is no time limit as to when the check may be returned, it is very difficult for you as the depositor to know whether or not you may experience difficulty with the clearing process of the Canadian item.
Canadian checks may be returned for weeks, months, and possibly years later. It is not safe to assume the deposited item is collected simply because time has passed.
Possible alternative options may include:
Request that the funds be wire transferred to UND
Request that the Canadian bank pay UND with a foreign draft drawn on a U.S bank
If these options do not work for your department, there may be an option of processing the check through a special collection process for Canadian checks, but this is an expensive alternative. A minimum fee of $70 will be assessed per check.
Approval for any other exceptions may be requested in writing to Lisa Heher, Assistant Controller, at lisaheher@mail.und.nodak.edu.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Lisa Heher, Student Account Services, at 7-3912 or by email at lisaheher@mail.und.nodak.edu.
1) Clarification on the Position Funding Form: The Position Funding form is primarily used to change funding sources for salaried and contract employees. Hourly employees are generally paid according to the funding sources listed on their Hourly Reporting form or in Kronos. The only time that hourly employees would be paid according to a Position Funding form is if there was not an Account Code listed on their Hourly Reporting form or in Kronos. A Position Funding Form does NOT change the funding sources in Kronos.
2) There was an error in the automatic dating formula on the new Hourly Reporting Form. There was an error that when a beginning pay date of January 1, 2009 was entered, the form said that January 1 was on Wednesday- which was not correct. The form has been corrected and the new form is on the Payroll Website.
3) Please replace the two FMLA Posters (Your Rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act and Notice Military Family Leave) with the Updated FMLA Poster on your bulletin boards.
4) The Grants and Contracts Office requested that department HRMS users be granted access to Time and Effort Reporting. This access was granted by security last week. You will find this new access under ND HE Applications. David Schmidt, Grants and Contracts, has stated that instructions and training for this feature will be coming at a later date. Any questions should be addressed to David Schmidt.
1) Effective January 1, 2009, Position Funding forms CAN now have an effective date in the middle of a pay period. Funding will be automatically prorated over the funding source according to the date that is used on the Position Funding Form.
2) Revised Hourly Reporting form with formulas is on the website under Forms (Dated 1/12/09)http://www.und.edu/dept/payroll/html/forms.htm#general. Some formulas have been corrected, address for Payroll added, earnings codes for comp time added, etc. Please encourage your employees to complete their time online with this form, instead of completing a form by hand.
3) A new instruction sheet and example of a completed Hourly Reporting Form is also on the web. See the link listed below the form on our website. This is an excellent instruction sheet to provide to new hourly employees that will need to complete an Hourly Reporting Form.
4) New GTA's, GSA's and GRA's (those who have not worked for UND within the current or previous calendar year) are required to complete their I-9 in the Payroll Office. Please make sure that these employees have appropriate identification to complete the I-9 when they go to Payroll. They will then be instructed by the Payroll Office to bring their Green sheet with start date to the Graduate School. The Graduate School will then use that start date on the Job Data Hire form it forwards to Payroll.
5) Effective January 1, 2009: Since GTA's, GSA's and GRA's are students and not benefitted employees, the health insurance paid by the departments for these students is taxable compensation to the student. Paychecks may reflect a small increase in federal and state withholding due to this taxable compensation.
6) Remember that all new employees (those who have not worked for UND within the current or previous calendar year) must complete and verify their identity on an I-9 form, prior to starting work. Prior to starting work - all new employees should be referred to an E-Verify Site to complete their I-9 and to pick up a new Employee packet. Larger departments have E-verify sites within their Human Resources office and may handle the process differently, however, new employees from smaller departments should be referred to the Payroll Office.
7) W-2's will be mailed to employees' home address (or a Mailing address they have provided to Payroll), the last week of January. W-2's will not be available any earlier.
Money Courier Service
December 11, 2008
Finance Contacts:
In reference to the recommended changes to the money courier services, the December 19, 2008 date of service change has been placed on hold until a complete review of the comments, questions and concerns have been evaluated. You will be advised of any changes to services and dates after the completion of the review. Until then, the courier service will continue providing services as they presently are.
If you were not at the informational meeting held in November, please contact Duane Czapiewski with your comments, questions, concerns, or if you were at the meeting but still have concerns or questions, feel free to contact me as well.
Reports with "error" status
December 2, 2008
Finance Contacts:
We have noticed there are several reports returning a status of "Error" on the process monitor. One of the issues we noticed is that some users are running general ledger reports with the commitment control ledger groups and the commitment control reports with the general ledger ledger groups. Below is a summary of what ledger groups to use with what reports.
General Ledger Reports (Trial Balance, Ledger Activity,etc.)
ACTUALS
Commitment Control Reports (Budget Status, Budget Transaction Detail, etc.)
Revenue Ledger Groups
CASHR
REVENUE
PROJREV
GRNTREV
Expenditure Ledger groups
CASH
CSHDTL
FUND
FNDDTL
PROJECT
PRJDTL
GRANT
GNTDTL
GNTTRN
E-Verify Reminders
December 1, 2008
Department Heads:
1) Unless your department is an E-Verify site, you should not have or distribute New Employee packets.
2) All New Employees must be sent to Payroll (or your departmental E-Verify site) PRIOR to first date of employment. New employees will be given a new employee packet, when they have successfully provided the necessary identification documentation.
3) Departments should give new employees a blank copy of the I-9 printed from the Payroll website, to notify them of the identification documents that they may choose from to provide to us. Remember that it is illegal to instruct the new employee as to what identification documents that they need to bring, other than to show them the back of the I-9 form.
4) Please write in PENCIL the anticipated date of employment on the blank I-9 form (in the date of employment blank in the Certification paragraph in the middle of the form) that you give the new employee to take to Payroll (or your E-verify site).
5) No hours may be worked or reported on an Hourly Reporting form prior to the date the I-9 was successfully completed.
Please review the course fees for your department and notify Heidi Smart in Student Account Services by Thursday, December 4th if you have any corrections. Items needing correction are missing course fees, course fees listed that should not be, inaccurate descriptions, etc.
Retro Distributions
November 5, 2008
Finance Contacts:
Effective immediately you may now start submitting retro distribution requests to Trish Chyle in the Payroll department. The approval process will remain the same, so please obtain all appropriate approvals before submitting. As always the retro distribution form will be sent to the Grants and Contracts office if there is a grant/project involved. The forms needed are also available on the Payroll website under forms.
Please call Trish in payroll at 777-6973 with any questions. Thanks.
Ordering Trademarked Items
October 20, 2008
Department Head and Finance Contacts:
Trademarked items can only be purchased using a Purchase Requisition or the University Purchasing Card. Vouchers are not an approved method for purchasing.
To order a trademarked item, go to the forms section of the Purchasing Department website and click on Trademarks Use Request Form. Fill out this form and send it to the Purchasing office for approval. The completed form can be faxed to 7-2125, sent via intercampus mail to stop 8381, or emailed to sarasatter@mail.und.edu.
Once you receive approval, you may immediately place the order using your Purchasing Card. You are required to attach the approved Trademarks Use Request Form along with the receipt to the Purchasing Card Record Form at the end of each month
If you choose to order using a Purchase Order, you must submit the approved Trademarks Use Request Form and a Purchase Requisition to the Purchasing Department. There is a specific Purchase Requisition for logo/trademarked items. Do not place the order until the Purchase Order has been created.
Please contact the Purchasing Office with any questions. Thank you.
Changes to Moving Expense Reimbursement Policy
October 6, 2008
Finance Contacts:
There have been changes made to the Moving Expense Reimbursement Policy:
Effective October 3, 2008
Incoming Faculty/Staff Moving Expenses:
The weight limit for Moving Personal Goods and Furnishings has been eliminated as long as an original invoice/paid receipt is submitted. The move still needs to be preauthorized as per policy.
Permanent Employees:
The reimbursement limit for permanent employees transferred within the system is still $5,000 with a weight limit not to exceed 11,000lbs.
Updated Grants Roles
August 5, 2008
Finance Contacts:
The Grant Role for Departmental users has been expanded and updated. We have tried to make the role view-only and to include all of the screens other than those for update capability.
If you have any questions, please contact Grants & Contracts Administration at 7-4151.
David O. Schmidt, Manager
Grants & Contracts Administration
Email #080508-1
The New Position Request form has been revised. It is now called "Position Request/Change" form. It can now be used, not only for requesting a new position number, but also making changes to existing position numbers. (Most of the time these changes will be on vacant positions.)
If you have any questions, please contact Joy Johnson or Cheryl Widman in the Office of Human Resources at 777-4361 or email joyjohnson@mail.und.edu or cherylwidman@mail.und.edu
Thank you.
Cheryl Widman
Human Resources
Cheryl Widman, Office Manager
University of North Dakota
Office of Human Resources
Twamley Hall Room 313
264 Centennial Drive Stop 8010
Grand Forks, ND 58202
Voice: 701-777-4370
Fax: 701-777-4857
cherylwidman@mail.und.nodak.edu
New Account Codes for FY09
July 7, 2008
Finance & Academic Contacts:
The following account codes are effective for FY 2009 business:
478007 - Gifts from Related Foundations
This account code is to be used when depositing or crediting monies received as gifts from related foundations, other than gifts for capital projects (construction/renovation). Current UND related foundations are the UND Foundation and Alumni Association, UND Aerospace Foundation, UND Research Foundation, Ralph Englestad Arena, UND Law School Foundation, EERC Foundation, The Fellows, Center for Innovation Foundation.
478015 - Capital Gifts from Related Foundations
This account code is to be used when depositing or crediting monies received for capital gifts (construction/renovation) from related foundations. Current UND related foundations are the UND Foundation and Alumni Association, UND Aerospace Foundation, UND Research Foundation, Ralph Englestad Arena, UND Law School Foundation, EERC Foundation, The Fellows, Center for Innovation Foundation.
535070 - Promotional Supply Licensed
This account code is to be used for the purchase of any materials using any UND licensed logo/trademark. In addition, these purchases must receive UND Purchasing approval. Examples are Athletic supplies with logo/trademark, name tags with logo/trademark, uniforms with logo/trademark, etc.
535060 - Promotional Supply Un-Licensed
This account code is to be used for the purchase of un-licensed materials for use in promoting the University. Examples are candy given away at trade shows, name tags with no UND logo/trademark.
Please begin using these new account codes for your FY09 transactions, where applicable.
Please review the course fees for your department and notify Heidi Smart in Student Account Services by Friday, August 22nd if you have any corrections. Items needing correction are missing course fees, course fees listed that should not be, inaccurate descriptions, and etc.
Spouse/Dependent Tuition Waiver Application Deadline Extended to Friday, August 1
July 30, 2008 UND Benefited Faculty and Staff:
The deadline to submit your Fall Semester Spouse/Dependent Tuition Waiver forms has been extended until 4:30 pm Friday, August 1. Applications for Fall Semester received after this date will not be processed. This is a one-time only grace period for Fall semester. In the future, the deadline for your application will always be 30 calendar days prior to the start of classes each semester.
If you have already submitted your application, or do not have a spouse or dependent that qualifies, please ignore this reminder.
The Spouse/Dependent Tuition Waivers are available to benefited employees starting Fall Semester 2008.
The amount of the tuition waiver is 50 percent of the billed tuition per spouse and/or dependent for UND undergraduate and graduate classes excluding professional programs (Law and Medicine) and self supporting continuing education courses (correspondence and on-line studies). Deadline to submit your completed Spouse/Dependent Tuition Waiver form is 30 days prior to the start of the semester. You are encouraged to take advantage of this new benefit. Submit Tuition Waiver Applications to Human Resources (Twamley Room 313).
After reading the information, if you have any questions regarding the policy, please call the Human Resource Office (777-4361). If you have any questions regarding the actual tuition waiver, please call the Student Account Services (777-3911).
Payroll Post for 6/30/08
July 16, 2008
Department Heads & Finance Contacts:
The 07/15/08 payroll for Pay Period Ending 06/30/08 has now posted. The payroll has a budget post date in Commitment Control of 07/12/08 and a general ledger Journal Date of 06/30/08.
Originally, the 7/15/08 payroll posted to FY09 funds. A reversal was run to remove the payroll charges from FY09 and charge them back FY08. However, the health insurance premium is paid in advance and requires to be charged against FY09 funds. After the initial reversal was run to move the payroll charges back to FY08, another transaction was generated to charge the Health insurance premium back to your FY09 funds.
The final health premium charge has a budget post date in Commitment Control of 7/14/08 and a general ledger Journal Date of 7/15/08.
When reconciling your General Ledger to your Gross & Fringe reports, please remember that the Gross & Fringe reports combine the Health, Life and EAP premiums.
End of Fiscal Year and Start of New Fiscal Year
July 9, 2008
Finance Contacts:
End of FY08: The July 15th payroll (PPE 6/30/08) is the final payroll for FY08. If you still have not turned in Hourly reporting forms, Salary Leave forms or Add'l Pays for PPE 6/30/08, please do so immediately. Any paperwork received in the Payroll Office after noon tomorrow (Thursday, July 10), will be paid on July 31 and posted to FY09.
Start of FY09: The Budget file rolled over into the Department budget table the middle of June. Which means that, effective with the July 31st (PPE 7/15/08), all funding sources in the Payroll Department Budget table have been replaced with the funding sources your department submitted with its budget. If the funding in the budget is not the same as how they should actually be paid as of July 1, please submit Position Funding forms to correct the funding - no later than July 17. The Budget Office has sent you a file to review funding and salary amounts.
Pay Registers and HE Actuals: We continue to have errors from departments that are not checking their Payroll Registers and/or HE Actuals. It takes a fraction of the time for you to review these reports and correct errors prior to Payroll Confirm and posting, then to do retros, collections and off-cycle checks. Retros are not to be used as standard business practice, they should only be used rarely and as a last resort. Failure to review your HE Actuals is not an acceptable excuse to request a retro. You are notified through this listserve when these reports are ready to run - please run and review them. Report errors immediately - it saves you, Budget staff and Payroll staff a tremendous amount of time.
Reminder: IMPORTANT PeopleSoft Finance Tips
July 8, 2008
Finance Contacts:
It appears that we continue to have problems with running reports in PeopleSoft. Many users are running reports incorrectly and consequently causing a slow system response time STATEWIDE.
We are monitoring users who repeatedly run reports wide open, run reports using the same run control without waiting for the first report to complete, and etc. Presently, individuals are receiving notifications from the ConnectND Administrators when a problem arises. The CND Administrators are also informing Campus Advisory Council members for follow-up (Peggy Lucke). We will be contacting you as well to try to resolve this issue. If this continues to be a problem, your access to the Finance module may be in jeopardy.
Please take note of these tips; some were originally distributed to you via listserv on June 4th:
Please be patient and wait for your report "Run Status" to indicate "Success" in the Process Monitor before running the next report using the same run control ID.
We noticed many users are running one or more reports using the same run control. The way the process monitor works is that it will process the report with the most recent run control setup, and the subsequent reports are manually canceled by the CND Project staff. If the jobs were allowed to process, not only would it slow the system across the state but the reports would return the same information. If you are running the same report multiple times because the system is slow, you are actually contributing to the slow response time of the system. If you wish to use the same run control for different values, you still need the first one to process to "Success" before running the next one.
Blocked Status:
Some reports are sitting in your Process Monitor with a Run Status of "Blocked." Your report will run but is presently blocked. If you wait a few minutes, or sometimes a little longer, your report will post with a Run Status of "Success." Please be patient. Do not run your report again until the first report is generated.
A new Tip Sheet has been written identifying the run statuses for reports and what you will need to do to retrieve your report correctly. Please visit the Connect'U'ND website for the latest Tip Sheets: http://www.und.edu/cnd/HTML/Financetipsheets.htm
Report Criteria - "All Values:"
Please make sure you do not check the "all values" box when you are running a report for a SPECIFIC chartfield (Fund, Department, Project, Program or Account). We have discovered that when you run a report for a specific chartfield and select the all values button, it overrides the "value from" and "value to" fields.
In addition, running a report for "all values" within a chartfield takes considerable time and resources within the system. More than likely, departmental staff will only need a report for all values on the Account chartfield for a specific fund, specific department, etc.
Establishing Run Control IDs Do not include spaces when setting up a new Run Control ID. Using spaces causes the system to run the report for all parameters within the NDUS.
Updated Tip Sheets:
More Tips Sheets have been updated for the upgrade to PeopleSoft 9.0. New Tips Sheets have also been added to assist you in understanding your Finance module.
Thank you!
Finance & Operations
Email #070808-1
Workers' Compensation Premiums
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Finance Contacts:
Effective with the July 31, 2008 paycheck (PPE 7/15/08), ND Workers' Compensation will again be charged for all employees working in the state of ND. The amount charged is dependent on the Job Code and salary of the individual.
Since there continues to be a surplus in our ND Workers' Compensation fund, we will be charging a rate equal to approximately 10% of the current rate. The surplus will be used to fund the remaining 90% of the cost for FY09.
Departments requiring out-of-state Workers' Compensation coverage will be charged the full cost of that coverage. Out-of-state Workers' Compensation coverage is required when an employee works out of the state of North Dakota for a period exceeding 30 consecutive days. After the 30 days, these employees would not be covered by ND Workers' Compensation, so it is very important that you request the out-of-state coverage for them. Contact the Safety and Environmental Health Office to ask questions and request out-of-state coverage.
Purchasing Trademarked Items
July 2, 2008
Finance Contacts:
To order a trademarked item, go to http://www.und.nodak.edu/dept/purchase/html/forms.html and click on "Trademarks Use Request Form." Fill out this form and send it to the Purchasing Department. This completed form can be faxed to 7-2125, sent via intercampus mail to Stop 8381, or emailed to sarasatter@mail.und.edu. Once you receive approval, submit a Purchase Requisition (there is a specific one for logo/trademarked items), or use your University Purchasing Card to place the order. You do not need to have your design number in order to submit your Purchase Requisition. Once your vendor has submitted your artwork for approval, a Purchase Order will be created for you.
Trademarks Use Request Forms are returned immediately if approved. However, if your vendor is unlicensed, there will be a substantial delay. Artwork approval takes only as long as your vendor requires to design and upload your artwork. Purchase Requisition turnaround time is the same as for purchase of non-trademarked items. Please attach the approved Trademark Use Request Form to your monthly Purchasing Card Record Form, if using your Purchasing Card.
Printed items do not need to go through the logo approval process. All printed items must comply with the style and standards guide available on University Relations' webpage. All printing jobs done off campus need to be routed through the Purchasing Department for competitive pricing.
Please contact the Purchasing Department (7-2126) with any questions.
Sara Satter
Licensing Coordinator
Purchasing Office
Finance Contacts Listserv Updated
June 23, 2008
Finance Contacts:
As mentioned in an email to you on May 23, 2008 (Email #052308-1), changes were going to be made to the Finance Contacts listserv. It's been a month now and I believe we have those changes completed. We've only encountered a couple of email address problems and those should be resolved.
Anyone with access to the Finance module has been added to the Finance Contacts listserv. You won't need to forward emails from the Finance Contacts listserv on to your finance users.
Thank you again for all your help in communicating our announcements to your contacts!
June 13th Pay Day Reminders
June 13, 2008
Finance Contacts:
This is the first pay period of the summer process, so there are a few issues that you need to be aware of, to answer your employee questions:
Contract Pay Employees: If you have a contract employee (not paid over 12 months) and they are outside of their contract, they will not receive a direct deposit pay stub, if their net check is zero. So benefits will be paid for those individuals, but since there is no net pay, the system does not generate a stub. If these contract pay individuals are receiving an additional pay for summer school, special projects, etc, they will receive a separate direct deposit stub for the net of the additional pay. If you have employees that were signed up for payment over 12 months, they will receive a direct deposit stub for the "earned not paid" wages and a separate stub for the additional pay wages.
Additional Pays: Effective June 1, 2008, all employees that receive additional compensation will receive that compensation as a separate deposit and will receive a separate direct deposit stub for those wages. This is necessary to assure that funds that pay additional wages do not get charged for the basic benefits - only taxes and retirement (if applicable). This method will allow all additional payments to be treated the same, regardless of employee type, or when the payment is made. Programmers are still working on a funding distribution process, that would allow us to pay regular wages and additional compensation in one deposit, but it has not become a reality yet.
Student Employees: This is the first pay period of the summer session. Be advised: If an undergrad student is taking less than 6 credits, FICA will be deducted from their check and departments will be charged the employer portion of FICA and Unemployment. If a graduate student is taking less than 5 credits, FICA will be deducted from their check and departments will be charged the employer portion of FICA and unemployment. A special process is run each pay day, to determine how many credits each student employee is enrolled in at the time and to determine their FICA and Unemployment status.
Actuals Distribution Problem
June 11, 2008
Finance Contacts:
There was a problem with a new distribution process that HECN used on the UNN (Hourly) paygroup this pay period. It distributed the taxes to all funding sources in the department budget table, instead of charging to the funds, where they were actually paid. HECN is looking at a fix - please do not send in corrections for these people at this time. We will let you know when we have a resolution to the problem.
No Paperwork necessary for Minimum Wage Increase
June 10, 2008
Finance Contacts:
Effective July 16, 2008, the minimum wage will increase from $5.85 to $6.55 per hour. HECN has developed an automated process that will select all employees that are below the new minimum wage and will automatically increase their hourly rate to $6.55 per hour with an effective row of 7/16/2008. This automated process will be run on approximately July 29, 2008. Departments will not have to do any paperwork for the minimum wage increase this year.
$5000 Purchasing Threshold
June 10, 2008
Department Head and Finance Contacts:
Please forward this to all individuals within your department that are authorized to make purchases and approve purchases.
The Purchasing Department is required to be involved in any purchase greater than $5,000. This pertains to the entire cost of purchasing the item(s) including freight. Orders can not be artificially divided to fall under the $5,000 threshold.
Printing is the exception to this requirement. The Purchasing Department must be involved in all printing that is produced off-campus regardless of the cost.
Contact the Purchasing Department once you have identified your item(s) and determined the approximate cost of the purchase. The Purchasing Department is required to submit all requests to the vendors if the purchase is expected to be over $5,000.
Student Account Services Temporary Location
May 15, 2008
Department Head, Finance & Academic Contacts:
Student Account Services would like to remind you that we are temporarily located in Room 8 (south of the billiard tables) in the lower level of Memorial Union and do have a cashier location in the Parking Office. The current remodel of our location in Twamley Hall is going well and we hope to be back there in mid-July. Thank you for your patience during our remodel. We are sorry if it has caused you any inconvenience.
Matt Lukach
Student Account Relations Manager
UND Student Account Services
Limited Services Available at Student Account Services
June 10, 2008
Academic & Finance Contacts:
This message is for any students that you may have contact with in your departments.
UND Student Account Services will have limited services available from June 13, 2008 to June 19, 2008 due to the upgrade of the PeopleSoft CampusConnection system. We expect to resume all services on June 19, 2008.
*It is very important that you take care of any time sensitive payments/deposits to your account before the upgrade.
The following is a list of services that will be affected:
Refund Processing - Refunds to students will not be processed until the system upgrade is complete.
Payment Processing - CASH or Check payments may be dropped off at Student Account Services, but will not be able to be posted to your Campus Connection account until the system upgrade is complete.
Online Payment - The ability to pay online through Campus Connection will be unavailable to STUDENTS and AUTHORIZED USERS until the system upgrade is complete.
Aviation Deposits and all other Prepayments - CASH or CHECKS for aviation or other prepayments may be dropped off at Student Account Services, but will not be able to be posted to your Campus Connection account until the system upgrade is complete. In addition, the ability to make aviation deposits or other prepayments online through Campus Connection will be unavailable to STUDENTS and AUTHORIZED USERS until the system upgrade is complete.
Thank you for your patience during the upgrade. For more information on the PeopleSoft CampusConnection upgrade please visit the ConnectND website at http://connectnd.ndus.edu/campus_solutions/.
PeopleSoft Finance Tip Sheets
June 5, 2008
Finance Contacts:
The Tip Sheets for running reports in the Finance module have been posted to the Connect'U'ND website (http://www.und.edu/cnd/HTML/Financetipsheets.htm). These Tip Sheets are still in draft and may yet have some minor changes.
The Tip Sheets covering Finance Inquiries are still in the process of being updated with the 9.0 upgrade changes. Please stay tuned for those Tip Sheets.
Here is a listing of all updated Tip Sheets:
General Tip Sheets
Utilizing the "Download to Excel" Feature in PeopleSoft
Clear Cache & Cookies
Setting Favorites
Inquiry Tip Sheets
Finance Inquiry Navigations
Budgets Overview Inquiry
Report Tip Sheets
Establishing a Run Control ID
Running Reports in PeopleSoft
Getting a Report in Excel
Running a Budget Status Report
Running a Budget Transaction Detail Report
Running a General Ledger Activity Report
General Ledger Summary Report
Running a Trial Balance Report
UND Foundation FYE Procedures
June 5, 2008
Finance Contacts:
The UND Foundation requested that the following information be distributed to you via the UND Finance Contacts listserv. Please note their deadlines for FY08 processes.
______
We are asking for your cooperation in assisting the UND Foundation with the completion of accurate financial statements in a timely manner. To accomplish this, we must charge all materials and services, received on or by June 30, 2008 to fiscal year 2008 funds. To accomplish this all departments are responsible to have the following documentation in by the appropriate dates:
Accounts Payable: All invoices for materials and services received on or before June 30, 2008, must be submitted to the UND Foundation, (Strinden Center), Stop 8157 or 3100 University Avenue, by Monday, July 7, 2008. Transactions received after Monday, July 7th will be processed and charged to FY 2009.
Accounts Receivable: Must be received in the UND Foundation Office, (Strinden Center), Stop 8157 or 3100 University Avenue, by 10:00 am on Monday, June 30th.
Questions/Comments - Please Contact:
Accounts Payable (A/P): Jeff Fix (7-3445) or
Marla Anderson (7-2926)
Accounts Receivable (A/R): Wendy Honrath (7-2813) Gift Deposits
Marla Anderson (7-2926) Misc. Deposits
Early submission of any payments would be greatly appreciated.
Important PeopleSoft Finance Reminders
June 5, 2008
Finance Contacts:
We just wanted to send out a couple reminders about some of the changes in the Finance upgrade. Some of these items did not change from 8.4 to 9.0 but it seems a reminder is necessary. In addition, we have a couple new tips for you in running your reports!
Please be patient and wait for your report "Run Status" to indicate "Success" in the Process Monitor before running the next report using the same run control ID.
We noticed many users are running one or more reports using the same run control. The way the process monitor works is that it will process the report with the most recent run control setup, and the subsequent reports are manually canceled by the CND Project staff. If the jobs were allowed to process, not only would it slow the system but the reports would return the same information. If you are running the same report multiple times because the system is slow, you are actually contributing to the slow response time of the system. If you wish to use the same run control for different values, you still need the first one to process to "Success" before running the next one.
The Department chartfield should ONLY be included in the reports that you run on appropriated funds. Some of you have questioned why you are getting partial information on some of your reports. What I've noticed is that many users are requesting reports on local funds but are including the Department chartfield on the report parameters screen. Even though you are not identifying a department in the "Value From" and "Value To" boxes, the report is still reading the department because you still have the "Include CF" box checked for the department.
Report Parameters Aren't Available:
With the upgrade, some input screens have "reset." Please click the "Refresh" button on the Oracle (formerly PeopleSoft) Finance web page, not the Internet Explorer refresh button, but the one within PeopleSoft. The Chartfield Selection section should show more options after clicking Refresh.
Favorites:
Some of you have reported problems with your Favorites. Unfortunately, at this time, I don't really have an answer for you. We're still working on this one, but as you can still access the reports through the menu, this issue has not been a priority.
Blocked Status:
Some reports are sitting in your Process Monitor with a Run Status of "Blocked." Your report will run but is presently blocked. If you wait a few minutes, or sometimes a little longer, your report will come back with a Run Status of "Success." Please be patient.
New Tip:
Please make sure you do not check the "all values" box when you are running a report for a specific chartfield (Fund, Department, Project, Program, or Account). We have discovered that when you run a report and select the all values button, it overrides the "value from" and "value to" fields.
Updated Tip Sheets:
COMING SOON!! Most of the Tip Sheets for the reports have been revised and are currently being reviewed. We hope to get these on the Connect'U'ND website very soon!
Purchasing Card Transactions
June 3, 2008
Finance Contacts:
When balancing your departmental funds, you may notice that some of your Purchasing Card transactions have not been posted. The last upload of charges we were able to process was for the week of April 22nd - 27th. Due to the recent upgrade of the Finance Module, we have not been able to upload any of your Purchasing Card charges after that date.
We will send out another update when we get them posted. If you have any questions, please contact Accounting Services, 7-2771.
Thank you for your patience.
Allison Peyton, Accounting Services
Please note: The cutoff time for department deposits was changed to 1:00pm on Monday, June 30th rather than the previously stated 2:00pm in the Admin Support Staff memo distributed yesterday.
Changes to Finance Contacts Listserv
May 23, 2008
Finance Contacts:
We've decided to make a change to the functions of the Finance Contacts listserv. Originally, when we first went live with PeopleSoft, leaving Legacy far behind, we needed your help in assisting campus personnel with issues that arose from PeopleSoft. We looked to you to be the "star" user in your department - the person your co-workers turned to when they needed help. We also requested that you be the communication point for distributing important email messages to your co-workers.
Now that we've been in PeopleSoft for a while, many of your co-workers know who you are and know they can count on you to help them with any issues that may arise or with any questions they may have.
However, recently, we have discovered that some of our communications are not getting to all of the users that need them.
We thought it might be a good time to change the functionality of the Finance Contacts listserv. Coming soon - anyone with access to the Finance module will be added to the Finance Contacts listserv. I'll let you know once we've gotten everyone added. Now, we still need you to play a vital role in being that contact person for your department! You are a tremendous help and we appreciate your services. BUT...you won't have to forward the emails any more! I know some of you are very happy about that.
We'll see how this new process goes and make any other changes that we need to along the way.
Again...thank you so much for all your help in assisting your co-workers with the questions they've had over the past couple of years.
Correction to the UND Pride Card FAQ
May 20, 2008
Finance & Academic Contacts:
All students were recently sent a copy of the UND Pride Card FAQ's to their U-Mail account. Shortly after the FAQ document was distributed, an error was discovered. The incorrect information that was stated indicated: "Higher One does not charge students a fee to use non-Higher One ATMs. The correct answer should have indicated that Higher One does charge a $2.00 fee for non-Higher One ATM usage.
We strongly recommend that if you choose the OneAccount, that you only use your UND Pride Card for withdrawals at one of our three ATM locations on campus. (Wilkerson Hall, Memorial Union, and the southwest tower of the UND Parking Ramp)
Student Account Services will be sending out a follow-up email noting the correction. In addition to correcting the error, there are additional questions/responses in the FAQ's as a result of questions raised by students.
Again, we apologize for the incorrect information.
Effective June 1, 2008, Please discontinue the use of white-out on all forms. Instead, cross out incorrect amounts and/or chartfields and write the correct amounts and/or chartfields and initial each change.
If you have any questions, please contact Accounting Services @ 777-4131.
Welcome to Financials 9.0
May 15, 2008
Finance Contacts:
Today's the day! The Financials 9.0 environment is now open for business.
A few things to remember:
1. Your 9.0 userID and password should be the same as is currently in 8.4.
2. A number of security changes were made to "roles" and those changes were tested over the last month. However, there may still be some menu items that you need to accomplish your work. If you feel you are missing something, please contact Jackie Bergsnev via email to jackiebergsnev@mail.und.nodak.edu or by phone at 701-777-2243.
3. This upgrade of the Financials application also included an upgrade to the database it runs on. As a result, system performance may be affected. Please do not file any Remedy Tickets related to slow system performance until Monday if the problem persists.
ConnectND Project Personnel
North Dakota University System
Finance Module Login Problems
May 15, 2008 Finance Contacts:
I've received a number of calls and emails regarding an error message when you try to log in to the Finance module. The error reads, "Site name is not valid. Check your url syntax and try again."
More than likely, you are receiving this message because you are attempting to log-in to Finance from the old login page which you had saved in your Internet Explorer Favorites. The URL for PeopleSoft Financials has been updated as a result of the upgrade.
You can find the new web address on the Connect'U'ND website: http://www.und.edu/cnd/
Click "Log in to PeopleSoft" from the lower left menu.
Click the "Finance" link.
Log-in with your User ID and Password.
Financials 9.0 upgrade status
May 13, 2008
Finance Contacts:
We have an update on the status of the PS Finance 9.0 Upgrade. The following message is from the Project:
We just got out of a meeting with ITD's Data Center. They confirm that the upgrade is proceeding, but at a very slow pace. The slow pace is mechanical, not human. Their staff has worked all night the past four nights to make sure they don't miss a single moment in which to kick off the next step.
What does this mean to end users? The Financials system most likely will not be open again tomorrow; the earliest possible time would be the middle of tomorrow afternoon, but that can't be guaranteed. We're aware of the payroll voucher issues and will make that a priority in the system Thursday.
We don't have an understanding as to why this is taking so much longer than the test moves, but will examine that after we get through this and there has been a chance to regroup. We'll need everyone on the CND teams rested in order to problem solve and learn from this. And, we'll transfer that learning to the Student team for that upgrade.
With regrets,
Teri
Teri J Thorsen, SPHR
Director, HRMS; Financial Systems Interim Dir.
North Dakota University System
Email #051308-3
Fiscal Year End Procedures Workshop
May 12, 2008
Finance Contacts:
The Fiscal Year End Procedures workshop is this Thursday, May 15th at 9:00am-11:00am in the Memorial Union Lecture Bowl. Please make plans to attend this session. You can register through U2 at http://dce.und.edu/U2/index.php
The Fiscal Year End Procedures workshop is hosted by a number of core offices on campus. Representatives from Grants & Contracts, Payroll, Purchasing, Student Account Services and Accounting Services will be presenting. The presenters will review due dates for fiscal year 2008 transactions as well as identify changes in the upcoming fiscal year.
Shutdown of Finance 8.4
May 9, 2008
Finance Contacts:
You probably don't need a reminder, but I know its a busy time of the academic year, so, just in case....
Financials 8.4 was shut down yesterday at 5:00 p.m. Financials 9.0 will come online sometime Tuesday, May 13th. We'll give you an update Monday with what we know to that point. You'll be notified via email on Tuesday when the system is available.
A few things to remember when 9.0 comes up:
1. Your 9.0 userID and password should be the same as is currently in 8.4.
2. A number of security changes were made to "roles" and those changes were tested over the last month. However, there may still be some menu items that you need to accomplish your work. If you feel you are missing something, please contact Jackie Bergsnev via email to jackiebergsnev@mail.und.nodak.edu or by phone at 701-777-2243.
3. This upgrade of the Financials application also included an upgrade to the database it runs on. As a result, system performance may be affected. Please do not file any Remedy Tickets related to slow system performance until Thursday if the problem persists.
ConnectND Project Personnel
North Dakota University System
FYE Procedures Workshop
May 6, 2008
Finance Contacts:
The Fiscal Year End Procedures workshop is next Thursday, May 15th at 9:00am-11:00am in the Memorial Union Lecture Bowl. Please make plans to attend this session. You can register through U2 at http://dce.und.edu/U2/index.php
The Fiscal Year End Procedures workshop is hosted by a number of core offices on campus. Representatives from Grants & Contracts, Payroll, Purchasing, Student Account Services and Accounting Services will be presenting. The presenters will review due dates for fiscal year 2008 transactions as well as identify changes for the upcoming fiscal year.
PS Finance Upgrade Reminder
April 30, 2008
Department Head and Finance Contacts:
Reminder: The PeopleSoft Finance module will be upgraded from 8.4 to 9.0 next week. The Finance module will be unavailable beginning Thursday, May 8th at 5:00pm and ending on Tuesday, May 13th at 7:00am. You will not be able to sign in to the Finance module during this time. On Tuesday, the upgrade will be complete and users will be able to sign-in to the new version.
A presentation identifying some of the changes in the upgrade was given on Tuesday, April 29th. The presentation is still available online here.
The Journal Entry form and the Budget form will be updated by May 12th to reflect the changes in the upgrade.
The Journal Entry will no longer require an offsetting entry to cash.
The Budget Journal will no longer require a budget at the "parent" account level.
The Tip Sheets on the Connect'U'ND website (http://www.und.edu/cnd/HTML/Financetipsheets.htm) will be updated in the coming weeks to reflect the new screens and options available in the upgrade.
PeopleSoft Finance Upgrade
April 28, 2008
Finance Contacts:
Just a reminder about the "show-and-tell" session tomorrow morning, April 29th, at 9:00am-10:00am in the Memorial Union Lecture Bowl. We have some exciting changes coming in the PS Finance upgrade to 9.0 and we're ready to tell you all about them!
Come prepared to see what is new and cool in the upgrade.
See you tomorrow!
Accounting Services
Email #042808-1
Employee/Spouse/Dependent Tuition Waivers
April 28, 2008
UND Benefited Faculty and Staff:
This email is to remind you of the Employee Tuition Waiver and announce the new Spouse/Dependent Tuition Waiver that is available starting Fall of 2008. Both options provide a significant financial incentive to take advantage of the education opportunities UND offers.
Employee Tuition Waiver:
UND benefited employees have the opportunity to take three courses per calendar year, with tuition waived, and based on approval of Department head. Employees must be admitted to the University, registered for class(es) and have submitted a completed Employee Tuition Waiver form, prior to the start of the semester. Additional information is available at: http://www.humanresources.und.edu/html/Tuition Waiver.htm
Spouse/Dependent Tuition Waiver: Available to benefited employees starting Fall Semester 2008
The amount of the tuition waiver is 50 percent of the billed tuition per spouse and/or dependent for UND undergraduate and graduate classes excluding professional programs (Law and Medicine) and self supporting continuing education courses (correspondence and on-line studies). Deadline to submit your completed Spouse/Dependent Tuition Waiver form is 30 days prior to the start of the semester. You are encouraged to take advantage of this new benefit. Additional information is available at: http://www.und.edu/tuitionwaiver/.
Update Your Signature Authorization List
April 8, 2008
Finance Contacts:
Your Departmental Signature Authorization List needs to be updated.
The "Departmental Signature Authorization List" is a list of the names and signatures of individuals given authority by the department head, dean, vice president, etc to sign Accounting Services forms and Purchase Requisitions. The Departmental Signature Authorization List does not authorize department personnel to sign contracts or agreements on behalf of the University.
Accounting Services is asking ALL departments to update their authorized signers by going to the Accounting Services Forms page http://www.und.edu/dept/accounts/forms.html to download the Departmental Signatures Authorization List.
Please complete this form with all authorized signers for your department. The authorization list should include all individuals, including principal investigators for grant/contract funds, authorized to approve procurement and payment documents for your department. Again, the Departmental Signature Authorization List does not authorize department personnel to sign contracts or agreements on behalf of the University.
The updated Signature Authorization List will supersede all previous authorizations.
Please make sure that the form is signed at the bottom by the appropriate department head.
Forward the completed form to Carl in Accounting Services, Stop 8356, by Wednesday, April 23, 2008.
UND Purchasing Procedures
April 1, 2008
Department Head & Finance Contacts:
All printing and duplicating must be completed on campus by the Printing Center or Duplicating Services. Departments must check with the Printing Center or Duplicating Services to determine if they can complete the job.
If a department decides to have printing performed off campus, the Purchasing Department must issue formal quotes/bids. All printing that is performed off campus is required to go through the Purchasing Department regardless of the dollar value of the order.
Departments should submit a requisition to the Purchasing Department with a sample of the document or complete specifications. The Purchasing Department will contact the vendors (not the requesting department), for prices, delivery dates and other pertinent information.
All printing expenditures are required to be submitted on a purchase requisition, vouchers are not valid for printing or duplicating. Any printing job processed for payment on a voucher, after completion, will require justification and may be returned to the department and become the responsibility of the individual that placed the order.
Please contact the Purchasing Department (7-2681) with any questions.
Scott Schreiner
Purchasing Director
Email #040108-1
Please review the course fees for your department and notify Heidi Smart in Student Account Services by Friday, April 11th if you have any corrections. Items needing correction are missing course fees, course fees listed that should not be, inaccurate descriptions, and etc.
Revised Finance Upgrade Schedule
March 27, 2008
Finance Contacts:
The Finance Upgrade is currently at 64% task completion. Unfortunately, it is taking longer than anticipated to build environments resulting in a delay for testing. To allow enough time for the completion of the upgrade and subsequent testing, the go-live date has been pushed back by three weeks.
Shut-down of Financials 8.4 is set for Thursday May 8 at 5:00 p.m. This will mean the system will not be available on Friday, May 9 through Monday May 12. This is a longer period than originally anticipated. As the Data Center made test moves, they discovered that the sheer size of the database adds to the time required for the cut-over window. Financials 9.0 will open Tuesday, May 13.
SF Journals from February 29, 2008
March 26, 2008
Finance Contacts:
Some Student Finance Journals for business day, February 29, 2008, did not post until March rather than February.
How does this affect you?
Well, as an example, departments who received a receipt for a deposit made on February 29th, may not have been credited for the deposit in the General Ledger until March.
If you're having trouble with your monthly fund reconciliations, you may want to review the General Ledger Activity to see when your deposit was credited to the General Ledger (February or March).
Remember, the SF Journals affected were from transactions made on February 29, 2008 only.
Transactions posting on an SF Journal include Accounts Receivable, Departmental Deposits, and financial aid transactions.
Accounts Receivable/Bad Debt Journal
March 10, 2008
Finance Contacts:
The second entry for FY2008 accounts receivable allowance posted today, March 10, 2008 (Journal ID# ARALLOWFEB). The accounts receivable allowance is an estimate of your bad debt expense. To see if your fund has been affected by this Journal, sign on to PeopleSoft and complete a Journal Entry Inquiry.
>General Ledger
>>Review Journal/Ledger Data
>>>Journals
>>>>The Journal ID is ARALLOWFEB. Perform a search for your fund/dept number.
If your accounts receivable balance (124001) has increased throughout the year, the Journal will debit bad debt expense (621065) and credit accounts receivable allowance (124201). The opposite is true of a decreasing accounts receivable balance throughout the year.
At a minimum, one more entry will be posted for bad debt expense through June 30, 2008.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Sharon Berning by phone at 7-3178 or email to sharonberning@mail.und.nodak.edu.
PeopleSoft Finance Upgrade Status Report
March 3, 2008
Finance Contacts:
The PeopleSoft Finance module will be upgraded from version 8.4 to 9.0 in April 2008. The attached notes are from HECN documenting the status of that upgrade. Please email financeandoperations@mail.und.nodak.edu if you have any questions.
Process to Delete Run Control IDs
March 3, 2008
HRMS Contacts:
Do you have Run Control ID's for your batch processes that have been created that you would like to delete? Peoplesoft does not have a delivered process to delete Run Control ID's, but a request was received by a user to add this functionality to the HR system.
This note is to inform you that a process has been written that will delete a Run Control Id of the user's choice. The Run Control ID is entered on the page used by the process with a update/no update option also being available. The Run Control must not have been recently used or no deleting will be done. The new process is located at ND HE Applications> Miscellaneous> HE Delete Run Control ID's and should be available to all users.
Please give it a try if there are Run Control ID's that you would like to delete. Contact the Help Desk, if you have any questions or problems.
Improvements to your Favorite Queries
February 28, 2008
Finance Contacts:
Enhancements have been made to a few queries in PS Finance. Both NDU_AP12 and NDU_AP67 have had many improvements made to them.
NDU_AP12 - Voucher Accounting Lines by Journal ID for Accounts Payable Journals (AP)
The query has been revised to include the Vendor Name with the Vendor ID, Fund, Project, Dept ID and Account.
NDU_AP67 - AP Vouchers by Vendor and Chartfield
The query has been revised to include search parameters for vendor, fund, dept and accounting date.
We think these revisions are great! Be sure to try them out for yourself!
Travel Card Reminder
February 12, 2008
Finance Contacts:
Reminder: The UND Travel Card is to be used for UND business related travel only. Personal expenses are not to be charged on the UND Travel Card.
Need a refresher for UND Travel Card policy and procedures? Bonnie Nerby will be presenting an Employee Travel Policies and Procedures workshop on Wednesday, February 13th, at 1:00-2:30pm in the Memorial Room at the Memorial Union. Be sure to register through U2 via phone at 777-2128, by email to U2@mail.und.nodak.edu ( mailto:toU2@mail.und.nodak.edu ), or online at http://www.conted.und.edu/U2/.
Generic contracts for the procurement of consultants, guest speakers, and personal services are now available on the Purchasing website. These contracts or the vendor's agreement should be used when acquiring these services.
Please work with the Purchasing Department if a vendor requests any change to the University's generic contracts or if the vendor insists on using their agreement.
Also be aware of who in your department has the authority to sign contracts and bind the University. This authority is different than the authority to authorize payments. The individuals on campus that have signature authority are Vice Presidents or other personnel that have been delegated signature authority by a Vice President, such as the Purchasing Department. Consult your Vice President's office to confirm you have the authority to sign a contract.
Using these contracts does not preclude the need to follow the University's Purchasing Policies and Procedures when acquiring these services.
Departments would still use a purchase order or voucher to process payment for the service. Consult the Account Code Listing on the Accounting Services website for the correct payment method http://www.und.nodak.edu/cnd/docs/AccountListing110607New.xls.
Highlights:
UND Facilities (Mark Johnson 777-2236) must approve all Open Office System designs for compliance with Federal, State and Local codes.
You must obtain proposals from both Gaffaney's of Grand Forks and Norby's Work Perks for Open Office Systems. Bidding by the Purchasing Office is not required.
Bids or quotes obtained by the Purchasing Office are required for all purchases of furniture, not defined as Open Office Systems, which exceed $5,000.
Purchases under $5,000 are allowed on the UND MasterCard Purchasing Card or voucher.
Effective January 1, 2008, Student Account Services (formerly Business
Office) will no longer accept Canadian currency.
Departments accepting money should discontinue accepting Canadian
currency from students, vendors, and any other customers. Signs should
be displayed within the department notifying students and customers of
this change.
Departments accepting payment by check written from a Canadian
financial institution should inform the vendor or student to write
*Payable in US Dollars* on the check. This will ensure that the
funds will be processed at the bank in US Dollars and not in Canadian
currency.
If you have any questions regarding this change, please contact Sandi
Brelie at 777-3080 or by email at sandiebrelie@mail.und.nodak.edu
Updated Links and Forms from Student Account Services
Department Head, Finance & Academic Contacts: December 7, 2007
Did you notice that the Business Office is now Student Account Services? Our name change more appropriately reflects our goal of providing excellent customer service to our students and customers. Also, our new name is more consistent with the terminology used in PeopleSoft.
BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP!
Many departments have not yet updated their forms or their websites to reflect the new name. If your forms or websites instruct students/staff/faculty to visit the Business Office web page, they'll no longer be able to follow the link you've provided on your form. Please be sure to check your forms to make sure you have the latest links!
EXAMPLES
FORMS:
bad/old link: www.und.edu/dept/busoff/html/Forms.htm
NEW LINK: www.und.edu/dept/studentaccounts/html/Forms.htm
TUITION & FEES:
bad/old link: www.und.edu/dept/busoff/html/tuitionrates.htm
NEW LINK: www.und.edu/dept/studentaccounts/html/tuitionrates.htm
Basically, if your links contain "busoff", they're BAD LINKS! Please update!
In addition, the forms on the Student Account Services website have been updated. Please be sure to download the newest forms for your department needs (i.e. department deposit forms, etc.).
If you have any questions, please be sure to visit our new website at www.und.edu/dept/studentaccountsor email us at studentaccounts@mail.und.nodak.edu
Gross and Fringe Report Modification
December 4, 2007
The Gross and Fringe data for the period of 7/1/06 - 11/15/07 is available in HRMS. A modification that we have been waiting for has finally been made to the Gross and Fringe data. If you run a Gross and Fringe report for an Accounting Period - the data will now match the Finance information (except for any retros). Prior to this modification, if you ran a report for an Accounting Period, the report would pick up the pay period end date, rather than the actual pay date. This has been fixed and the report should now be correct.
If you see any problems when running reports, please file a remedy ticket.
Instructions on navigation and instructions to run the Gross and Fringe Report can be found at:
November 29, 2007
Review Course/Class Fees for Spring
Finance Contacts:
The link below is the course fees for the Spring 2008 semester (0830). This listing is available on the Student Account Services (formerly the Business Office) website at http://www.und.edu/dept/studentaccounts/html/employeeforms.htm under Course Fees.
Please review the course fees for your department and notify Heidi Smart in Student Account Services by Friday, December 21st if you have any corrections. Items needing correction are missing course fees, course fees listed that should not be, inaccurate descriptions, and etc.
Heidi can be reached via phone at 7-4701 or email at heidismart@mail.und.nodak.edu.
Effective January 1, 2008, all employees, including student employees, must be signed up for Direct Deposit. If one of your employees is receiving a check, they must be signed up for Direct Deposit no later than December 15, 2007. Memos went out last week to all employees who did not have direct deposit and requested them to sign up as soon as possible. Please encourage your employees that receive a hard check these next two pay periods, to sign up for Direct Deposit as soon as possible. They can direct deposit to any bank in the United States.
Exemption: If an employee states that they are unable to get either a checking and/or savings account, they must check with the University Federal Credit Union (UFCU). Only if the UFCU is unable to provide them with an account, then the UFCU will fax an exemption form to the Payroll Office and that employee will be able to continue to receive a hard check.
November 13, 2007
New Rates for UND Life Insurance and Pre-Taxing of Premiums
NEW RATES FOR UND LIFE INSURANCE: The UND Life insurance carrier, as of January 1, 2008, will be The Standard Insurance Company. The new rates for employee- and employer-paid are 30-40% less expensive than with the previous carrier. Effective December 14, 2007 pay date, the UND Life Insurance rate charged to your department will be 28 cents per benefitted employee per pay period (Current rate is 45 cents per benefitted employee per pay period). Employees will be seeing a similar reduction in their deductions for supplemental, spouse and dependent UND Life Insurance.
PRE-TAXING OF PREMIUMS: Effective January 1, 2008, all voluntary life, dental and vision insurance premiums will automatically be pre-taxed (flexed), unless the employee has opted out. Automatic pre-taxing is in our Flexcomp Plan Document and is being advertised for all state employees by the North Dakota Public Employees Retirement System office. Memos were sent out November 6, to all employees that currently do not pre-tax (flex) premiums. The memo notified them of the change and gave them the ability to opt out and not pre-tax their premiums (if they have any). Pre-taxing will save employees federal, state and Social Security tax. However, the only requirement to pre-tax, is that you are not allowed to discontinue any premiums that are being pre-taxed during the calendar year. All changes must wait until the end of a calendar year.
Effective with the November 15, 2007 pay date, no Workers' Compensation premiums will be charged to departments. Due to Risk Management discounts, Safety discounts and lower claims, the current balance in UND's fund is sufficient to pay the premium for the next year. Workers' Compensation premiums will not be charged until July 31, 2008, with the possibility of a later date, based on future claims and discounts.
November 9, 2007
Trademark Accounts
Finance Contacts:
The Account Listing on the Connect'U'ND website has been updated to reflect the following changes:
A footnote has been added to identify account codes that are exclusive to Trademarks.
# Expenditures must be processed on a Trademarks Use Request Form to Purchasing. After approval from Purchasing, the expenditure may be processed with a)Purchase Requisition b) Purchasing Card
The change affects the following accounts. Other accounts may be affected depending upon the services rendered or the items purchased.
535050 - Name Tags, Bus Cards, ID Cards
535055 - Plaques & Trophies
621355 - Promotional Fees - Liscensed
Please be sure to download the latest account listing from the Connect'U'ND website: http://www.und.edu/cnd/docs/AccountListing110607.xls
November 8, 2007
Departmental Deposits
Finance Contacts:
Effective immediately, department personnel can drop off their departmental deposits at the cashier windows during regular cashier hours, Monday - Friday, 8:15 am - 4:00 pm. Deposits made between 4:00-4:30 pm should be turned in at the Business Office reception desk, room 202.
November 2, 2007
Departing Faculty & Equipment Transfer Procedure
Department Head & Finance Contacts:
All departing faculty that wish to transfer equipment/supplies to their new institution of employment are required to follow the University's "Equipment/Supplies - Transfer/Sale Procedure".
November 1, 2007
Bad Debt Expense Journal
Finance Contacts:
The September 2007 quarterly journal entry posting to bad debt expense was completed October 31, 2007. This entry adjusts your accounts receivable allowance to the balance required based upon your accounts receivable aging balance.
If you have any questions please let Chelsea Larson know at 777-3084 or chelsealarson@mail.und.nodak.edu.
Facilities has recently updated their web page to make it more user-friendly for departments on campus. The Facilities Charges Reference Numbers can be found by selecting the "Facilities Job Billing" button on the main menu of the Facilities web page; then by choosing the Facilities Charges Reference Numbers. A few other options related to the Job Billings are also available.
October 31, 2007
Unclaimed Property
Finance Contacts:
The Accounting Services office processed transactions this past month (October) for the annual remittance of unclaimed property to the state. Items identified as unclaimed property included checks older than two years that have not been cashed by the vendor/individual that the check was made payable. If your department has issued checks that have not been cashed in two years, your funds may have been affected.
In order to facilitate this remittance to the state in PeopleSoft, Accounting Services personnel canceled the outstanding checks which increased the cash in your fund. The cash was then withdrawn (decreased) from your funds and sent to the state unclaimed property office. If your fund was one of the funds affected by this remittance, you will see the transactions posting against your fund with the following journal ids:
Canceling check (increase your funds): APCAN52734 & APCLO53506
Issue funds to Unclaimed Property (decrease your funds): UNCRO07AP
The net affect to your funds should be zero. If you notice a discrepancy, please contact Steve in the Accounting Services office at 7-2772 or stevereller@mail.und.nodak.edu.
October 25, 2007
Revised General Ledger Summary Report
Finance Contacts:
The delivered GL Summary Report (General Ledger > General Reports > General Ledger Summary) only shows account balances if there has been activity within the fiscal year. For example, an asset or liability account had a balance <>$0 as of June 30, 2007 for a particular fund. If the report was run for fiscal year 2008 and that account had no activity in fiscal year 2008, the account would not appear on the report so the information reported would not be complete for the fund.
A new report was developed that shows beginning balances <>$0, even if there was no activity in the fiscal year. The navigation is General Ledger> General Reports > HE General Ledger Summary. We encourage the users to begin using this report. When the initial run control is created for this report, the user will need to click on the yellow refresh button on the page to allow the chartfield selections to appear.
Thank you!
October 25, 2007
Updated Budget Journal Form
Finance Contacts:
Effective immediately, all Budget Journals will be processed in the Budget Office. The Budget Journal form has been updated to reflect the Stop # for the Budget Office where Budget Journals will now be submitted. Please go to the Accounting Services website to download the latest version of the form.
The Facilities job billing through September 30th has been posted in PeopleSoft. There were three billing periods that were posted this week that covered the following billing periods:
August 16-31, 2007
September 1-15, 2007
September 16-30, 2007
The Famis parameter ID's and PeopleSoft journal ID's can be found at the following link - www.facilities.und.nodak.edu ( http://www.facilities.und.nodak.edu/ ). Once you get to the webpage, click on forms on the left side, click on the Famis icon and choose Facilities charges.
If you have questions related to this information, please contact Karen at 777-2597 or Laura at 777-3006. The charges for October 1-15, 2007 should be posted in PeopleSoft early next week.
October 1, 2007
OfficeMax Solutions
Department Heads & Finance Contacts:
The Purchasing Office is pleased to offer for your use OfficeMax Solutions.
OfficeMax Solutions is a secure website for ordering office supplies and equipment online using your UND Purchasing Card.
Most prices are contract prices made available to you by the association UND Purchasing has with a national educational purchasing cooperative.
A test group of users has been using OfficeMax Solutions for office supply purchases since December and we are now rolling the program out campus wide. You may be able to find lower prices on some items but overall the test group has noticed savings in both time and money.
Some of the benefits are:On-line ordering without leaving your desk
Next day delivery
If necessary, an account card is available at the Grand Forks OfficeMax store that will access contract pricing at time of check out when using your UND Purchasingcard
Product mix includes average of 47% discount from list prices
Immediate access to a Live Online Assistance for customer service issues including product inquiries, returns, etc.
Below are comments regarding OfficeMax Solutions:
"This has been a time saver and a great service in general. We place a order and the next thing you know we have it delivered. What a great process"
"I like the online assistance, they call you back in less than a minute and you can talk to a live person"
You must be a UND Purchasing card holder to receive access to OfficeMax Solutions.
Please send the following information to the Purchasing Office if you want to be set up with an account:
Name (as it appears on purchasing card)
Department name
Complete campus delivery address
Email address
Phone number
Fax number
September 27, 2007
Facilities Billing
Finance Contacts:
Facilities has been experiencing problems with the Job Billing system. The last processing date posted in PeopleSoft was 8/24 which covered the expenses for August 1-15, 2007 and had a Journal ID of FACAUG08A. We are working with the vendor to fix the problem, but have not finalized a solution. When the problems is solved, we will process the August 16-31, 2007, September 1-15, 2007 and September 16-30, 2007 transactions as three separate journals. We are sorry for this inconvenience. If you have questions, please call Laura at 777-3006 or Karen at 777-2597.
August 20, 2007
New Query for Vouchers by Vendor
Finance Contacts:
A new query (NDU_AP67_VCHR_BY_VNDR_CF) has been created to improve the data returned from an existing query (Vouchers by Vendor - NDU_AP36_VOUCHERS_BY_VENDOR). The new query will return the same information as the AP36 as well as a description and invoice # field. As an example: The description field was added so if you ran a query for a vendor (GE Corp Payment Services, ie. Purchasing Card), the description field will indicate the vendor where the purchase was made (OfficeMax, Best Buy, Gaffaneys, etc).
In addition, the new query allows you to extract a report based upon your fund, department and/or date. The query will prompt you for a Fund Range, Dept Range and Date Range. Adding these ranges to the query will allow users to return a more fine-tuned query result specific to their needs.
The log, which is updated every Monday, is an Excel spreadsheet indicating the actual post dates for Journal Imports (Motor Pool, Mailing, Duplicating, etc.). In addition, the spreadsheet also indicates the reference string for each department that utilizes the Journal Import.
For instance, Campus Postal has a reference string that begins with "MAIL" which precedes the MOYR (month and year) for which the services are charged. If you're wondering about a charge that is coming through on your GL Activity report, you could quickly reference the Journal ID against the reference string on the Journal Import log.
August 15, 2007 Payments to Companies/Individuals For Services Rendered
Finance Contacts:
REMINDER - Effective July 1, 2007, an actual invoice/agreement or Purchase Order will be required for payments to companies/individuals for services rendered. Accounting Services has an "Invoice for Services" template available for your use when requesting payments to individuals. This form is located on the Accounting Services website at: http://www.und.edu/dept/accounts/documents/InvoiceforSvsUND.doc
Legal Counsel is still in the process of drafting a standard agreement for speakers and consultants.
Departments can view this list of all the receipts processed in the Business Office by clicking on the hyperlink for the date you made the deposit. The link will open as an Excel spreadsheet - sorted by fund number. Previous months will be listed as a whole month, sorted by date, and then fund number.
The Student Employment Grid that was sent yesterday, via the listserve, did not have the Special Note on the bottom of the page. This note is very important and should have been included.
The note says that the Student Employment grid does not apply to 1) employees switching departments 2) Change job duties that would require a Workers' Comp Code change 3) Permanent (or Long-term) switch from a student position to a non-student position or a non-student position to a student position. In these cases, a termination and rehire form is required.
The Student Employment Grid, with the Special Note is attached. Click Here.
August 14, 2007
Revised New Hire Guide and Student Employment Grid
Attached are revised resources for your use: 1) New Hire Guide and 2) Student Employment Grid. Changes have been made to reflect the new online system implemented by Student Financial Aid and Job Service for Fall 2007. If you have any questions regarding the online Student Employment system, please contact Student Financial Aid. Any questions regarding Payroll forms and/or Red Packets, can be addressed to the Payroll Office.
August 6, 2007
Online Payments, E-bills, Authorized Users
Finance Contacts:
University of North Dakota
Online Payments coming Fall 2007
UND is pleased to announce that effective fall semester 2007 all NDUS institutions will offer e-paymentservices. Students will have the convenience of paying their bills online 7 days a week from anywhere in the world. Payments may be made online through Campus Connection using e-Check or specific credit cards. The e-Check option is a fast, free, and convenient method to pay the bill directly by debiting your bank account.
In addition to online payment capability, the NDUS is also in the process of implementing functionality that includes online e-bill presentment, e-mail notification, and payment plans with online enrollment. This functionality will also enable students to set up authorized user access to parents/others to view their UND account information and make payments on their behalf.
Credit Card Processing Changes
In conjunction with implementation of online payment, UND will be outsourcing credit card processing for student payments to a third party (TouchNet PayPath). This will ensure compliance with online credit card processing security requirements as well as eliminate credit card merchant fees on online credit card payments on student accounts.
In FY 2006, UND incurred almost $800,000 in credit card processing fees, $660,339 of which was for payments on student accounts. Credit card utilization and the resulting processing fees had increased to the point that the viability of continuing to accept credit cards was seriously questioned. Due in part to these escalating costs, many colleges and universities have discontinued accepting credit cards instead of covering these costs with student fee increases. Eliminating the credit card merchant fee will better enable UND to hold down the cost of education for its students while still maintaining the high level of quality and customer service that our campus has come to expect.
UND recognizes that many students and their families appreciate the convenience and awards programs associated with using a credit card. To avoid credit card merchant fees that cannot be controlled while still offering the option of payment by credit card, UND has outsourced credit card processing for payments on student accounts to a third party provider. Individuals who choose to pay using a credit card will be assessed a non-refundable fee by TouchNet of 2.75% ($3 minimum) of the balance paid. Credit cards accepted are MasterCard, Discover, and American Express. As a result, the direct cost of the convenience of using a credit card for payment will be passed along to those who choose that convenience rather than forcing students who do not make that choice to share in the cost. Credit card payment options will only be available online through Campus Connection. To maintain compliance with credit card processing security requirements, credit cards will not be accepted at the Business Office teller windows.
A simple, no-cost online alternative to a credit card will be e-Check (electronic check). Students using e-Check will have a secure, 24/7 electronic payment method and will not be assessed additional fees.
Other fee-free payment options are payment via check by mail or in person at the Business Office, or payment by cash in person at the Business Office.
Unfortunately, VISA is not a payment option through the third party provider because VISA's requirements will not permit a company/vendor to charge a percentage service charge. VISA requires utilization of a flat fee and also requires a fee be assessed for acceptance of payments via e-Check.
This move is not unprecedented. Many colleges and universities nationally have chosen to discontinue the acceptance of credit cards for student payments because of the major expense and the need to direct scarce resources to preserve academic programming and services. The University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin, and University of South Dakota have recently implemented online payment systems with service fees similar to that of UND. Other universities not accepting VISA include Indiana University, University of Illinois, Syracuse University, University of Nebraska and University of Texas. A number of colleges and universities are not accepting credit cards at all.
We are very excited about providing this new online service to students. Additional information regarding the e-payment system is available on the Business Office web site.
Peggy Lucke
Associate Vice President for Finance and Operations
August 2007
August 2, 2007
State Contracts
Department Heads and Finance Contacts:
Please forward this to all individuals within your department that are authorized to make purchases and approve purchases.
Subject: State Contracts
The State Procurement Office has many contracts for various commodities and services.
UND is only required to use the state cell phone contract #915. UND is not required to use any other state contracts. State contracts are intended to be a source for UND during the bid process. UND may purchase off of these contracts when it is advantageous to do so.
For example: UND is not required to use the State Paper Contract #002 with Cole Paper. The contract is not a perfect fit for all departments. Departments should compare other suppliers pricing before placing an order with Cole Paper.
July 31, 2007
Mandatory Direct Deposit for NEW Benefitted Employees
Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - Effective August 1, 2007, all new, benefitted Faculty and staff submitting their New Employee paperwork, must sign up for Direct Deposit. The Direct Deposit form has been moved from the non-mandatory section to the mandatory forms for all new benefitted employees. Please make sure that you are distributing current new employee packets that have this change and that your new benefitted employees are completing the Direct Deposit form. If you need more New Employee packets, please call 777-4226.
For future information: Effective January 1, 2008, all employees will be required to use Direct Deposit or a pay card. A pay card is like a debit card, that you carry with you, and your pay is automatically loaded on the card each pay period. Additional information will be sent to employees during fall semester regarding this change.
Patricia Hanson
Director of Payroll
University of North Dakota
264 Centennial Drive Stop 7127
Grand Forks, ND 58202
Telephone: (701) 777-4228
Fax: (701) 777-4721
July 31, 2007
Use of Correct Accounts for Salaries
Monday, July 30th, 2007 - We have heard from several departments that they are unsure as to which account to use to pay employee salaries. The following is a reminder of what account is attached to each letter used at the end of the Combo Code:
F= 515005=Faculty, Scientiest, Research Associates, Post Docs, Department Chair Supplement
P= 515010=Faculty Overload - Faculty working >100%
G= 517005=GTA, GRA, GSA's
R= 511002=Regular, Benefited Staff
S= 511005=Staff Overload-Exempt employees working >100% (Includes staff teaching over full-time)
V= 514005=Non-Exempt Staff Overtime - Paid at time and one half
T= 513005=Temporary, Non-Benefited, Non-students and Employee Awards
O=512005=Student Employees
Please make sure that your employees use the correct letter in the Combo Codes on their timesheets and that the Combo Code they use on the timesheet is set up in the Department Budget Table. If it is not setup, please submit a Position Funding form to add the Combo Code to their position. We have seen several Pool Positions set up with just "O" Combo Codes and timeslips are being submitted using the "T" Combo Code and vice versa. A Department Budget table can have both "T" and "O" combo codes.
For example: If you have a student employee, they should be using a combo code with an "O" at the end. If the Department Budget Table for that position does not have that Combo Code listed, you will need to submit a Position Funding form to add it to the Department Budget Table.
Patricia Hanson
Director of Payroll
University of North Dakota
264 Centennial Drive Stop 7127
Grand Forks, ND 58202
Telephone: (701) 777-4228
Fax: (701) 777-4721
Please review the course fees for your department and notify Heidi Smart in the Business Office by Monday, August 21st if you have any corrections. Items needing correction are missing course fees, course fees listed that should not be, inaccurate descriptions, and etc.
Heidi can be reached via phone at 7-4701 or email at heidismart@mail.und.nodak.edu.
July 30, 2007
Clarification on Logo Requirements for Printing
Department Heads and Finance Contacts:
Orders for printing performed offcampus do not need to go through the logo approval process. It is the departments'responsibility to ensure the University's logos and trademarks are used in accordance to the guidelines listed on the University Relations website.
As a reminder, all offcampus printing is required to be formally quoted or bid out by the Purchasing Department.
July 30, 2007
Imaging/Scanning Systems
Finance & Academic Contacts & Records Managers:
As part of the UND Financial Statement audit, the North Dakota State Auditor's Office is requesting information on all campus scanning/imaging systems throughout the North Dakota University System. In order to provide them with accurate information, we will need to know if you or anyone in your department has any scanning (imaging) software to manage your records, files, reference materials, etc. Please forward this email to all individuals in your departments.
We will request additional information from those departments that respond back as having a scanning system in place.
July 11, 2007
Purchasing Requirement
Department Heads and Finance Contacts:
Please forward this to all individuals within your department that are authorized to make purchases and approve purchases.
The Purchasing Department is required to be involved in any purchase greater than $5,000. This pertains to the entire cost of purchasing the item(s) including freight. Orders can not be artificially divided to fall under the $5,000 threshold.
Printing is the exception to this requirement. The Purchasing Department must be involved in all printing that is produced off-campus regardless of the cost.
Contact the Purchasing Department once you have identified your item(s) and determined the approximate cost of the purchase. The Purchasing Department is required to submit all requests to the vendors if the purchase is expected to be over $5,000.
July 11, 2007
Fiscal Year End Thank You
Finance Contacts:
Accounting Services, the Business Office and the Purchasing Office would like to extend a warm thank you for your cooperation and assistance with the Fiscal Year-End Close. Your diligence in getting your payments, paperwork and deposits to our offices in a timely manner was greatly appreciated and made the transition to the new fiscal year much easier.
As a reminder, Friday, July 6th, was the deadline for all transactions processed against your FY07 funds with the exception of the upcoming Payroll. In addition, no other deposits can be receipted for FY07 funds.
Thank you again for all your hard work!
Accounting Services, Purchasing & Business Offices
Email #071007-1
July 10, 2007
State Paper Contract with Cole Papers, Inc
Department Head & Finance Contacts:
Clarification: State Paper Contract 002 with Cole Papers, Inc.
The contract is written so there are no delivery charges. For those departments that can receive deliveries directly from vendors, Cole will deliver to your desk or desired location for no additional charge.
The clarification is required for Tier 2 Pricing (10 or more unbroken case orders). Cole will only deliver these orders to one site (location within a building). Tier 2 orders are to be delivered to one site, and not broken out into smaller orders to be delivered throughout the building. Departments should be utilizing Tier 1 Pricing if they require this type of service.
July 6, 2007
Fiscal Year End DEADLINE is TODAY!
Finance Contacts:
As a reminder, today is the last day to submit paperwork to Accounting Services for FY07 processing. Please do notsend your paperwork via intercampus mail, as all documents must be received in Accounting Services by 4:30 today.
For a clean start in the new Fiscal Year, Accounting Services would like to remind all departments to please use the most current version of our forms. Forms are available on our website, http://www.und.edu/dept/accounts/forms.html. The date listed is the last date that the forms were updated. Please delete any outdated forms you have saved on your computers.
One way to make sure that you are using the most current version of Accounting Services forms is that every time you need a form, go to the Accounting Services website and upload the form. This way you will be sure to have the most current version.
If you have any questions, please contact Carl at 777-4131.
June 29, 2007
Fwd: Who Can I Contact for Help? Everyone's Busy!
Finance Contacts:
Accounting Services is gearing up for the close of FY07 on July 6, 2007. At this critical and extremely busy time of year, we are asking for your help in assisting your department personnel with PeopleSoft questions. As the Finance Contact for your department, you are the primary communication link between the central administrative offices (i.e. Accounting Services, Purchasing, etc.) and your department personnel. Please let your department staff know that you can answer their questions by forwarding this email in its entirety to your contacts.
Information for Department Personnel:
Your Finance Contact is the primary communication link between the central administrative offices (i.e. Accounting Services, Purchasing, etc) and you. Your Finance Contact can answer questions for you that you may have thought only Accounting Services could answer. The following are common questions which can be answered by your Finance Contact:
How do I run a report?
What is my fund balance?
What is my budget balance?
How can I tell if a Voucher has been paid?
How do I know if a Journal Entry or Journal Voucher has been processed?
How do I make a correction to a previously processed transaction?
Answers to some frequently asked questions:
Do I have to get my Purchasing Card Record form to Accounting Services by July 6 th ?
No, the Purchasing Card Record form for June transactions should be submitted to Accounting Services no later than August 2nd.
Will airline tickets purchased in June come out of my FY07 budget even if the actual travel dates occurs in FY08?
Yes. Airline tickets reflected on the June travel card billing statement will be charged to your FY07 funds.
Remember, you have several options for getting help with your PeopleSoft questions:
June 28, 2006
June Purchasing Card Transactions
Finance Contacts:
Accounting Services has posted the June Purchasing Card transactions through June 24th. Please review your charges and submit the appropriate paperwork to Accounting Services by July 6th for any corrections. Corrections to the general ledger for FY07 will not be processed if they are received after July 6th.
The vouchers for the June Purchasing Card transactions are as follows:
June 28, 2007
Duplicated/Transposed Reference Numbers
Finance Contacts:
Accounting Services has noticed an increase in duplicated reference numbers and transposed reference numbers submitted on Vouchers and Travel Expense Vouchers.
When a reference number is duplicated or transposed, the person entering the Voucher into PeopleSoft must verify that the rejected reference number is not due to a duplicated payment. From there, a new reference number is assigned. As a result, the new number is not disclosed to the department requesting the payment. This process is very manual. Departments are encouraged to track their reference numbers to prevent duplication. Please verify your reference numbers prior to submitting your forms to Accounting Services.
We understand that this is a busy time for you as well. We appreciate your cooperation in helping to make both our jobs easier!
June 19, 2007
Fiscal Year '08 Updates/Changes to Accounting Services & Purchasing Policies
Finance Contacts:
Happy New Year!
Fiscal Year '08 Updates/Changes to Accounting Services and Purchasing Policies
1. License Logo approval process
2. Non-Employee/Student Travel
3. Account Code procedural changes to types of purchases
4. Invoice required for services
5. Journal Import Post Dates
6. In-state mileage/lodging rate increases
7. Departments will have ability to change funding sources for purchasing card transactions.
Minimum wage increases have been approved by State and Federal Governments:
The first minimum wage increase to $5.85 per hour will happen on July 24, 2007. The second increase will be to $6.55 per hour one year after the first increase (July 24, 2008). The third increase to $7.25 per hour will happen two years after the first increase (July 24, 2009).
After the Budget Rollover into Payroll happens, I will send out a listing to each department of all employees in the department. Please verify salaries, standard hours and terminate employees (if you have not already done so) that no longer work for your department. Also, you will need to submit a Job Data Change form to increase the salary of any employee that is not earning at least $5.85 per hour. Paperwork should be effective July 16, 2007 (Beginning of the pay period), even if the
employee is NOT scheduled to come back until fall.
Patricia Hanson
Director of Payroll
University of North Dakota
264 Centennial Drive Stop 7127
Grand Forks, ND 58202
Telephone: (701) 777-4228
Fax: (701) 777-4721
June 18, 2007
UND Alumni Association Fiscal Year End Procedures
DATE: June 8, 2007
TO: Admin Support Staff
FROM: Nancy Pederson, Director of Finance, UND Alumni Association
SUBJECT: UND Alumni Association Fiscal Year End Procedures - Year Ending June 30, 2007
We are asking for your cooperation in assisting the UND Alumni Association with the completion of accurate financial statements in a timely manner. To accomplish this, we MUST charge all materials and services, received on or by June 30, 2007, to fiscal year 2007 funds.
All invoices for materials and services received on or before June 30, 2007, Must be submitted to the Alumni Office, Stop 8157, by Friday, July 6, 2007. This includes all Invoices and Journal Entries. Transactions received after Friday, July 6, 2007 will be processed and charged to FY2008.
Accounts Receivable: Must be received in the Alumni Office by 10:00 am on Thursday, June 28th.
Questions/Comments * Please contact:
Accounts Payable (A/P): Mindy Graham, 7-3445 or
Marla Anderson, 7-2926
Accounts Receivable (A/R): Margo Gruwell, 7-2531 or
Carrie Kachena, 7-0122
Early submission of any payments and journal entries would be greatly appreciated.
June 12, 2007
New Health Rates will appear on June 15, 2007 checks
HRMS Contacts:
The new Health rates for FY08 will be effective with the June 15, 2007 pay checks. Health insurance is deducted in the month prior, so July's health insurance is deducted in June and requires the higher rate. Therefore, departments will see a charge of $329.04 per pay period for health insurance, instead of the previous rate of $276.97 per pay period starting with the June 15th pay day.
Reminder: Remember that the July 15th payday (June 16-30 pay period) is charged to FY07, except for Health, Life and EAP benefits which will be charged to FY08.
May 18, 2007
New Account Numbers
Finance Contacts:
The following accounts have been set up with an effective date of 7/1/2007:
517000 - Salaries - Graduate Assistants * Budgetary Only (child account)
517005 - Salaries - Graduate Assistants * Actual Expenses Only
**Please note: The Payroll Office and Budget Office will be working together to add the combo codes to PeopleSoft and the Web Application by Monday, May 21st, at 4:30 pm. Before contacting either office, please check PeopleSoft and the Web App to make sure that the combo codes are not already set up.
June 18, 2007
IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING HRMS ACCESS
Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - During a payroll calculation or confirmation process in the HRMS system, if any user 1) Runs a report or query; 2) Processes a job; or 3) Enters data - it will error out the entire
payroll. That is what we experienced twice this pay period - which created short timelines for all users to verify their payroll and extensive additional work by the HRMS team.
PLEASE - Do NOT perform the above activities in HRMS between 9:00-11:00 PM each evening or after 11:00 am on the day of Payroll Confirm until 10:00 am the next morning. Payroll Confirm is always three business days prior to payday. Department users are locked out during the payroll confirm, but not during the calculations - so night owls be aware of what time it is. Centralized users (HR, Payroll, G/C, Finance) must understand that even though they are not locked out - any reports, queries, jobs or entering data during this time will cause extensive work for many people and delay the payroll process. If they have access, users may INQUIRE ONLY during these periods, but it is recommended to just stay out of HRMS.
We have been given another chance to prove that we can stay out of the system as requested. If another error happens - extended lockouts will be implemented for ALL users during both the calculation and confirmation processes. Thank you for your efforts and we appreciate your willingness to work with us to make each payroll process run.
June 11, 2007
Licensed Logo Vendors Coordinator
Department Heads & Finance Contacts:
Effective June 11, 2007: The responsibility for reviewing and approving the use of the University's name and trademarks has moved from the Athletic Department to the Purchasing Department. Lani Caraway is the new Licensing Coordinator (777-2132, Stop 8381, lanicaraway@mail.und.nodak.edu). Please submit all Trademarks Use Request forms to Lani. Contact her with any questions pertaining to the Logo approval process.
Scott Schreiner
Director of Purchasing
Email #061107-1
June 8, 2007
Bookstore Charges
Department Heads & Finance Contacts:
As a reminder, departments are no longer permitted to charge purchases at Barnes & Noble
University Bookstore using a departmental charge account with Barnes & Noble. Purchases at the bookstore will need to be made on the Purchasing Card.
Departments are provided the original invoice at the time of sale. This invoice will need to be attached to the Purchasing Card Record Form that is sent to Accounting Services. The Bookstore will not have a copy of the invoice so if the original is lost, the Bookstore
will not be able to provide you with a copy.
June 4, 2007
State Paper Contract
Department Heads and Finance Contacts:
Update: State Paper Contract 002 with Cole Papers, Inc.
State Procurement has negotiated a new contract with Cole Paper. The primary differences between the new contract and the previous contract are:
1. There are no delivery charges and for those departments that can receive deliveries directly from vendors Cole will deliver to your desk or desired location for no additional charge.
2. The pricing structure is also different than the previous contract. We now have a Tiered Price Program with price breaks at 10 or more cartons and at a pallet load.
The contract is not a perfect fit for all departments. UND is NOT required to use this contract, so please contact Cole for pricing before ordering and compare to other suppliers.
May 24, 2007
Salary Advance Repayment
Finance Contacts:
The Payroll Department is currently cleaning up some errors in the Advance Repayment Fund from the 2005 fiscal year. (We apologize for the delay in making these corrections). There were a few FICA and retirement amounts that were credited back to your local or grant funds, instead of being credited back to our Advance Repayment fund, when employees were paying back their Advance in FY 2005. These corrections will appear in your General Ledger Activity Report for the month of May as Journal ID 561110.
Please call me at Trish in Payroll at 7-6973 if you have any questions.
May 14, 2007
Fiscal Year End Procedures Workshop
Finance Contacts:
In the Spring U2 newsletter, the Fiscal Year End Procedures workshop was scheduled for May 15th. Due to a problem with the size of the room, the workshop was moved to May 16th, 9:00-11:00am in the Memorial Union Lecture Bowl.
Please make this change on your calendars.
If you have not yet registered for this workshop, please do so by visiting the U2 website at: http://www.conted.und.edu/U2/ You can also register via phone or email to: 777-2128 or u2@mail.und.nodak.edu
Pat Hanson, Director of Payroll, presented at the Tuesday at 9 session this morning. Pat provided a summer update as well as identied changes to the hiring process. The PowerPoint presentation from the session is linked below.
Allison Peyton, Accounting Services, and Scott Schreiner, Purchasing Office, will demonstrate some key elements of the PeopleSoft Finance module. This session targets new employees; however, all are invited to come.
Allison Peyton, Accounting Services, and Scott Schreiner, Purchasing Office, will demonstrate some key elements of the PeopleSoft Finance module. This session targets new employees; however, all are invited to come.
The presentation is on the Connect'U'ND website at: http://www.und.edu/cnd/
Please review the following reminders for
your Time slips and Leave Slips:
1) Time slips and leave slips must be turned in on time. Please make
sure that your employees submit their time and leave slips to you on a
timely basis. Late time and leave slips cause several problems - data
entry takes twice as long; sometimes late time slips have already been
paid so time worked must be researched back to prior pay periods to make
sure that is not the case; potential for data entry error is greater;
payment of several pay periods in one pay period may cause excessive
federal and state tax to be taken; department and student employee may
end up paying FICA, if time slips are turned in after a semester is
finished. It is a department's responsibility to make sure employees
are turning in their time and leave slips on a regular basis.
Departments consistently turning in late time slips from their
department will be reported to their Dean or VP.
2) Do not combine pay periods on a single time or leave slip. Each
pay period must be reported on a separate slip. Pay periods are the
1st through the 15th and the 16th through the end of the month. The
15th is always included in the 1st-15th pay period. Do not include the
15th in the second pay period of the month.
3) Report time and/or leave in the appropriate week on the slip. Do
not combine multiple weeks of time in one week. For example: If you
take two weeks of vacation - you would report the first week (40 hours)
in the first week portion of the slip. The second week of 40 hours
would be reported in the second week portion of the slip. The right
side of the time/leave slip should be a summary by Earnings code and
week. Do not just duplicate what you have entered on the left side of
the slip.
A version of the Hourly Reporting form with formulas to total all hours
entered is linked below. This form will also be out on our website
within the week. Hopefully this will help you and your employees.
Reminder:
There are separate forms for Time Slips (Hourly Reporting Form) and
Leave Slips (Salaried Leave and Overtime Form). If you are Hourly -
Use the Hourly Reporting form. If you are Salaried - Use the Salaried
Leave and Overtime form.
I had just included the Hourly Reporting form example because it
included formulas and I had requests from some departments for formulas
on this Hourly Reporting form. I WAS NOT suggesting that you use this
form for Hourly and Salaried reporting. The Hourly Reporting form is
just for hourly employees - nothing has changed.
If you have any questions regarding your Time or Leave slips, please
call the Payroll Office at 777-4226.
April 30, 2007
Changes to the HE leave report
HRMS Contacts:
The HE Leave Report has a new look with more information and has been included with this E-mail as a sneak preview (It can be viewed using Notepad). The programmers are hoping to migrate it into Prod on April 26th. You will be notified tomorrow, when the HE Actuals and Leave Reports are available to you.
Here are some of the enhancements made to the report:
First of all, on the run control page, an "As Of Date" is now available. If the most recent accrual date is desired (which is the normal situation) then a blank date or the most recent pay end date should be entered. If a previous period is desired, enter it in the "As Of Date" field.
On the report itself:
1. The Benefit Service and Company Seniority dates have been added beneath the Employee name.
2. The Current Pay Period hours earned and taken as well as the Beginning Balance at start of the current pay period have been included on the report. In order to accomplish this, 2 lines of information are printed for each plan. The first line of information is for the current pay period (last accrual date processed). A description of "Current PP' denotes this information. The second line is the YTD information line and is denoted by the description 'Jan 1/YTD'. The column headings have also changed slightly to reflect the changes.
3. The bought and sold hours are not used and have been removed from the report.
4. All hours have been truncated to 3 decimal positions except the Ending Balance which remains at 2.
5. The annual leave hours to use prior to Dec 31 have been included on the report for all active, regular employees.
6. Since dependent sick leave is part of the sick leave benefit, the dependent sick leave plan will be listed immediately following sick leave and only the hours taken for the current pay period and YTD will be listed. These dependent sick hours are included in the current and YTD sick leave hours.
7. Any leave plan that has no activity (Carry over balance, earned, taken, adjusted etc.) will not be printed on the report. This is primary for the Comp Time plan. Many employees have a comp time benefit which has never been used. Eliminating these plans from the report significantly reduced the size of the report.
Run Control ID's cannot contain any spaces. In place of spaces, use either an underline or dash.
When a Run Control ID contains spaces, the database cannot read the Run Control ID and the initiated process ends up running wide open with no parameters.
Please share this information with all Finance Users within your department.
Email #042507-1
April 24, 2007
Updated Nonresident Aliens Payment for Services Policy
Finance Contacts:
The Foreign National Information Form must be completed before the nonresident alien can receive any form of payment for services. The nonresident alien will need to also provide a copy of both sides of their I-94 Form "Arrival and Departure Record" (a small white card inside their passport), and a copy of their U.S. VISA from their passport. These forms must be returned before any check can be issued by the Accounts Payable Department. The Foreign National Information Form is located on the Payroll Office website at http://www.und.edu/dept/payroll/webforms/ForeignNationalFormUNDnew.pdf
For additional information on services provided by nonresident aliens, please see the complete policy at the Accounting Services website: http://www.und.edu/dept/accounts/nonresidentalienspaymentforservices.html
April 23, 2007
Important Changes from UND Alumni Association & Foundation
Finance Contacts:
The following was sent on behalf of UND Alumni Association and Foundation:
Effective immediately, UND Facilities charges (ex. work order requests) will NO longer be able to be billed directly to an Alumni Fund. These charges need to be processed through a UND PeopleSoft Fund. You may still utilize your Alumni funds for these expenditures, but you will need to transfer the funds from your Alumni fund to your UND fund. Transfers from Alumni will need to be done using an Alumni Invoice with the proper supporting documentation and authorized signatures. More information on these updates will be posted soon to the UND Alumni website at http://www.undalumni.org/NetCommunity/Document.Doc?&id=41.
If you have any questions please contact Marla Anderson at 777-2926 or Marlaa@undalumni.net
April 23, 2007
[CND-FIN-USERS] UPDATE - Problems with Downloads to Excel or CSV
Finance Contacts:
Please see the following email regarding the Problems with Excel features in PeopleSoft.
Email #041907-1
>>> Mick Pytlik <mick.pytlik@NDUS.NODAK.EDU> 4/19/2007 11:40 AM >>>
The Bismarck Data Center made a change to server configurations yesterday that resolved the problems where the download button, downloads from queries, and some other download features would only work intermittently.
For most people, this should resolve the issue. We do have a couple of people who submitted tickets on this issue, where there are still problems, although they appear to be isolated. We will continue to work with those people to try to fix the problem.
April 17, 2007
IMPORTANT - Excel Download from a Page
Finance Contacts:
The feature that allows you to download the contents of a PeopleSoft page to Excel (see example below) is not working properly, or at least consistently. When clicking the button, a message saying "File Not Found or File Received Has Length 0" is usually generated. Occasionally, the page will actually download to Excel.
Emacs!
We've submitted a ticket to have the Data Center fix this problem. We will send an update either when the issue is resolved or when we have further information. Please notify your campus users about this issue.
April 17, 2007
IMPORTANT - Finance Production Now Available
Finance Contacts:
Some individuals on campus have reported trouble with some of the screens in PeopleSoft Finance since the upgrade this weekend.
If you should experience problems with the color of your screen, please clear your Internet Explorer, Mozilla, or Netscape cache and cookies, close down your browser, then relaunch the browser and log back in. The problem should be resolved at that point.
April 17, 2007
[CND-FIN-USERS] IMPORTANT - PeopleTools Upgrade for Finance
As many of you are aware, through updates on the Finance user group calls, we are scheduled to upgrade the underlying technology (PeopleTools) for our PeopleSoft Financials 8.4 application. Non-production environments have been upgraded over the last couple of months. The Production upgrade will begin at 5:00 PM, Friday, April 13, and the system will become unavailable at that time. While we expect to have the system up and available again sometime during the weekend, it may not be available until Monday morning, 4-16-07.
We will be upgrading the environment from PeopleTools 8.45 to PeopleTools 8.48. While the PeopleTools upgrade doesn't change the functionality available in Financials 8.4, it does slightly change the appearance of the application. There are only minor cosmetic changes ! that should be noticeable to most people. Most of the changes are in underlying technology.
The attached document shows "before and after" screen shots of the changes in system appearance.
Mick Pytlik, CPA
Director of Financial Systems
North Dakota University System
Skills and Technology Training Center - Room 219
1305 19th Ave N
Fargo, ND 58102-1821
Accounting Services would like to remind all departments to please use the most current version of our forms. Forms are available on our website, http://www.und.edu/dept/accounts/forms.html . The date listed is the last date that the forms were updated. Please delete any outdated forms you have saved on your computers. One way to make sure that you are using the most current version of Accounting Services forms is that every time you need a form, go to the Accounting Services website and upload the form. This way you will be sure to have the most current version. If you have any questions, please contact Carl at 777-4131.
February 20, 2007
Asset Management & Insurance Training
Finance & Asset Management Contacts:
If your department doesn't have an Asset Management contact, please forward this email on to the individual who is responsible for your inventory.
Asset Management and Insurance will be conducting a U2 training on February 21 from 9 to 10:30 in the River Valley Room in the Memorial Union. Asset Management will be going over the instructions on how to perform an annual inventory and how to make it easier to keep up with your inventory. This session will also cover basic information that should be known about Asset Management and Insurance.
Please sign up through U2 if you plan on attending, so we can have enough handouts ready for you.
Changes have been recently made to both the Voucher and the Travel Expense Voucher forms. Please upload the most current version of these forms from the Accounting Services' website.
And a reminder that departments are encouraged to regularly upload the most current version of our forms. Outdated forms may not be processed and could be returned to the departments. An easy way to make sure you are always using the most current version of Accounting Services' forms is to go out to the Forms page
each time you need a form. This way you will never have to worry about using an outdated form. Any questions, please contact Accounting Services at 777-4131.
February 13, 2007
Student Administration Production System
Academic Contacts:
Some of you may have noticed that we experienced some issues this morning with the Student Administration Production System. To resolve these issues tomorrow morning during maintenance hours (5am - 7am) we will be clearing the cache on the application servers.
What does this mean to you?
As with each time we do this you will most likely experience slow processing tomorrow morning while the cache is rebuilt. With the current user load it may take until after lunch to fully rebuild the cache in the system.
I would recommend that you consider clearing the cache on your machines as well.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
Scott A. Mahar
Director, Student Information Systems
North Dakota University System
Email #021307-1
January 30, 2007
Budget Checking Procedures
Finance Contacts
Effective February 1, 2007, the procedures to resolve insufficient budgets for transactions submitted for processing will be revised. A brief summary of the revised procedures regarding insufficient budgets for transactions involving vouchers, journal vouchers, journal entries, and journal imports are listed below. More detailed information regarding insufficient budgets is available at http://www.und.edu/dept/accounts/BudgetCheckingProcedures.html
An example of an insufficient budget is when a fund has a remaining budget available of $1000 and the transaction to be processed is for $1100. There is an insufficient budget of $100.
· Accounting Services will contact the department by phone to request the completion of a budget journal.
· The budget journal must be delivered to Accounting Services by noon the following day or the department will need to provide an alternate fund number for the charge.
· If an alternate fund is not provided, Accounting Services will select another departmental fund for the charge.
· If a department continues to have insufficient budgets for transactions submitted to Accounting Services for processing, Accounting Services will notify the Department Head by email requesting that the budget be reviewed and steps taken to reduce future budget issues.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Allison Peyton, Accounting Services
Email #013007-1
January 29, 2007
PeopleSoft Access
Attention ALL STAFF/FACULTY PeopleSoft Users:
In a recent audit of PeopleSoft users, it was discovered that many who have access to the various modules are not using their access. Perhaps your user ID was changed or you discovered that you would not need access to the system.maybe you forgot you had access. A significant number of you have either never signed on or have not signed on since your access was granted. In an effort to clean-up some of these users, we will be reviewing and terminating access based upon your last sign-on date.
Effective immediately, any staff/faculty users for any system (Finance/ HRMS/ Student Admin) who have not accessed the system within the past year will have their access terminated on that system. Our review of your access will begin on February 1st. If you wish to maintain your access, please be sure to sign-on to the system(s) for which you have access by January 31 st .
If you should have any questions, please feel free to contact any one of the following Campus Access Control Officers:
January 29, 2007
Purchasing From Sam's Club
Department Heads & Finance Contacts:
The current approved method of purchasing from Sam's Club is to use a purchase order or voucher. We are aware Sam's Club started accepting MasterCard this past November; however, Sam's Club has not agreed to the implementation of the University Purchasing Card. The Purchasing Department is negotiating with Sam's Club to approve the use of our Purchasing Card. We will notify departments when our Purchasing Card will be accepted by Sam's Club. Until then continue to use a purchase order or voucher.
January 24, 2007 - Remember that if you have graduate students, students or part-time employees that did not return for Spring Semester, they need to be terminated. Please notify Payroll by 4:30pm today, if you have Graduate students or any other salaried employees, that should have been termed prior to January 1. These employees will receive a paycheck this pay period if they were not termed.
January 22, 2007
Clarification for Authorization of Personal Vehicle Mileage Reimbursement
Finance Contacts:
The following information provides a clarification regarding the requirement to receive prior approval from the supervisor for reimbursement for personal vehicle mileage, instead of using a state fleet vehicle.
Departments are encouraged to develop their own internal procedures for supervisors authorizing the use of a personal vehicle (instead of a state fleet vehicle) for business-related travel. Some examples might include:
1. Departments may develop their own form to be used to request the use of personal vehicle for business-related travel. This form could be used for each trip or could be used for a specific time period of travel (ex. for an entire fiscal year).
2. Departments may use the email system (employees request by email; supervisor approves by email). This email process could be used for each trip or could be used for a specific time period of travel (ex. for an entire fiscal year).
It is not necessary to submit these approvals to Accounting Services. Instead, the supervisor (or their designate) will be required to sign the Travel Expense Voucher in the signature area authorizing personal vehicle mileage reimbursement. This section was recently added to the Travel Expense Voucher. This signature indicates that supervisor approval was obtained.
The employee's supervisor must be the one that actually authorizes personal vehicle mileage reimbursement prior to travel (according to the procedures that are established by the individual department), but the actual signature indicating that this approval has been obtained, which is required on the Travel Expense Voucher, may be delegated. Departments are responsible for ensuring that the signature indicating approval for personal vehicle mileage reimbursement on the Travel Expense Voucher is either the supervisor's or their designate.
January 22, 2007
Tues @ 9 - Alumni Funds
Dept. Head and Finance Contact:
There will be a Tues. @ 9 session on January 23rd with Laura Block and staff from the Alumni Foundation presenting.
The agenda will include:
(1) Reporting of gifts the Foundation receives
(2) Reporting of fund balances/spending/funds available for expenditure
(3) Process to request payments from Foundation funds
(4) Working agreement between UND and the UND Foundation
If you have Alumni funds I'm sure you will find this session very informative and helpful.
See you there.
Peggy Lucke
Connect'U'ND
Tues. @ 9
January 23, 2007 9:00 - 10:00 AM
Memorial Union Lecture Bowl Email #011807-1
January 16, 2007
Internet Explorer 7
Department Head, Finance Contact, Academic Contact, and HRMS Contact:
We received the following message from HECN. Please share with your colleagues.
Peggy Lucke
Oracle has certified Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) for use with PeopleTools 8.22, 8.46, 8.47, and 8.48. So, for ConnectND users, that means the HRMS and SA environments are now certified with IE7. Since Finance runs on PeopleTools 8.45, they have not, and, as we understand, will not be, certifying IE7 with PeopleTools 8.45.
That said, some HECN staff have been running IE7 for a couple of weeks now and have found only one issue with the Finance system directly related to IE7. If you press CTRL-J to look at page info (which many users may never do), you actually get two things happening -- you get the page info for the PS page, but it also opens IE7's RSS Feeds menu. This doesn't hurt anything and doesn't keep you from getting the info you need, it just opens up that other menu.
One other issue encountered after the upgrade to IE7 was the need to re-add some sites to the "trusted sites" list and also to the "pop-ups allowed" list. In a situation where you run a query, then click the export to Excel link, you may get an IE7 security message instead of having Excel open. After checking to make sure the site you're on is in the lists mentioned earlier, you may also need to do the following:
* Open Internet Explorer.
* Click the Tools button, then click Internet Options.
* Click the Security tab, then click Custom Level.
* Scroll to the Downloads section of the list, then, under "Automatic prompting for file downloads", click Enable.
* Click OK, click Yes to confirm that you want to make the change, then click OK again.
Please contact your local Help Desk with questions about Internet Explorer 7, including whether or not your campus supports it for desktop use. If you encounter PeopleSoft-specific issues with Internet Explorer 7, contact the NDUS Help Desk.
----------
Mick Pytlik, CPA
Director of Financial Systems
North Dakota University System Email #011207-1
December 18, 2006
New Look for the UND Travel Card
Finance Contacts:
The UND Travel Card will have a new look!
The UND Travel Card vendor changed the look of the travel card. All renewed or new UND travel cards will have the new look.
Front of the card : the holographic dove has been removed and the new Visa logo is in the lower right-hand area.
Back of the card: the holographic dove now appears, and the three digit Card Holder Identification Code has been moved off the signature line and is embedded into the plastic.
For further information and diagrams of the new cards, please see the News for Travel Card Holders link on the Accounting Services website.
December 15, 2006
GE Purchasing Card Transactions
Finance Contacts:
The GE transaction reports sent to you from the Purchasing Office were for transactions dated through December 2, 2006. GE cutoff the statement date on the 4th, because the normal statement cutoff date (2nd of the month), fell on a Saturday. Departments which used their Purchasing Card between December 2nd and December 4th will receive an additional statement from the Purchasing Office.
All transactions through December 4th have been processed in PeopleSoft. The dates and voucher numbers are as follows:
#7249 for transactions dated 11/21/06 through 11/27/06
#7250 for transactions dated 11/28/06 through 12/02/06
#7272 for transactions dated 12/03/06 through 12/04/06
December 7, 2006
GE Purchasing Card Update
Finance Contacts:
Great news!
Your GE Purchasing Card transactions have now posted in PeopleSoft. All transactions from August 3rd through November 20th have posted in December. You can inquire on your transactions via General Ledger activity, Budgets Overview, or Voucher Inquiry.
The Vendor ID for GE is 0000070485.
The Voucher numbers are as follows:
00007150 for transactions dated 08/03/06-09/10/06
00007151 for transactions dated 09/11/06-09/17/06
00007152 for transactions dated 09/18/06-09/24/06
00007153 for transactions dated 09/25/06-10/02/06
00007155 for transactions dated 10/03/06-10/06/06
00007172 for transactions dated 10/09/06-10/15/06
00007179 for transactions dated 10/16/06-10/22/06
00007181 for transactions dated 10/23/06-10/29/06
00007186 for transactions dated 10/30/06-11/02/06
00007187 for transactions dated 11/03/06-11/12/06
00007204 for transactions dated 11/13/06-11/20/06
We greatly appreciated your patience during the GE conversion process.
Last evening, two employees of one of our campuses were contacted by a person claiming to be an employee of the NDUS. This person asked the employees for their EMPLid and Campus Connection login and password. The person stated that the information was needed to perform some
maintenance on the server.
The NDUS will never ask you for this information.
If you receive a call of this nature, do not provide your login and password. If you receive a call of this type, please contact the NDUS Help Desk at 1-866-457-6387 or help.desk@nodak.edu
If possible, note the time you received the call, and if you have caller ID, please note the phone number.
If you have any questions or information about these incidents, please contact the NDUS Help Desk.
November 20, 2006
Departmental Deposits
Department Heads & Finance Contacts:
In an effort to improve the wait time at the teller windows, department staff will now be able to drop off all departmental deposits in the Business Office, Room 202. Beginning Monday, November 27, 2006, department staff will no longer be required to wait in the teller line. This change will allow the Business Office tellers the opportunity to assist the students first. How will this change affect department staff?At the Business Office Reception Area (Room 202) where you will drop off your departmental deposit, a Business Office employee will log in your deposit and you will be asked to initial the log. Departmental deposits will be processed after all student payments are processed. The goal in the Business Office is to have all deposits processed within 24 hours of delivery with the exception of the two weeks during Fall and Spring semester Fee payment. All department receipts will be mailed to the department and can be found electronically on the Accounting Services website. Please assist us in prioritizing the needs of our students. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via telephone at 777-3089 or email at wandasporbert@mail.und.nodak.edu.
November 7, 2006
Changes to the State Contract with Cole Paper
Department Heads and Finance Contacts:
Update: Paper State Contract 002 with Cole Papers, Inc.
State Procurement has negotiated the following changes to the contract:
1.Orders of 10 cases or more would be delivered FOB: Destination, so freight is included in the paper price. (The current contract currently states that orders $100 and over are FOB: Destination)
2.Orders of less than 10 cases would be charged a $50 delivery charge.
3.A $25 special delivery fee will be added to the invoice for any orders requiring delivery beyond the receiving dock within the building.
4.Orders less than $100 are exempt from this contract, and may be purchased locally.
The changes are to go into effect Monday, November 6, 2006.
These changes are problematic for smaller departments that do not have the paper usage to support ordering 10 cases at a time nor the storage space. If you are one of these departments, you are free to purchase! paper from any local vendor.
Please contact the Purchasing Department with any questions.
November 3, 2006
Purchasing Card
Finance Contacts:
The conversion issues with GE as referenced in the Finance Contacts email from September 29th (Email #092906-1) have not yet been resolved. As you may have noticed, purchases made with your Purchasing Card since conversion have not posted against your funds. Please continue to submit your Purchasing Record based on the statements you are receiving from GE. We continue to hope for a speedy resolution.
HRMS 8.9 is up and running. You can access it Monday morning through the blue environments page (http://state.nd.us/connectnd.html) and click on the last icon on the HRMS section of the page marked NDHP. If you bookmark to the specific page, the URL you would want to use in a hyperlink is https://www.connectnd.us/psp/ndhp/?cmd=login
"My Favorites" is working, which acts like a bookmark within PeopleSoft. You can find the hyperlink to use "My Favorites" in the upper right hand corner of PeopleSoft. Once you add a favorite, it
will appear at the top of your menu.
Also working is the "Search" box at the top of the menu. Since some pages have moved navigation, this is a convenient way to find things. For example, if you can't find the navigation to create a position, simply type in Position and click on the hourglass. You'll get a list of the pages that have to do with Position. This will simplify your hunt for navigations.
October 26, 2006
Internet Explorer 7.0 Automatic Update
Department Heads, Finance, Academic & HRMS Contacts:
Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) will be released for automatic installation via the "Automatic Updates" feature of Windows beginning on Wednesday, November 1.
According to an email from the Help Desk, some problems with IE7 and PeopleSoft have been encountered and additional testing needs to be performed prior to installing. Until more testing has been completed, select the “Don’t Install” option when the IE7 update notification balloon appears on your PC.
Please see the attached screen shots of what the automatic update to IE7 will look like and notes describing how not to install the update. Once we get the okay, instructions on how to install will be sent out.
October 19, 2006
Important information about Internet Explorer 7 and PeopleSoft
Department Heads, Finance & Academic Contacts:
Microsoft is releasing Internet Explorer (IE) version 7 today, October 18. Institution users may consider delaying the install of IE7 until the possible compatibility issue is resolved. The following message was posted to the Oracle-PeopleSoft Customer Connection website on Monday, October 16, 2006.
Oracle Details Support For Microsoft Internet Explorer 7
October 16, 2006-Microsoft recently reported that Internet Explorer version 7 (IE 7) is scheduled for release in CY'06Q4. IE 7 is intended for automatic download and should not cause concern in most cases; however, Oracle would like to proactively notify you with helpful information about IE 7 and highlight important areas for consideration.
While Oracle has not encountered any issues with the Beta version of IE7, formal testing will need to be completed at the time of general availability. Oracle hopes to complete that testing and certify the product soon after the IE 7 release date. Current plans are in place to test products currently in Oracle's testing environments. These products include:
PeopleTools 8.22
PeopleTools 8.46-8.48
Oracle anticipates that it will certify IE 7 for these versions.
Important Note
Because IE 7 is an automatic update your browser may be updated to IE7 across your entire environment regardless of an Oracle certification. For this reason, Oracle recommends that you assess whether an automatic upgrade will affect your business operations in a manner where your application vendors may not have the ability to fully test the configuration of IE 7. In this instance, it is recommended that you disable the automated upgrade using Microsoft's Blocker Toolkit
(http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=65788) until you have conducted internal regression testing or have upgraded to a certified Tools configuration.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: IE7 will also be released for automatic installation via the "Automatic Updates" feature of Windows beginning on Wednesday, November 1. If IE7 gets installed via Automatic Updates it will remove IE6 from the user's machine. According to Microsoft documentation a user will be able to roll back to IE6 by using Add/Remove Programs to remove IE7. But we do not know how easy it will be to get IE6 re-installed or if the prior IE6 settings would be restored. It is possible to block the automatic installation of IE7. If your want to block the automatic delivery of IE7 please have your PC technical support staff refer to the following page for more information:
www.microsoft.com/technet/updatemanagement/windowsupdate/ie7announcement.mspx.
Action: We have found some problems with using Internet Explorer 7 and People Soft and will be conducting more testing. Since there are many different organizations and they may handle windows updates differently the NDUS Help Desk suggests you contact your local Help Desk for further guidance. If you receive the option to install Internet Explorer 7 you can and should choose the option to "Ask Me Later" for the install.
October 11, 2006
Non-Employee Travel Policy
Finance Contacts:
UND is required to comply with NDCC 44-08-04 which states that "no elective or appointive officer, employee, representative, or agent of this state, or any of its subdivisions, agencies, bureaus, boards, or commissions, may willfully make claim upon, or willfully receive, any public funds for traveling expenses, while engaged upon public business, in an amount in excess of the allowed by law for such travel."
If UND is paying for in-state travel for a non-UND employee and the individual is a North Dakota state employee (employed by another ND state agency or university), the reimbursement rates are limited to the in-state travel rates. Previously, non-employees, including those employed by the state of North Dakota (non-UND employees) were reimbursed at non-employee travel rates.
Following are examples of these types of situations:
* An NDSU employee travels to UND for a business-related function and your department is reimbursing their mileage, lodging expenses and meals.
* A North Dakota Transportation Department employee presents a seminar on campus and your department reimburses them for their travel expenses.
In both examples, the rates for mileage, lodging and meals are limited to the in-state reimbursement rates (similar to UND employee in-state reimbursement rates).
Effective September 1, 2006, UND added a compliance acknowledgement to all vouchers and direct billing of lodging forms. When completing these forms, the department is required to check the box indicating whether the individual is a North Dakota state employee.
Please note that the account number to be used on vouchers and direct billing of lodging forms is 623200 - Non Employee Expenses.
Departments should obtain the most current version of the Voucher and Direct Billing of Lodging forms from the Accounting Services website: http://www.und.edu/dept/accounts/forms.html
(the date indicated behind the link is the last time the form was updated).
Reference: NDCC 44-08-04
UND Non-Employee Travel Policy
The instructions for verifying vendors against the Debarred & Suspended Parties list has been updated. The new instructions can be found on the Purchasing website at:
http://www.und.nodak.edu/dept/purchase/docs/eplsdebarredvendor.pdf
If you should have any questions, please contact Vicki in the Purchasing office at 7-2682 or at vickivonharz@mail.und.nodak.edu
September 29, 2006
GE Purchasing Card
Finance Contacts:
The conversion from Elan to GE was a success. However, due to some conversion issues at GE, the Purchasing Card transactions that you have made since conversion have not posted against your funds. You may have already received a statement from GE for the purchases you've already
made. If not, you will be receiving one shortly, provided you made purchases in September. Please submit your Purchasing Card Record as you normally would based upon the statement from GE. We hope to have this matter resolved soon.
September 11, 2006
Credit Card Offers
Department Heads & Finance Contacts:
Departments should disregard/destroy any credit card offers from vendors (Example: Target, MilesOne Business Platinum Visa, Sears, and Lowes Home Improvement Stores). Department personnel are not authorized to enter into any credit card agreements that are not administered by UND.
UND only supports the “MasterCard” Purchasing Card and the “Visa” Travel Card.
To obtain a Purchasing Card:
Contact Janelle McGarry, Purchasing 7-3881
Submit to Purchasing, the Purchasing Card Application Form (located at
http://www.und.nodak.edu/dept/purchase/index.html select “Forms”)
Attend a REQUIRED Purchasing Card training session PRIOR to receiving
your Purchasing Card
Thank you,
Scott Schreiner, Purchasing &
Allison Peyton, Accounting Services
August 31, 2006
Non-Employee Travel Policy Revisions
UND is required to comply with NDCC 44-08-04 which states that "no elective or appointive officer, employee, representative, or agent of this state, or any of its subdivisions, agencies, bureaus, boards, or commissions, may willfully make claim upon, or willfully receive, any public funds for traveling expenses, while engaged upon public business, in an amount in excess of the allowed by law for such travel." If UND is paying for in-state travel for a North Dakota State Employee (excluding UND employees), the rates will be limited to the in-state lodging and per diem rates. Previously, North Dakota State Employees were reimbursed at the non-employee rates.
Effective September 1, 2006, UND will add a compliance acknowledgment to all vouchers and direct billing of lodging forms. The department is required to check the box indicating whether the individual is a North Dakota State Employee (excluding UND employees). The account number on vouchers and direct billing of lodging forms is 623200 - Non Employee Expenses.
Departments should obtain the most current version of the Voucher and Direct Billing of Lodging forms from the Accounting Services website: http://www.und.edu/dept/accounts/forms.html (the date indicated behind the link is the last time the form was updated).
Reference: NDCC 44-08-04
UND Non-Employee Travel Policy
The following forms have been revised and are now available on the Payroll website. Please request revised New Hire Packets, rather than using old packets with the old forms.
JOB DATA HIRE FORM: Campus Address has been removed from the Personal Data form and added to the Job Data Hire form. Please complete the campus address for the employee like you would on the Campus Update screen. Descriptions of each address line have been added to the form, so you know what is expected in each line. Be sure that you use the street address of the building where they work, with the Stop #.
PERSONAL DATA FORM: Campus address has been removed from this form. New section has been added, where the employee chooses whether or not they want their home address and telephone number to be listed in the printed Faculty/Staff/Student directory. This decision can be changed at a later date, if written notice is sent to Payroll, prior to the deadline for the next directory.
ADDITIONAL PAY FORM: A new option has been added to change the funding source of a multiple Additional Pay. (You will no longer have to terminate a multiple pay, recalculate and submit a new additional pay form with a new funding source.) Complete the form exactly like the initial form that you sent and check the box at the top that says "Funding Change". Enter an Effective date that you want the change to take effect. Effective dates must always be at the beginning of a pay period and are based on the pay period, not pay dates. Check the "Funding Change" box at the bottom and enter the new funding source. Multiple funding sources still require multiple forms.
If you have any questions regarding completion of these forms, please contact the Payroll Office.
August 1, 2006
EmplID's for New Faculty and Staff
Department Head, HRMS Contact and Finance Contact:
As the new academic year approaches, requests have been received from several departments asking that EmplID's be created in advance for new faculty coming on in August. After considerable discussion, it has been determined that the only valid way to assign a new employee an EmplID, whether faculty or staff, is by providing the personal and job data necessary to hire the person in PeopleSoft. With the EmplID, new employees are able to obtain their ID card, keys to offices/buildings, parking permit, GroupWise and U Mail accounts; to access the Chester Fritz Library; to apply for UND housing; to be listed as an instructor in the class schedule; and to procure other essentials to get established on campus.
The Job Data Hire form and all of the "mandatory" forms in the New Employee Packet provide the necessary personal and job data needed to generate the EmplID in PeopleSoft. These forms with necessary signatures should be submitted to the Payroll Office as soon as possible. In addition, a signed contract form for faculty should be submitted to the Vice President for Academic Affairs (VPAA) office. Once the documents are received, every effort will be made by staff in the Payroll and HR offices to enter the data promptly in order to generate the EmplID. When you submit these forms for the purpose of obtaining an "early" EmplID, please highlight the effective date so they are prioritized correctly and provide the name and telephone number of a person to contact if questions arise. If you have questions when you are preparing to submit the forms, please contact Anita in Payroll at 7-4890 or Cheryl in HR at 7-4370.
Greg Weisenstein, VPAA and Provost
Peggy Lucke, Connect'U'ND
July 27, 2006
Dues and Memberships on Visa Purchasing Card
Finance Contacts:
Effective July 1, 2006, UND departments may now charge Dues and Memberships on the Visa Purchasing Card. Departments will still need to follow University of North Dakota policies in regards to Dues and Memberships. Please refer to the Dues and Memberships Policy at Accounting Services website, http://www.und.edu/dept/accounts/duesmemberships.html
Departments will need to submit the invoices for Dues and Memberships on their Visa Purchasing Card Record forms.
July 13, 2006
New Forms for Disbursing Student Awards
Academic & Finance Contacts:
All award payments to students are disbursed through the financial aid system with the exception of multiple payments in a semester (i.e. weekly, monthly, etc). The Student Financial Aid Office has developed new online forms for departments to request and remit award payments to students. ALL student payments/awards must be reported to the Student Financial Aid Office using the new forms. With the exception of the multiple payment awards, the submission of these forms will also issue a payment to the student. You will not have to complete a Voucher as well. Multiple payment awards will require the online form as well as a Voucher submitted to Peggy Pazderic for every payment to be issued.
The new online forms can be found on the Student Financial Aid office at www.financialaid.und.edu. Follow the link on the left menu for Forms: For UND Staff Use Only.
You will need to use the appropriate form for the type of payment you are making to the student. One form was developed for the payment of tuition/fees. Another form covers other expenses (housing, living expenses, books, etc.).
June 23, 2006
General Reminders on Reconciling Funds
Finance Contacts:
Here are a few reminders for you as you reconcile your funds:
NEVER use a DEPARTMENT NUMBER when running reports on your local funds (fund range 00001 thru 29999).
ALWAYS use the DEPARTMENT NUMBER with the fund number when running reports or inquiries on appropriated funds (fund range 30000 thru 39999).
The General Ledger Activity Report can be used in conjunction with the Budget Transaction Detail Report to monitor the activity on your funds. However, the balances and transactions from the GL Activity report should be used to balance/reconcile your funds. The Budget Transaction Detail report should be used only as a tool to assist you in identifying transactions posting to your funds, as this report provides more information on the transaction than the GL Activity.
Don't forget to utilize the Connect'U'ND website. There are a number of tip sheets and job aids there to help you run reports, inquiries, and etc. http://www.und.edu/cnd/HTML/FinanceMain.htm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A hands-on look:
Within the Office of Finance & Operations, we have both an appropriated fund and a local fund. Detailed below are the reports and steps that I take EACH month at the beginning of the month to reconcile our funds.
Budgets Overview (year-to-date) - use this inquiry to 1) review expenses year to date; and 2) review remaining budget balance.
Budgets Overview (month-to-date) - use this inquiry to review expenses month to date.
General Ledger Activity (by period) - use this report to identify transactions posting to the General Ledger for the month being reconciled. Compare the total expenditure amount to the Budgets
Overview (by month) amount. These should be the same. Pull the back-up documentation for each transaction. Back-up documentation includes, HRMS Gross & Fringe Reports, Vouchers, Departmental Billings (Mailing, Duplicating, Printing Center, Telecom, & etc.). EVERY transaction posting to your fund should have back-up documentation.
If you prefer to use the Budget Transaction Detail report, be sure to use it in conjunction with the General Ledger activity.
Trial Balance - use this report to reconcile the cash balance in your fund against the budget balance in your fund. You will not be able to reconcile the cash in your appropriated fund. You can and should
reconcile the cash in your local fund.
BE SURE TO USE YOUR DEPARTMENT NUMBER ON APPROPRIATED FUNDS.
HRMS Gross & Fringe Report - use this report to reconcile payroll to the General Ledger. This report can also be used to monitor the funds in each position.
I hope these tips are helpful as we begin preparing for the end of fiscal year 2006.
June 15, 2006
Deposits at the Business Office
Finance Contacts:
General Reminders when making deposits at the Business Office:
All Accounts must begin with a "4."
Exceptions include:
Departments with approval to make deposits using Account 224002.
Departments with approval to make deposits to Accounts beginning with a "5" (Grants & Contracts, Accounting Services, and Associate VPFO).
Departments with approval to make deposits using Account 521105 (Athletics).
The Cash Account, 105251, cannot be used for deposits.
Deposits to Budget Accounts (ending with three zeros - ex. 460000) will not be accepted, no exceptions.
Deposits to Account 460001 are no longer permitted. Unless you have received prior authorization from the Controller's Office, departmental deposits to this Account will be denied.
Deposits are not permitted on appropriated Funds (3XXXX), unless you have received prior authorization.
June 7, 2006
Submitting Multiple Process Instances Using The Same Run Control
Finance Contacts:
The following message is from the ConnectND Project staff:
Over the last couple of days, as our technical staff looked into reports of blocked processes, and processes that seemed to stay queued a long time, they noticed another issue which we want to remind you of.
In several cases, individual users had multiple processes submitted under the same run control. In one case, one user had 29 budget reports queued using the same run control, and in another case, a
different user had 15.
Please remember that when the same run control is used for the same process, but parameters like fund, dept, etc., are changed, when the process runs, it will use the most recent changes to the run
control. So,in the cases above, if the reports had not been cancelled, and had been allowed to run, the first user would have received 29 identical reports and the second 15.
To avoid this issue, either wait until the first process is complete before changing the run control and submitting the next process, or set up separate run controls for different combinations of data. In
some cases, you may also be able to run the reports for a range of funds or projects rather than specific values for some criteria.
June 7, 2006
Processes Blocked in Finance Production
Finance Contacts:
The following message is from the ConnectND Project staff:
Over the last couple of days, many of you have reported that you've submitted processes and the Run Status is "Blocked".
The "blocked" message occurs when a process is set to only allow a certain number of instances of that process to be running simultaneously. Generally, this number is set at one or two. This setting prevents processes that make heavy use of commonly used tables from competing with each other and essentially locking out all other activity in the system. While the message you receive when a
process is blocked indicates that the problem can be resolved by increasing the number of processes that can run at the same time, the reality is that increasing the number only exacerbates the problem.
When you have a process that has a run status of "Blocked", it will change to "Queued" and then eventually run once the processes of that type currently running have completed.
May 2, 2006
UND Travel
Department Heads, Finance & Academic Contacts:
Effective April 24, 2006:
Recently, Northwest Airlines introduced Coach Choices Paid Seat Assignment. For a non-refundable fee of $15.00 per segment, customers can confirm reserved aisle and exit row seats at nwa.com or at a Northwest self-service, check-in kiosk 24 hours prior to departure.
UND policy considers the seat assignment fee to be an expense associated with a "personal preference" and is not reimbursable by UND. UND policy states that employees may be reimbursed for the actual airfares for coach and Super Saver fare rates only. Any seat assignment fees are the responsibility of the traveler and should be paid personally and not charged to the UND Travel Card. Any questions, please contact Accounting Services @ 7-4131.
May 2, 2006
Insurance
Department Heads & Finance Contacts:
In a February 6, 2006 memo from Campus Safety & Security, the campus community was directed to purchase liability and collision/comprehensive insurance provided by rental car agencies when renting in foreign countries and in Florida, Alaska, Hawaii, California. Problems have been created by this communication as it relates to travel expense reimbursement.
For that reason, Campus Safety & Security has reviewed this insurance directive from the North Dakota Risk Management Division and have determined that it is NOT a requirement, but rather a recommendation. Unfortunately, the recommendation doesn't work well for UND. For that reason, effective immediately:
* When renting a vehicle in a foreign country: Purchase only the liability insurance offered by the rental agency.
* When renting a vehicle in the USA: DO NOT PURCHASE insurance of any kind. The coverage is through the State of North Dakota Risk Management Fund, Risk Management Division, 1600 East Century Ave, Ste 4, Bismarck ND 58503; phone (701) 328-7581. If you have damage to a rental car, contact Campus Safety & Security as soon as possible at (701) 777-3341 or fax the information to (701) 777-4132.
April 24, 2006
Barnes & Noble charges
Department Heads & Finance Contacts:
Effective May 1, 2006, departmental charges at Barnes & Noble University Bookstore will need to be made on the Visa Purchasing Card. The old Bookstore charge cards will no longer be used.
Departments will be provided with the original invoice at the time of sale. This invoice will need to be attached to the Visa Purchasing Card Record Form that is sent to Accounting Services. The Bookstore will not have a copy of the invoice so if the original is lost, the Bookstore will not be able to provide you with a copy.
April 24, 2006
Student Employment Presentation - New Hire Grid
Click on the links below for a copy of the Powerpoint presentation that was presented at the Student Employment Workshop last week. This presentation includes the screen shots that would not display at the time.
Updated New Hire Guide: Changes have been made as to where to submit HRMS paperwork for Institutional Employees. A signature section has been added at the bottom, to explain what HR/Payroll signatures are required.
Updated Student Employment Transition Grid: If you did not attend the Student Employment Presentation, please read - there have been substantial changes, which will reduce the amount of paperwork that departments have to prepare for students that will continue to work during the summer as temporary, part-time employees.
Here is a list of queries in Finance you may find useful:
Inventory:
NDU_AM20 Inventory by Department by Tag #
Accounts Payable:
NDU_AP12 Vouchers Paid on Journal ID
NDU_AP36 Payments by Vendor #
NDU_GL53 Vouchers Paid Under a Given Account
Purchasing:
NDU_PO10 Purchase Order Detail by Department
NDU_PO14 Purchase Order Detail by Project
NDU_PO15 Purchase Order Detail by Fund
Chart of Accounts:
NDU_GL15 List of Accounts
NDU_GL16 List of Departments
NDU_GL17 List of Funds
NDU_GL18 List of Programs
NDU_GL19 List of Projects
NDU_GL48 List of Valid Budget Fund/Dept/Project Combinations
If a vendor requests a vendor credit application be completed or requests credit references, departments should not complete the forms or sign the application. University Departments are not authorized to sign credit applications or provide credit reference/banking information to the vendor.
Departments should forward these requests to Accounting Services, Box 8356, along with:
* Vendor Name
* Vendor Address
* Phone Number
* Fax Number
* Contact Name
Accounting Services will provide the required information to the vendors.
If you have any questions, please contact Accounting Services at 7-4855.
Departments should disregard/destroy any credit card offers from vendors (Example: Target, MilesOne Business Platinum Visa, Lowes Home Improvement Stores). Department personnel are not authorized to enter into any credit card agreements that are not administered by UND.
UND only supports the Visa Purchasing Card and the UND Travel Card.
To obtain a Visa Purchasing Card:
>Contact Kathie Howes, Accounting Services, 7-2915
>Submit to Accounting Services, the Purchasing Card Application Form
(located at http://www.und.edu/dept/accounts/ select "Forms")
>Attend a REQUIRED Visa Purchasing Card training session PRIOR to receiving their Visa Purchasing Card
December 30, 2005
Car Rental Insurance Update
Department Heads & Finance Contacts:
The University has insurance that provides all the insurance required by rental agencies for most areas. The coverage is through the State of North Dakota Risk Management Fund, Risk Management Division. If you will be renting a vehicle for University use in a foreign country (including Canada and Mexico ) or in Florida, Alaska, Hawaii, or California, the additional liability and collision/comprehension insurance provided by the rental agency must be purchased. This is due to the difficulty and high costs associated with defending claims in these locations. In states other than those listed, do not take the insurance coverage provided by the car rental agency. The coverage will be provided by the state Risk Management Fund.
December 20, 2005
Clarification to "Payments to Individuals" Memo
Finance Contacts:
UND strongly encourages the use of the UND Visa Purchasing card or direct payments to vendors using our voucher or purchase requisition system rather than a UND employee using their personal funds to purchase departmental supplies or services. Employee travel reimbursement via a Travel Expense Voucher is an exception.
If employees do not follow the purchasing procedures established and reimbursement is requested, the invoice/receipt must indicate balance due is zero. If the invoice/receipt provided for reimbursement does not indicate amount "paid" or balance due as zero, a canceled check (front and back) or credit card slip or statement is required to be attached. If a credit card statement is submitted, information not related to the reimbursement can be "hidden" with a black marker. Again, the credit card statement or canceled check is not required if the invoice/receipt indicates "paid".
In the future, UND is pursuing a policy to NOT reimburse sales tax on purchases of supplies or services by employees. This would be a cost savings to UND because purchases paid directly by UND are sales tax exempt. Student organizations would be exempt from any sales tax reimbursement policy because student organizations are not allowed to use the UND Purchasing card.
It is to the employee's advantage to use the UND Visa purchasing card, voucher or purchase requisition to make purchases because the use of an employee's personal funds are not required and it is a cost savings to UND and your department.
Email #122005-2
December 20, 2005
Improved PI Report
Department Heads & Finance Contacts:
The Principal Investigator (PI) report for sponsored programs has been improved and is now available for departmental use. The new version features the following changes:
Encumbrance journals are now included in the report balance.
The Facilities and Administration (Indirect Cost) rate now prints in the header of the report.
The Principal Investigator title and information is accurate for reports run by project level. Previously, regardless of whether the report was run by award or project, the PI information and Project Title were coming from the award. There is no change to the report when run by award, however, when it is run by project, the header of the report will contain both award PI information and project PI information.
The PI report combined with the query NDU_GM_PROJ_RES, which lists detailed transactions for a specified time frame, will provide similar information to what was furnished in Legacy.
Navigations for the reports in the PeopleSoft Finance Module are as follows:
PI Report:
Grants>Reports>NDUPiReport
Project Resource Query:
Reporting Tools>Query>Query Viewer.
Query Name is NDU_GM_PROJ_RES
Please call the Grants and Contracts Office at 7-4151 if you have any questions.
December 9, 2005
Payments to Individuals
Finance Contacts:
The following documentation is required when reimbursing individuals:
Detailed original invoice/receipt and the following:
* If paid by credit card, copy of credit card statement showing the
charge
* If paid by check, copy of the bank statement or canceled check
* If paid by cash, a notarized statement will be required.
The original detailed invoice is required for both individuals and companies. Faxed copies won't be accepted for payment unless the department provides justification for the faxed copy.
December 1, 2005
Remedy ticket of interest about the cursor
Question: Can the cursor for People Soft be changed to a block cursor, instead of a line cursor?
I looked in PeopleSoft to see if this is something you can set up just specifically there (Home > PeopleTools > Maintain Security > Use > My Profile). On that page you can see a hyperlink "Set
Personalizations." While there are many things there you can control, cursor width is not one of them. For all your applications, however, this can be changed by going to the Control Panel, clicking on the Accessibility Options icon, choosing the Display tab and under Cursor Options, adjusting the width.
All funding changes must be effective the first day of a pay period. Peoplesoft does not prorate funding for mid-period changes. So...
Question: How do I make a funding change in the middle of a pay period?
Answer: Submit a Position Funding form, with an effective date as of the beginning of the pay period. The funding should be prorated according to how it should be paid over the entire pay period. For
example: You want to change an employee's funding from Fund A to Fund B, effective November 7, 2005. Submit a Position Funding form with an effective date of November 1. Fund A should pay for 4 work days (November 1-4) and Fund B should pay for 7 work days (November 7-15). 4+7 = 11 total workdays this pay period. 4/11 = 36% for Fund A and 7/11 = 64% for Fund B. These are the percentages that you would enter on the Position funding form. Then you would submit another Position funding form effective November 16 and put 100% for Fund B. It is very important that you remember this second Position funding form, or the employee will continue to get paid on the prorated basis.
November 2, 2005
ND Vendor Registry
Department Heads & Finance Contacts:
The North Dakota Vendor Registry Office is now sending letters to vendors asking them to go to the North Dakota Vendor Registry website, complete a vendor application, and return it to the Vendor Registry Office. These letters are periodically sent by the State Vendor Registry Office so the information in the State Data Base can be verified as correct and accurate. Vendors will continue to receive these letters until they complete and return the vendor application.
Accounting Services would like to point out that the State Vendor Registry Office considers individuals to be "vendors" also. So individuals can and will be receiving these letters if they have received a reimbursement from UND or any other North Dakota State Agency.
If you should happen to get calls about these letters (some vendors/individuals may contact your department since you initiated their payments), please refer them to the email address or phone number that is listed in the Vendor Registry Letter.
Thank you.
Carl Iseminger
Accounting Services
Email #110205-1
October 14, 2005
Facilities System (Famis) Update
Department Head and Finance Contact:
The Facilities department has been live with Famis since July 1, 2005. We have been creating work orders and projects based on requests submitted by phone and project request forms submitted since then. In addition to the new requests, projects or standing work orders/job numbers that existed before July 1st in HECN were re-entered into Famis with the new PeopleSoft funding associated.
We have been charging labor, materials and services to these work orders/projects since July 1st, but due to interface and reporting delays have not been able to bill since 7/1/05. The interfaces have now
been written and tested and are working, but are still waiting to finalize the reports that would be used by your department to review the charges posted to your PeopleSoft funds. The reports should be
finalized within a week or two, but are not completed yet.
Once these reports are completed, the Facilities department will extract the charges, review for accuracy, and finally export the file to PeopleSoft. We are anticipating that you should see your first billing by the end of October. The plan is to run an export for each month - July, August and September. After the initial billing is up-to-date, we will be billing departments twice per month. It will most likely be the 3rd working day of the month after the payroll end date.
NEW REPORTS - DEPARTMENTAL ACCESS TO REPORTS:
The reports will no longer be sent to you as they have been in the past. The reports are being written using a program called Discoverer. Each department will have to have at least one person with access to Discoverer to request and print these reports. Attached is the Access Request Form for Discoverer Reports. Please complete that for your department and submit to Facilities, Box 9032, attn. Karen. After the export takes place for the first time, we will schedule times that we will be available to show you how to run the reports. It is a very simple process and we will get you more information on that in the near future.
October 14, 2005
Macintosh Users/PeopleSoft
Academic Contacts:
We have had reports from campus staff using Macintosh computers that they are experiencing a variety of problems in PeopleSoft. The following information comes from ITSS staff:
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PeopleSoft recommended minimum requirements:
Mac OS X version 10.3.4 or later.
Web Browsers: Safari 1.2, Netscape 7.x, Internet Explorer 5.x should also work.
FYI: Microsoft is no longer supporting IE on the Macintosh platform.
Version 5.2.3 is the last version released for Mac OS X.
Some of the problems reported by Macintosh users around the state include the browser timing out after only a few minutes, receiving authorization errors, and some text not displayed on the screen. So far, the only browser that seems to work correctly is Netscape version 7.2. We are currently working with PeopleSoft Support to find and correct the cause of the other browsers not working correctly.
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October 6, 2005
Principal Investigator Report
Department Heads & Finance Contacts:
Good news regarding the Principal Investigator Report:
The programming correction has been made so that the report will function for all projects including those where the grant award has been broken out into several projects. For those of you trying to manage grant projects, this report is a wonderful tool that was developed to closely resemble the Principal Investigator Fund Summary Report that was provided in Legacy. The report includes an as of date, so if you are just becoming aware of the report, you can run it for prior months.
Navigation in the PeopleSoft Finance module is as follows: Grants>Reports>NDU PI Report. You will need to establish a run control ID which I called "PI_Report." The Business Unit=UND01 and I always run the report by Project (such as UND0010000). Be sure to check the Sponsor Funding Report and put in an as of date which will control the time period for the current month expenditures column on the report.
Now the bad news:
It was just brought to our attention yesterday that an error still exists on the report. If you are running the report on a project that is part of a multi-project award, the budget and expenditures on the report will be correct, but the project title and Principal Investigator will print out for the controlling project. A remedy ticket marked 'Urgent' has been submitted.
If you have any questions on this report, please contact
Grants & Contracts Administration at 777-4151.
Email #100605-1
Sept. 1, 2005
Business Practices - Running Reports in PeopleSoft/Timing
Finance Contact:
This is a reminder regarding the timing of running reports in PeopleSoft Finance.
In the legacy system, Accounting Services generated and distributed month end departmental reports after they had determined that all transactions for that month had been processed, generally one week following the last working day of that month. In PeopleSoft, departments run their own general ledger and budget reports and are able to do so at any time.
Because reports can be run at any time, it is important we have consistent practices so departments understand what is included in their reports. Therefore, the following business practices have been
implemented:
1. Accounting Services will no longer back date transactions- the current date will be used for all transactions.
Who is impacted? Recharge centers and auxiliary units must have their journal entries and journal imports to Accounting Services one week prior to the last working day of the month to ensure that activity is reflected in that month.
2. A notice will go out to the Department Head and Finance Contact Listservs for each pay period advising when the HE Actuals, Gross and Fringe Reports, and Leave Accrual reports are available. In addition, there will be a second notice advising when the payroll journal has been posted, including the Commitment Control date which can be different than the general ledger date. [Payroll is not reflected in Commitment Control via Budgets Overview until it has been budget checked; it is not reflected in the general ledger via Trial Balance or General Reports until it has been posted].
Our goal is to have the payroll journal budget checked (reflected in Commitment Control (budget)) and posted to the general ledger by the pay date.
Your cooperation and support are much appreciated. Please submit any suggestions to financeandoperations@mail.und.nodak.edu .
August 12, 2005 Purchasing Office and Accounting Services -Memo: Debarred and Suspended Vendors
To: Department Heads/Department Support Staff
As stated in the July 8, 2005 memo from Sharon Berning and David Schmidt, UND has decentralized the review process for the Debarred and Suspended vendors list. UND implemented this policy on August 1, 2005. The department is responsible for reviewing the list and determining that the vendor submitted on the Requisition or Voucher is not Debarred or Suspended. All UND departments are required to be in compliance.
A compliance acknowledgement box has been added to the Requisition and Voucher. The department is required to check the box acknowledging they have reviewed the list and the vendor submitted is not debarred or suspended. Please visit the Purchasing website for complete instructions at http://www.und.nodak.edu/dept/purchase/html/Policies%20&%20Procedures.html#debarred
Purchase Requisitions and Payment Vouchers that do not have this box checked will be returned to the departments for verification so UND will be compliant with policy.
We would also like to remind departments that they should be regularly uploading the most current version of forms (the date indicated is the last time the form was updated) for both Purchasing and Accounting Services.
