Comm Team I meeting

February 23, 2004; 11-12:20

MINUTES

 

Present:

Amy Connell (guest), Anna Bloch, Karen May (IT-NSS; for absent Chris Murphy), Dee Smith, Linda Somers, Tim Miller, Ellen Lepine, Peggy Bottorff (minutes), Rachel Strickland, Julie Burton, Ginger Knutsen, Eileen Prazniak, Paul Anderson, Al Fanjoy, Chris Cook, Dave McCarren, Steve Grasson, Lisa Huber

 

Peggy reminded all of purpose of the meeting:

·        Amy had said she’d like to update the comm. team on the status of the project from GA’s perspective, and listen to our concerns and challenges.

·        We (comm. team) have some requests regarding communication of important financial information.

 

 

Amy Connell shared General Accounting perspective/learnings:

She acknowledges it has been bumpy transition for campus; it has been for GA also.

 

Late in F03, they were backwashing legacy into PeopleSoft and ticking and tying.

 

In F04, they take legacy code batches through a “frontwash” – this creates PS journal.

GA edits this journal and posts. (Only exception is AP which is generated truly “live” in PS.) There were many problems, e.g. AP generating dates that were outside GA dates.

 

Other big challenges:

  • the tables in the Reporting instance.  They said “show all actuals,” but AP details aren’t in actuals so all of this was missed.  Other table problems

 

  • need to do something with encumbrances.  There is a group still looking at this; currently, PO encumbrances are in transaction table but Journal ID is blank for those rows.

 

  • Project-to-Date data.

 

  • Assets and Liabilities – some issues with PS Accounts

 

January:  feel that the PS system was fairly stabilized.

 

Suspense entries are created when something comes in the frontwash and the Purpose can’t be found.  This is not so bad. Data in PS appears to be pretty good – only $15,000 in suspense at end of January.  Anna said there are only 3 or 4 people going into suspense and they are all cleared before pay is run.

 

Legacy suspense is $35MM – very large – this is a big problem.  Some causes:

 

  • If an item is created in suspense in PS, when it is backwashed into legacy it also goes into suspense.

 

  • Account code is inactive in legacy, when it goes through backwash, it will suspense.

 

  • Some legacy processing rules were:  if you have a revenue account, you can’t use an expense object code, and vice versa.  A lot of those rules were changed in PeopleSoft – and now in the backwash there are problems.  PS lets you use revenue or expense PS accounts in a 20, for example – but this bounces in backwash to legacy.  Same issue with 1-book.

 

  • Other 8-book issues particular to 8-book (Source needs to be from specific list of valid options)

 

  • Highest priority in clearing legacy suspense is now 4 and 3-book.  (they know that majority of issues affecting 1- and 2-book relates to the processing rules)

 

§         Two options being explored for this.

1.      dropping the processing rules in legacy

2.      going back and changing all the problematic entries so that they will flow into legacy

 

Other issue:

  • Peggy – no budget FTEs showed up for any Marine Studies faculty with alpha class numbers in legacy.

 

Why are we keeping legacy?

  • Amy:  primary reason is indirect cost/grants
  • Chris C voiced concern – if there’s $35MM in suspense in the system where we’re calculating IDC, IDC might be very far off; expenses are not being billed
  • Peggy voiced concern:  without legacy UDCheck does not work. Also, need legacy to do historical reporting.  Purpose and Account have not yet been added to warehouse.

 

Comm Team requests/comments:

  • Nice to have data update table – Peggy handed out rough draft of what it might look like
  • Statement explanations:  GA website has for OPBAS and OPSS; need one for OPBAL.  Also, OPBAS and OPSS would benefit from being updated to reflect how statement looks now (three tabs) and also to include key info like:  trans with blank journalID isn’t a real expense (and isn’t in your balance)

 

Anna – ongoing challenge with PS:  always new patches and fixes

 

FOLLOW-UP

  • Amy:  ask units to let GA know about items that don’t reconcile between Legacy and PS, especially if it doesn’t fall into one of the categories she mentioned
  • Steve Grasson is on the SIS selection team:  comm. team asked him to take back to Joe DiMartile that it might be a good idea to include people from HR and GA in the selection (too late?) and implementation process so they can learn from experience.
  • Chris C offered time of people in her college (ENG) to help sort out the suspense issue, esp. as it relates to how IDC is (or isn’t) being charged.  Julie B has offered time from people in CANR.
  • Statement explanations being updated – Amy open to them being updated; she asks the comm. team for help with this – comm. team will revise the two that are out there and work on one for OPBAL.  Peggy to schedule working session.
  • GA continue to work on clearing 3-book and 4-book suspension, as top priority; the 8-book, then 1-book and 2-book.  Amy will let us know what the amount of net suspense is in each ‘book’ with caveat that a small net suspense may mask large positive and negative issues.
  • Data update:  no commitment for anything except what is happening now:  e-mail from Amy when a problem is known; if no news, assume PS is right.