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.
- 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.