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New Direct Deposit Form top
A new, simplified direct
deposit form has been developed to make it easier for any
employee to start or stop a direct deposit to one bank account.
Requesting more complicated transactions, such as splitting
deposits between multiple accounts or banks, must be done with
a PeopleSoft, ASPERIN, or Wasabi form.
Although it can be used by any employee, the
form was developed with student and other temporary employees
in mind. During the early months of PeopleSoft stabilization,
student payroll problems were exacerbated by checks being sent
to the "Primary Office Address" of each worker, Harvard's standard
business practice. For students with multiple concurrent jobs,
the primary office address may not be at the department where
the student is working in a given week, thus causing confusion
and extra time spent tracking down the check.
Asking students to get on direct deposit will
ensure that pay and reimbursements from all Harvard jobs are
deposited directly to the student's account. We strongly urge
departments to include the new direct deposit form in their
student hiring procedures.
Pay Transition Balance Report top
A new report has been developed to help local
payroll and HR offices determine the amount that terminating
employees still owe on the nine-day advance that was given to
biweekly paid employees on January 10, 2003 to help with the
pay transition.
The Pay Transition Balance Report shows the
original amount of the advance, the balance paid, and the balance
remaining. Users will be able to run the report by EmplID (HUID)
only; the report can be run on multiple EmplIDs, if desired,
but cannot be run for entire departments or subdepartments.
The report is available in the PeopleSoft
OLTP to Payroll Reports Users via the following navigational
path: Compensate Employees > Manage Payroll Process > Report
2 > Pay Transition Balance (HU).
General Ledger Posting Improvements top
Several technical improvements have been made
to the process by which payroll is posted to the General Ledger.
As a result, these transactions will be in the GL the day after
the payroll process is completed.
For instance, the weekly and biweekly payrolls
are always run on a Tuesday with a pay date of Friday. The transactions
should now be posted to the GL by Wednesday or, at the latest,
Thursday. This will allow even more timely reporting and management
of payroll expenses.
PeopleSoft OLTP Reports Now Available in CSV top
In addition to .pdf, PeopleSoft OLTP reports
can now be run in the comma separated variable (CSV) format
whenever CSV is available as an option on the drop-down list.
To access a report in the CSV format from the Report/Log Viewer:
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Highlight the file with the .csv file
extension name.
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Right mouseclick and Save to Target.
The file will now open as an Excel spreadsheet.
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You may need to adjust the data so
it lines up under the the correct column headings.
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For those continuing to use the .pdf format,
the output can be viewed in Adobe Acrobat, printed, or saved
as a .pdf file. Once saved, the Text tool feature of Adobe Acrobat
will allow the text to be manipulated or extracted from the
report.
Recent Time and Labor Improvements top
A number of improvements to the PeopleSoft
Time and Labor system have recently (or will soon be) put into
production. Here's a summary:
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Improvement
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Description
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Timekeepers can enter hours only for
jobs in their groups
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There has been a lot of confusion and
cross-reporting of hours for employees with multiple concurrent
jobs (especially student temps). As of March 1, Timekeepers
will be able to report time only for jobs within
their Time and Labor groups.
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Payable status will display correctly
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Adjustment and subsequent approval to
a prior week's previously paid time has been resetting
all previously paid time to "Approved." As of Friday,
February 14, this was corrected and the appropriate payable
status displayed.
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information available about prior period adjustments |
In the spirit of "wish it was spring" cleaning, now is
a good time to do a clean sweep and approve or readjust
prior period adjustments that may be sitting in the Time
and Labor system, awaiting your attention.
For approvers, the Prior Period Adjustment screen will
show all adjustments needing your approval. Unfortunately,
this screen does not display the date associated with
the adjustment. Fortunately, this information is available
via Manager > View Payable Time Detail. You can also get
help understanding and eliminating any prior period adjustment
backlog you have by calling the Help Desk at 6-2001.
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Time and Labor Hint:
Always Enter Time as a Positive Number top
When reporting time, remember to always enter
hours as positive numbers, whether the time represents time
worked or time taken off. The system will "do the math" automatically.
If negative numbers are used (for example, recording four hours
of comp time taken as -4 CMPT), the Time Administration process
will not run properly and your transactions will be rejected.
Update on FAD Payroll Reorganization top
As many people know, the Payroll department
in Financial Administration is being reorganized to better serve
the University community. Rather than continuing to assign staff
to different employee groups and departments, there will be
three functional groups created for payroll operations, employee
information and personnel action processing, and customer service.
They will work across all employee groups and departments.
Local payroll administrators are asked to
route calls to Payroll through the UIS Help Desk at 6-2001,
while any employee can continue to report a paycheck problem
by calling the Paycheck Hotline at 5-3001.
Here's what you need to know to help Payroll
serve you better.
- We have now centralized the receipt
of incoming personnel action forms at the front desk in Holyoke
358. All incoming forms are date-stamped, prioritized, and
processed on a first-come, first-served basis. This will make
it easier to manage workflow, monitor the backlog, and retrieve
problem forms.
- Don't batch forms. Submit them to Payroll
as you complete them. We are analyzing volumes and rhythms
of work so that we can manage workload better and reduce cycle
time.
- If there are multiple forms for one person,
staple these together with the primary action on top. It's
not required to include a note explaining the order in which
the actions should be done, but it wouldn't hurt.
Note: Administrators at Schools with
local systems (e.g., FAS, HMS, SPH) should continue to follow
local procedures regarding routing and submission of personnel
actions.
e-News for Users of Harvard's Financial Applications top
Please follow
this link for additional news of interest to users of the
financial applications.
About the e-News
top
The Financial Administration
publishes this semimonthly electronic newsletter for users of
Harvard University's financial, HR, and reporting systems, policies,
and procedures. Generally, the e-News is published on or around
the 12th and 26th of each month.
It contains:
- updates on projects underway to build
or improve University administrative systems;
- information about new University
policies, procedures, and forms;
- reminders about upcoming deadlines
and cut-over dates;
- tips and tricks for working more
easily or productively.
We welcome questions and
suggestions for improvement from readers. If your questions
are of general interest, we will answer them in future issues.
Please send comments, questions,
or suggestions for improvement by email to us at: fad_communications@harvard.edu
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