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Expect Web Voucher Changes
and Improvements
Beginning March 3 top
The following is a summary of
changes to expect:
The ability to search for a reimbursee by their
HUID (employee ID number)
When creating a reimbursement,
users can now search for a supplier (reimbursee) by Employee
ID Number. This search will return only the specific individual
requested. It's also easier than searching by name, which requires
you to remember the supplier naming convention and spelling.
Here's how to do it:
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1
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On the Create Reimbursement screen,
click on the List of Values button located to the right
of the Supplier field.
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2
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In the List of Values screen, choose
Employee Number as your search parameter from the drop-down
list.
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3
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Enter the HUID in the third field and
click on Search.
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Click on the appropriate site for the supplier (reimbursee)
if more than one address is in the database.
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This functionality already exists
in the Approver List of Values. When searching for an approver,
the user can click on the List of Values button to the right
of the Approver field, and search by Employee Number.
New dialog box will make it easier to capture
the business purpose
All reimbursement, American Express
direct pay, and travel authorization vouchers require a business
purpose. Now, the Web Voucher user can click on the List of
Values icon to the right of the Business Purpose field and a
dialog box will open. You can enter, edit, or review the business
purpose with much more of the text visible. After entering or
editing the text in this box, click OK to save your changes.
Hint: The right mouse
button will allow you to cut, copy, and paste information between
fields. This is helpful to avoid retyping lengthy business purposes
into the Detailed Listing field, for example. Remember that
the limit is 240 characters.
"Copy Current" link provides a quick way to duplicate
vouchers
To expedite the voucher creation process,
several "Next Action" links are located across the bottom of
the voucher summary screen. A Copy
Current link has been added that lets you make an immediate
copy of the voucher you just created, without having to record
the voucher number and using the Copy Web Voucher feature.
Users can now delete previously approved web vouchers online
Occasionally a user will need to delete a
voucher that has been approved. Until now, the only way to do
this was by calling the Help Desk at 6-2001. Users may still
do this, but a better option is now available.
Approvers can now click on the Cancel Approved
Web Voucher link from the main menu, and enter the voucher
number. Once retrieved from the database, the approver confirms
that it is the right one, and cancels it.
Any type of voucher can be cancelled this
way, but there are two important restrictions on using this
feature. First, the approver requesting the cancellation online
must be the same person who approved the voucher. Second, the
cancellation must be done early enough in the process that the
voucher has not been "Quick-Matched" with an invoice for payment
by Central Accounts Payable.
Supplier search now available from Web Voucher main menu
Users may now search to see if a supplier
or reimbursee has been set up in the Master Vendor File before
attempting to create a voucher. Here's how:
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1
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Click on Supplier Search from the Web
Voucher main menu.
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2
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Enter the supplier name using the format
FIRSTNAME LASTNAME for individuals, or use the "contains"
search parameter with part of the supplier name. You can
also enter an Employee Number (HUID) to search for a Harvard
employee.
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3
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Click on Search. If the message "No
Matching Records Were Found" appears, verify that your
search criteria are correct.
If the supplier needs to be set up
in the Vendor Master File, please call Vendor Hotline
at 5-2000. Refer to Step 2 of this
ABLE document for the information required to set
up a new supplier.
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The ability to reprint vouchers now extended to all users
From time to time, users need to reprint a
previously submitted voucher. Although this reprint functionality
already exists for the Requisitioner (Creator) and Approver,
it is now available to those who have been forwarded or reassigned
a voucher. This will prove useful to "reviewers" (users who
did not create a voucher but need to review it before a third
user is asked to approve it) who need to reprint a previously
submitted voucher.
"Approver Unavailable" message
Approvers can now alert voucher creators that
they are out of the office and unavailable to approve submitted
vouchers. To establish an Approver Unavailable message, click
on Harvard Preferences from the WV User Preferences menu.
Enter an Absence Start Date and an Absence End Date, then click
Save.
Oracle will now display an absence message
during the period you are away. If you return earlier than anticipated,
simply change the Absence End Date field and save your changes.
Another key feature is the personalized Absence
Message, which you can use to to direct voucher creators to
an alternate approver during your absence.
There's a Really Little Project Going on:
Harvard's New Chart & Security Maintenance
Application Debuts March 17 top
While it may seem little in comparison with
the "Really Big" HR Project, a new tool to manage
Harvard's chart of accounts is solving a really big problem.
Harvard's 7-segment, 33-digit chart of accounts
has over 137,000 individual values, along with one million
related code combinations and 4,000 cross-validation rules.
Why is Harvard's chart of accounts so big?
Each funding source (endowment funds, gifts) and activity (research
projects, construction projects, courses) must be assigned a
unique chart value so it can be tracked, accounted for, and
reported on separately. In addition, Harvard needs to track
a large and ever-evolving collection of departments, faculty,
buildings, and the like.
Given this, the need for a powerful tool to
support the work of Harvard's 120 local chart administrators
(who submit 25,000 change requests annually) quickly becomes
evident. Fortunately, Saint Patrick's Day will mark the launch
of a new, custom-built University financial application: the
Chart & Security Maintenance Application (CSMA).
CSMA will be fully integrated with Oracle
financials, and in the coming months with the new Grants Management
Application Suite (GMAS). Initially, CSMA will be used by local
chart administrators to:
- submit online requests to add, modify,
disable, or re-enable non-sponsored chart values for key chart
segments
- manage their change requests, and
track their status through the process life cycle
- route change requests needing approvals
- submit high volume changes or groups
of similar change requests as a batch, and
- report on chart values for their
tub.
CSMA replaces the rudimentary, email-based
chart maintenance system that has been in use since 1999. It
provides powerful but easy-to-use features such as:
- "smart" prompts (called inter-field
dependencies), which guide users through the request process
in different ways depending on what they are trying to do
- pre-population of certain fields
based on earlier data choices in related fields to save keystrokes,
and
- data validation at the point of
entry to provide an immediate feedback loop and prevent errors.
The project is the culmination of an 18-month
collaboration between the FAD Applications Administration Department,
the Office of Administrative Systems, approving units in Central,
and local chart administrators. Key benefits that are anticipated
include:
- Improved efficiency: A quicker
turnaround for chart maintenance requests (loaded four times
daily rather than once per day), and easier routing and handoffs
between units in Central that approve chart changes.
- Better data integrity: The
ability to capture more accurate, prevalidated information
for each chart value.
- More system integration:
Approved, validated requests can be uploaded directly to Oracle;
the shared look and feel between CSMA and Oracle builds on
existing knowledge in the user community.
- New reports to better support
local chart administration, including:
- the Chart Hierarchy report,
which displays parent and child values in a hierarchical
view
- the Value Finder report,
which displays values within a range, noting any place
there is a gap
- the Cross Validation Rules
Translator report, which displays all values that
are allowed to be used based on CVR rules, and
- enhanced CoA Listing reports.
Released with the Oracle 11i upgrade, these reports now
contain additional report parameters such as local attributes,
fund purpose, balance forward or endowment type, budget-only,
interest rate type, etc.
Down the road, more modules and functionality
are planned to support local security administrators, who request
user access to University financial, HR, and reporting systems.
Now that CSMA's launch is close at hand, we
asked Applications Administration Manager Pat Hughes to take
a moment to reflect on the project.
"We are very pleased to be able to deliver
an application that provides a solution to problems that have
affected all of us: local chart administrators, chart approvers,
the GMAS team, and Applications Administration. The implementation
of CSMA, led by Lisa Malkasian of OAS and her technical team,
working with Cathy Lloyd and others in Applications Administration,
makes for a "win-win-win-win" situation.
"Feedback gathered from local chart
administrators and approvers during a recent CSMA preview
was very positive and encouraging. And my staff is overjoyed
at the prospect of not having to manually validate and load
all those chart values day in and out! They will be freed
up to spend more time on security and configuration maintenance
for PeopleSoft HR…you know….the Really BIG Project."
CSMA training classes have been scheduled
to coincide with the CSMA go-live. All requested users have
been provided a slot. However, if you have a question about
CSMA training, please call Cathy Lloyd of the Applications Administration
Department (6-0301) or Sue Eaton of FAD Training (5-8891).
FYI: How Harvard Recovers Overpayments
to Vendors top
Harvard's Web Voucher and Accounts Payable
systems use the vendor invoice number as a unique identifier
to control payment. If the invoice number has been paid before,
Oracle will not allow the FAD Accounts Payable department to
pay it again.
Despite this control, duplicate payments may
occur if a digit or letter is added to the invoice number (a
common practice for recurring utility bills, for example). If
the invoice number is changed by even one character, then entered
and approved locally in Web Voucher and sent to AP, it will
be paid.
Fortunately, AP uses an outside service provider
that specializes in identifying and recovering overpayments.
This company's software searches for same dollar amounts and
same or similar invoice numbers. When it identifies a possible
duplicate payment, the service provider examines the invoices
related to the payment.
If it appears that an overpayment has occurred,
the company sends a letter to the supplier with copies of the
invoices and a request for the supplier to examine the transaction.
If the supplier agrees that overpayment has occurred, they are
asked to issue a refund or credit memo (or to prove that they
have already done so).
The funds returned to Harvard (less the service
provider's fee) are then credited back to the original account
coding.
Helpful hint: Invoice numbers should
never be entered with "dots or dashes." Why? Adding a period
or hyphen to an invoice number greatly increases the risk of
an overpayment. On a fairly regular basis, an invoice will be
entered and approved in Web Voucher with punctuation, and subsequently
the same invoice will be entered and approved in Web Voucher
without punctuation. Because the invoice numbers are different,
the system will treat each occurrence as a unique number and
both invoices will be paid.
Dots and dashes can also cause problems when
the vendor enters the information in their receivable system,
thus causing re-billing and unnecessary time spent sorting through
what's already been paid.
Clarification made to the University's
Reimbursements Policy top
A clarification was made to the
Reimbursements: Travel and Non-Travel policy under Section
3 ("Timeliness of submitting/processing reimbursements")
exempting TAP reimbursements from the "60 day" receipt
policy.
The policy now states:
"Reimbursements for both travel and
non-travel expenses must be submitted within 60 days from
date of expenditure.
"Travel and non-travel reimbursements
submitted after 60 days from date of the expenditure require
Financial Dean (or equivalent) approval/signature and written
explanation of extenuating circumstances for exception to
policy.
"Note: This policy does not apply to
Tuition Assistance Plan (TAP) reimbursements."
Release 11i User Satisfaction Survey top
In early December, we implemented
a major upgrade to the 11i version of the Oracle financial
applications including Web Voucher, General Ledger, Accounts
Receivable, Accounts Payable, Budget Tool, AWS2, and HUDINI.
Please take a few minutes
to complete this
survey to provide feedback on the upgrade process and
the features delivered. We will provide a summary of the results
from this survey in a future edition of the e-News. Thank
you in advance for taking the time to share your views on
the process and the results.
e-News for Users of the PeopleSoft HR
and Payroll Systems top
Please follow
this link for news of interest to users of Harvard's HR
and Payroll systems.
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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