May 16 2005 previous issue back issues index by topic e-News home Contact us at: admin_systems_enews@harvard.edu Or via the UIS Helpdesk, 6-2001 The Administrative Systems e-News is a monthly electronic newsletter for users of Harvard's financial, human resources, and reporting systems. Click the links below to learn more about ... Schedule announced for FY05 financial closings Fiscal year-end reporting tips Summary schedule for FY05 transactions and reporting (includes a printer-friendly version) Whom to call list for closings Change to exempt Temps and LHTs Job code updates based on student status delayed until July 3 HIRES reminder About the e-News

Schedule announced for FY05 financial closings      top

Overview

Harvard's fiscal year 2005 will end on Thursday, June 30. As in the past, we will close the books through a series of steps called "closings."

In the paragraphs that follow, you will find closing deadlines and submission information for the following financial transactions (click on a transaction to jump to that section of the e-News):

• Accounts Payable web vouchers
  • Petty cash fund settlement
  • New vendor setup
• Credit vouchers (cash receipts)
• Credit vouchers (validated deposit slips)
• Massachusetts taxable sales deposits
• Foreign check deposits on credit vouchers
• Voided checks
• Stopped checks
• Foreign currency drafts and wires
• U.S. wire transfers
• Purchasing Card sweeps
• Web Voucher Travel Authorization Forms (WV-TAFs)
• Web Voucher expense reports (WebEx)
  • WebEx reports with advance settlements
• Central Accounts Receivable billings
• Journal entries
• Interdepartmental billings
• Cost transfer requests on sponsored funds
• Chart of Accounts maintenance requests

The deadlines provided are the last allowable dates to submit transactions.

Note that these are the Office of the Controller deadlines. Since some departments have internal deadlines that differ from these, you should check with your department's financial office to obtain any departmentally defined deadlines.

Reporting tips are also included in this e-News. We expect exceptional reporting demands during the year-end closings. Following our suggestions on reporting will reduce the time required to run your reports.

Journal Entries

Please keep in mind the following:

• The University is closed on Monday, July 4 for the holiday. Therefore, there will be no journal vouchers posted to the General Ledger or recorded in the Data Warehouse on that day. Thus, any journals entered in the system after 6:30 p.m. on Friday, July 1 until 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 5 will be posted to the General Ledger on Tuesday, July 5 and available in the Data Warehouse on Wednesday, July 6.
  
  
• For the first, second, and third closings, from Monday through Thursday, any feeds or manual journals for the month of June will be posted to the General Ledger at 6:30 p.m. Therefore, journals must be entered by 6:30 p.m. in order to be posted and recorded in the Data Warehouse for the next day. (The one exception is July 4, when the University is closed.)
  
  
• Note that any June journals entered on Friday after 9 a.m. during the first and second closings will not be posted until the following Monday at 6:30 p.m. and will be in the Data Warehouse on Tuesday. Any June journals entered after Friday, July 22 at 5 p.m. will be deleted.

• Be careful to select the proper period (JUN-05 or JUL-05) when you are entering a journal. Beginning July 1, the default period will be JUL-05. If you want to post a journal to FY2005 during July, 2005 you will need to select JUN-05 as the proper period.
  
  
• Entries may not be processed to another tub after the second closing without authorization from the financial office of the tub being charged. Individuals processing journals have personal responsibility to ensure they follow this requirement.
  
  
• A journal should only be reversed by the person who created the journal, or with the permission of that person.
  
  
• Based upon departmental activity and the reports you run through the month of May, please make any necessary adjustments as early in June as possible.
  
  
  

Interdepartmental billings

• All interdepartmental billings – whether entered manually or via a feed to the General Ledger – must be processed by the end of the second closing. (GL billing feeds are generally submitted by service centers like UIS and UOS.) An interdepartmental billing journal may be processed in the third closing only if permission has been obtained from the financial office of the tub being charged.
  
  
• A journal should only be reversed by the person who created the journal, or with the permission of that person. Interdepartmental billings should provide a name and contact number on the journal for questions or concerns the tub being billed may have.
  
  
  

Cost transfer requests

• These dates apply to ALL requests for cost transfers to federally sponsored funds (funds in the range from 100000-199999). Note that these requests may require supporting documentation.
  
  
• Cost transfer requests should be submitted directly to OSR. OSR will review the request and any necessary documentation for appropriateness. OSR will then enter the cost transfer journals into the General Ledger. Note that OSR only enters cost transfer journals during the year-end closing process.
  
  
  

Chart of Accounts maintenance requests

Disable Requests:
June 7 (MAY-05 close) is the last date that values will be disabled in FY2005. Any CSMA requests not successfully disabled on June 7 will be held until the JUL-05 close on Wednesday, August 10.

Requests to disable CoA values that require approval should be submitted through CSMA before 5 p.m. on Tuesday, May 24. Disable requests that do not require approval should be submitted through CSMA before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, June 7.

Add / Modify / Re-enable Requests:
Requests to add, modify, or re-enable CoA values submitted through CSMA will be processed according to the normal daily schedule (7 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday - Friday) throughout year-end. CSMA requestors wishing to specifically designate for the JUN-05 period any CoA changes entered from July 1 through August 10 (the date of the July close) should enter 30-JUN-2005 as the effective date for their request.

Fiscal year-end reporting tips      top

The Financial Reporting support team has created a web page that provides a central place for AWS2, HUDINI, and financial ad hoc users to get information on fiscal year-end reporting. Click here to access the page (on the Office of the Controller website).

We expect exceptional reporting demands during the year-end closings. Following these suggestions on reporting will reduce the time required to run your reports.

• Schedule your closing reports to run over the weekend whenever possible. HUDINI and AWS2 offer the option of running reports immediately or at a later date:

• If you would like closing results, closing periods will be available as selections in the Detailed Listing reports. You will be able to choose the specific close (First Close, Second Close, etc.) from the report period pick list. Note that the start and end dates populated for these periods will display July dates. For these closing periods only, these dates refer to the actual entry dates of fiscal month June entries. We strongly recommend that you take advantage of using the close dates to narrow the scope of your data rather than capturing all of the Prior Fiscal Year data throughout the close periods.
  
  
• For Fiscal Year 2005 the close start and end dates are:
  • First close: Fiscal June entries from June 1 through July 7
  • Second close: Fiscal June entries from July 8 through July 14
  • Third close: Fiscal June entries from July 15 through July 21
    
    
• HELPFUL TIP: You can use the close date period options in conjunction with your scheduling features to set up your reports in advance. For instance, starting in mid-June you can create a Detailed Listing using the first close date period and then schedule it to run on Saturday, July 9.
  
  
• Enter all of the chart segment parameters you can for a given report request to increase performance for yourself and the whole University. Never use your security view to filter your data. For example, let's say a user wants to see amounts for a range of objects within the tub and org for which they have a view. Because of their view limitation, the user will get the same result whether tub and org are entered as parameters or not. However, not including tub and org will make the query take much longer to run, tying up system resources and slowing things down for all users.
  
  
• Last fiscal year, a permanent modification was made to the Detailed Listing reports preventing them from being submitted with all of the parameters being left "ALL." The report will require that at least one chart value be entered.
  
  
• You should only use transaction reports like the Detailed Listing when you really need to see the transaction line detail. Summary-level balances can be retrieved in reports such as the Summary Actuals Listing report, the PER (sponsored only), the Fund Summary report, the Fund, Gift, & Unrestricted Unexpended Balance report, and the Budget Variance report.
  
  
• Deleting unneeded reports will be a big help in keeping disk space available for report output. For reports you no longer need, you can use the functionality in AWS2 to delete multiple reports at once. This is especially important if you have report output that you know is large.
  
  
• As of July 1, the Current Fiscal Year to Date option will reflect FY2006. To retrieve FY2005 year to date, you will need to select Prior Fiscal Year to Date from the period pick list.

Summary schedule for FY05 transactions and reporting     top

Please follow this link for a "printer-friendly" version of the summary schedule.

Whom to call list for closings      top

Change to exempt Temps and LHTs     top

Effective immediately (May 15, 2005), Harvard is changing the way that exempt Temps and LHTs are hired and paid in PeopleSoft, in order to ensure compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

What's changing?

Exempt Temps and LHTs are currently paid for hours entered in Time & Labor. Going forward, the University will require that exempt Temps and LHTs will be paid on a salary basis consistent with regular exempt staff, instead of through Time & Labor. These changes affect only exempt Temps and LHTs; overtime-eligible Temps and LHTs (including student temps) are not affected.

Please note — The change to a salary basis of pay for exempt Temps and LHTs will have the following significant impacts:

• Exempt Temps and LHTs will now be paid on a bi-weekly basis instead of weekly;
  
  
• Exempt Temps and LHTs will no longer be on a positive pay structure but instead will be paid their salary amount automatically every pay period. Schools and departments must submit a request to Central Payroll in order to adjust or temporarily suspend pay;
  
  
• Exempt Temps and LHTs will no longer be hired through the Quick Hire process but instead through a printout of the completed New Hire (long) Form submitted to Central Payroll. (This does not affect pre-existing Temps and LHTs.)

The chart below summarizes the changes.

Following this system change, the OHR Compensation Department will monitor exempt Temps and LHTs to verify compliance with the FLSA exemption criteria, including the following:

• Employees must meet the standard duties test for an executive, administrative, or professional position under the FLSA.
  
  
• Employees must meet the salary basis test under the FLSA, which states that employees must earn at least $455 per week. Their pay ordinarily cannot vary from week to week. However, a whole day's pay can be deducted for a day not worked. (The $455 per week is not prorated for part-time employees. There are exceptions for certain specific professional occupations, including teacher, (licensed) lawyer, (licensed) physician, and medical resident.)

For more about the FLSA, see http://harvie.harvard.edu/hradmin/compensation/flsa.shtml (viewable only by HR administrators).

Existing Exempt Temps and LHTs:
Departments currently employing exempt Temps or LHTs should already have received instructions for converting them to meet the new requirements. (Emails were sent to department contacts for Temps and LHTs.)

New Exempt Temps and LHTs:
Exempt Temps or LHTs must be hired (or transferred, etc.) using the “long form” (rather than Quick Hire) and the field settings below:

Please note that, although Standard Hours are not particularly meaningful for most Temps and LHTs (many of which are set up with a default Standard Hours of 10.00), exempt Temps and LHTs will be paid automatically based on the Standard Hours entered. Therefore, Standard Hours and Comp Rate should be decided with the same care used for other exempt employees.

Additionally, at the time of hire, the HR officer should submit a completed Position Documentation Form (PDF) for the Temp or LHT to the Compensation Department, Holyoke Center, 6th Floor, or fax to 6-3118. Blank PDFs are online at http://harvie.harvard.edu/hradmin/pdf/position_documentation_form.pdf (viewable only by HR administrators). (Note that if a PDF has already been completed for an exempt Temp or LHT's job — even if it was completed for a regular employee — then the department may provide a copy of that PDF rather than completing a new one.) Once a PDF has been provided, Compensation may also request additional documentation.

Job code updates based on student status delayed until July 3      top

OHR has decided to delay running the Job Code Update Process described in the April 2005 e-News until July. This way, we will avoid updating someone's job code only a few weeks before they graduate or their appointment ends (since most TA and TF appointments end on June 30). Beginning July 3, 2005, the process will run every Sunday.

HIRES reminder      top

In order to provide more comprehensive service coverage, the hires@harvard.edu email address will be retired on May 27. We will no longer be accepting requests for assistance through that email account.

Users may send all requests, including new user accounts and requisition edits, to the UIS help desk email at: dls@harvard.edu or by calling 6-2001. You may start sending these requests before May 27.

If you have a confidential candidate or job posting question, please state that in your request; we will follow up with you directly and obtain the confidential information. The HR Team will respond to all of your questions in a timely manner.

Users can always access the HIRES Manual by clicking the "Help" link in the red menu bar. The Work Instructions & Quick References should cover all basic questions.

About the e-News   top

The Office of Human Resources publishes this monthly 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 15th 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: admin_systems_enews@harvard.edu