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How Vendor Credit Memos Work
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Processing credit memos can sometimes be confusing. A credit memo is a "negative invoice" issued by a vendor: the vendor owes Harvard rather than Harvard owing them. The credit memo is usually a result of the local unit being dissatisfied with the goods or services provided, or the vendor being unable to deliver the ordered goods. Most importantly, the vendor has been paid and the check has cleared the bank.

Harvard financial administrators should always request a refund check from the vendor rather than accept a credit memo. If the vendor issues a credit memo, you should examine it carefully to make sure that it is valid. This step is necessary because vendors sometimes send correspondence that may look like a credit memo when it is actually a payment confirmation or a statement of your account.

Once you are sure you have a valid credit memo, write the original web voucher number and account coding to be credited on it. Complete a Web Voucher Exceptions Request form, checking the Credit Memo box. Staple the credit memo to the form, and forward the package to Accounts Payable in Holyoke Center. Important: never create a new web voucher for the credit.

Accounts Payable will create the credit memo in the system, credit your account coding, and deduct it from the next payment to that vendor regardless of what Harvard department is making the payment, provided that the payment exceeds the amount of the credit memo.

What Happens if the Vendor Credit Memo Cannot Be Applied?

Accounts Payable will track the aging of the credit memo. According to the University policy on credit memos, those that have been recorded in the payables system for five months and not applied will be reported to the Financial Deans. This may happen if the vendor is specialized and not used again during this time.

If the credit memo is still outstanding at the end of the next 30 days (i.e., six months in total), Accounts Payable will reverse the credit memo, charging the original account coding. Local units should expect to see these reversals as a charge on their monthly detail listings beginning in December. If this happens, the local unit should contact the vendor and ask for a refund check.

If you have any questions concerning credit memos, please contact Accounts Payable Customer Service at 495-8500.

News from the Harvard Data
Warehouse Team   back to top

The Harvard Data Warehouse (HDW) team would like to bring the user community up to date on the latest news in the world of reporting and querying. First, a recap of improvements made in the last year:

Report Improvements

Performance of the Detail Listing and the Period Expenses Report improved dramatically this year. Also, two new reports, Summary Actuals and the Detail Listing Lite, were delivered to allow financial analysts and departmental administrators to track quickly the balances in their accounts. Performance for most reports was improved in both HUDINI and AWS2; many reports now run within 20-30 seconds.

Ad-hoc Improvements

Views against GL and CoA reference data were tuned so that queries running against these views now complete ten times faster. Other changes, such as the fiscal year offset column, were implemented to ease querying for fiscal year-end reporting.

User Support and Training

The HDW team has added user support and dedicated technical development staff. These positions provide more capacity for user support, system maintenance, and enhancements. Also, the team is updating and improving several of the ad-hoc querying courses.

Oracle Financials Release 11

To help prepare for Oracle Human Resources, the financial applications were upgraded to Oracle Release 11 on Columbus Day weekend. Because of the upgrade, the ad-hoc query environment experienced some changes. Most were transparent to end users, although there were minor changes to views that will help performance. At this point virtually all Release 11 issues have been resolved and we are back to focussing on report enhancements and modifications.

Next, we'd like to highlight upcoming events and future developments:

Oracle Account Receivables

Many users of the legacy AR system are participating in the implementation of Oracle Account Receivables. This application, to be delivered in January 2001, will enable AR data to integrate with Oracle General Ledger and allow for more comprehensive financial reporting. The most important AR business views will be developed and deployed for ad-hoc reporting as they are identified. There will be no changes to HUDINI or AWS2 except for the deployment of AR reports in those applications.

Web Expense Reporting

Those who are using STAR for employee reimbursements will be able to process employee expense reports via Web Expense in the coming months. This easy interface will simplify the reimbursement process with no changes to reporting. The ad-hoc community will no longer have to join to STAR journal detail tables to extract a complete picture of expense details. The reimbursement details will be co-located in Web Voucher and Purchase Order tables.

Sponsored Reporting Enhancements

In conjunction with the Office for Sponsored Research (OSR) and the Advisory Group for Sponsored Research Systems Planning (AGRASP), the HDW team is planning several enhancements for the sponsored research community. The vast majority of these enhancements are new or upgraded HUDINI and AWS2 reports. These reports, as prioritized, will hopefully address some of the existing reporting deficiencies in grants management. On the ad-hoc side of the Warehouse, we are working with OSR staff to add needed columns to and increase the data integrity of the Sponsored Attribute views.

Business-Oriented Query and Reporting Tool

The HDW team is starting a project to identify and evaluate business-oriented end-user querying and reporting tools that provide robust analytic capabilities without requiring knowledge of SQL. We are interested in deploying tools that integrate with our current suite of Oracle business applications and provide templates to enable users to more easily create their own reports or data extracts. If you are interested in taking part in the evaluation process, please contact the HDW team at 496-0016.

Enhancing AWS2

We will be adding features and reports to AWS2 over the coming year, starting with the AR reports in December. Eventually we hope to be able to "retire" HUDINI and maintain AWS2 as the primary method for running reports. The use of some features of HUDINI, such as CoA sets and Request sets, would need to be reviewed and equivalent functionality added to AWS2 if necessary.

Oracle Human Resources

The implementation of the Human Resources suite of applications is now in the advanced planning stages. The products being implemented include Human Resources, Payroll, and Advanced Benefits. This is a major functional implementation that will have University-wide impact. The full scope of changes to the Data Warehouse has yet to be determined. However, all areas of the HDW will be affected, including the current HR data warehouse, the Information Utility. As soon as a more complete picture is available, we will communicate it to FAD e-News readers.

Implementation of a "Real" Data Warehouse

The current Harvard Data Warehouse is actually an Operational Data Store (ODS). The Harvard ODS is created from an image of our Oracle online transactional system (OLTP) each night, and is used primarily for near real time, transactional reporting. Eventually, data will need to be purged from the OLTP for several reasons, including increasing performance and archiving historical information. Some of this data will need to be kept for auditing and historical reporting purposes, and the place to store the data is in an optimized data warehouse (ODW).

Some time in early 2001, the HDW team will begin to determine the data requirements and structure of this "real" data warehouse, which will ideally include data from the Information Utility. Structures that replicate gift, human resource, and financial IU data will be created, although access will be limited to those with a "need to know." The HDW team will form a project team comprised of technical and business users to assist in designing the new warehouse. If you are interested becoming a member of this project team, please contact the HDW team at 496-0016.

For ad hoc query users and others with an interest in the current and planned archtecture of the Harvard Data Warehouse, here are links to detailed diagrams:

Revised Strategy and Timeline Likely
for WebEx Project  back to top

Progress continues on the project to modify the Web Voucher system to support the processing of employee reimbursements, travel expenses, and American Express charges.

On October 18, members of the central project team met with the Advisory Board (comprised of departmental representatives from across the University) to provide an update. The meeting focussed on a revised strategy and timeline for the project.

The original strategy was to allow a small group of pilot users onto the basic system over the summer--which happened as planned--and then to phase in two additional elements of system functionality: American Express "direct pay" in November; and "direct deposit" of reimbursements to the bank accounts of faculty and staff in February, 2001. However, a revised project strategy and timetable were proposed due several factors:

• longer-than-anticipated end user testing over the summer;
• the need for technical staff to work on Release 11;
• the need to coordinate the release of new WebEx functionality with the University's bimonthly "FINDINI" releases, since changes in one system often affect other systems and the HDW because of our new, integrated environment; and
• a growing business need to decommission STAR by 6/30/01.

In the revised strategy, building a direct deposit process and functionality is deferred until early FY02. AmEx direct pay and a way to process travel advances are provided to pilot users in the December 2000 FINDINI release. If pilot testing goes well, a tub-by-tub cutover to WebEx takes place from February to May, 2001. Final reimbursements and reconciliations will be made in STAR by the Travel Office in June, leading to that system's shutdown on June 30, 2001.

A drawback of this plan for some people will be a temporary return to "old-fashioned" paper checks from the University for reimbursements, rather than the electronic direct deposits. However, users are reminded that reimbursements can be dramatically reduced by using PCard for office supplies and other appropriate expenses, American Express for travel expenses, and petty cash for small out-of-pocket reimbursements. Applications for the PCard and the American Express card are available in the forms section of ABLE.

Discussions are now underway with the financial dean or director of each major unit to determine when each tub will switch to the new system. Key considerations include local preference and readiness for cutover, as well as the number of users in each unit who must be set up on the new system, trained, and supported during each "wave." A more detailed schedule will be announced when it is available.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact your local WebEx Advisory Board member or financial office.

About This e-News back to top

The Financial Administration publishes this semi-monthly electronic newsletter for users of Harvard University's financial systems, policies, and procedures. Generally, the e-News is published on or about the 12th and 26th of each month.

It contains:

• updates on projects underway to build or improve University financial systems;
• information about new University financial 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