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Absence Management Financial & Grants Management Reporting in CREW top
1. What to Expect, When and Why
2. Absence Management & the Detail Listing (Lite and Regular)
- How the Object Code Flows
- The "P-Flag" & Levels of Detail vs. Summary Payroll Transactions
- Example
- Managing Detail in a PTO world
3. Absence Management & the Monthly Salary Certification report
4. Report Spreadsheet Scenario View of PTO Changes
5. Need additional info?
1. What to Expect, When & Why top
Beginning with the first Fiscal Year 2008 bi-weekly payroll, on July 19th, 2007, CREW Financial and Grants Management reports will reflect the new data associated with the recent Absence Management Implementation. As described in the May 2007 Special Edition eNews article, Absence Management will:
“…allow the University to improve its recordkeeping and financial accounting for paid time off (staff vacation alone is a $58 million benefit) while ensuring that benefits are equitable across all units. And, by making our record-keeping practices more rigorous and consistent, we can recover several million more dollars annually from our research sponsors.”
With Absence Management, a finer grade of granularity is captured in “how” an employee’s work week is spent. Prior to the implementation there was no separate categorization of vacation vs. non-vacation pay, and for exempt staff (6050) there was no distinction between time worked vs. paid time off (i.e. sick/personal days). Instead, all salary + wages were bucketed to a single object code.
CREW Financial and Grants Management reports will reflect the new vacation object codes introduced with Absence Management:
- 6052 and 6072: for exempt and non-exempt Vacation Salaries
- 6054 and 6074: for exempt and non-exempt Vacation Salaries Reimbrsmt
- 6271 and 6281: for exempt and non-exempt Vacation Fringe Benefit Assessment
- 6274 and 6284: for exempt and non-exempt Vacation Salary Reg Fringe Reimbrsmt
The Detail Listing reports will also include separate rows of data for the portions of Paid Time Off (PTO) in categories like Sick Days, Personal Days, and Jury Duty, for exempt staff through object code 6050, in the same way that it has for non-exempt staff (through object code 6070) since 2002.
2. Absence Management & the Detail Listing: recording vacation and paid time off (PTO) top
To illustrate the changes, we’ll take a simple case scenario where an exempt employee (object code 6050) takes 2 vacation days, 1 sick and 1 personal day in a given pay period.
Pre-Absence Management:
Transaction lines appearing on the Detail Listing (when the lowest level of detail was requested) would be as follows:
Post Absence Management:
Transaction details are broken out by the portion of worked time, paid time off (PTO), and vacation pay (to new object code 6052), and include the fringe and reimbursement object codes associated with the vacation pay:
How the Object Codes Flow:
The diagram below illustrates how the transactions lines above, in the scenario where an exempt employee takes 2 vacation days, 1 sick and 1 personal day in given pay period, are spawned and calculated at the object code level:
The “P-Flag” & Levels of Detail vs. Summary Payroll Transactions:
Being familiar with the background, structure and purpose of the Detail Listing is helpful in understanding the changes resulting from Absence Management.
The Detail Listing is designed to offer two levels of payroll information:
- a lowest level of detail allowing users to see an individual person's salary + wages where Employee Name, HUID, and HR Department are displayed in the “Description 1, 2 & 3” columns of the report
- a summary level transaction that shows salary + wages summarized by date and 33-digit accounting code.
To provide these two options, the Detail Listing employs a “switch” triggered by the user reporting responsibility that will show either the lowest level of detail or summarized payroll data. This switch is called the “P-Flag” and for users who are allowed person-level payroll detail access, it is added to the tail-end of their reporting responsibility (such as HDW^HMS^TFO^PSHC). Reporting responsibilities are seen in the Detail Listing “Responsibility” parameter pick-list of values.
Detail vs. Summary Payroll Information: an Example:
To illustrate the difference between displaying detail vs. summary payroll information, we will add a second employee on to the simple scenario, which we’ll call “Scenario 2”. For the sake of continued simplicity, we will assume this new person's salary + wages is the same as employee one and that the same time off was taken:
Pre-Absence Management, Scenario 2:
Two exempt employees take 2 vacation days, 1 sick and 1 personal day each in a given pay period.
When the Detail Listing is run by a user without a “P-Flag”, the Employee Name, HUID, and HR Department information is suppressed and the two employee lines are “collapsed” into a single summary line (again, this scenario assumes both employees are paid from the exact 33-digit accounting code):
Post-Absence Management, Scenario 2:
Two exempt employees take 2 vacation days, 1 sick and 1 personal day each in a given pay period.
Managing Detail in a PTO World
The additional vacation and vacation related object codes and the break out of paid time off (PTO) will increase the number of rows/data on the Detail Listing report and will result in more report pages. We have heard that this is not a welcome by-product of the Absence Management Implementation for the reporting community.
FAD Systems Solutions is dedicated to meeting the needs of the reporting community as well as supporting the more rigorous and discrete accounting processes for vacation liability and paid time off which ultimately enhance Harvard’s financial health. Efforts are underway to explore how to continue meeting the reporting community’s needs in a PTO world. This effort must be a thoughtful and prudent one as technical/system solutions tend to create either building blocks or obstacles to future development. Naturally, we want to create the building blocks for enhanced future reporting – not obstacles.
While we undertake this effort, we suggest users experiment with existing CREW functionality, such as parameter limits, and sort/subtotal options to organize payroll detail transaction data into more digestible formats. For instance, with the CREW Financial Migration in March of 2006, three additional sort/subtotal options were added to the Detail Listing report. Using the sort/subtotal options will allow groupings of payroll transactions by object code and employee ID in ways that will make for an easier read of the Detail Listing reports, both Lite and Regular.
One good option to experiment with is the following:
Input Parameters:
Another option to experiment with is to run a separate Detail Listing on just salary and vacation object codes and sort/subtotal on employee ID and effective date for a breakdown by pay period.
Input Parameters:
3. Grants Management Reports: Absence Management & the Monthly Salary Certification report top
The purpose of Monthly Salary Certification is to report on the total percent of time spent by an employee working on a sponsored project. The implication of Absence Management is the break out of vacation pay to a new and separate object codes (6052 & 6072). Vacation pay is not considered effort spent working on a sponsored project, and thus, will not be included in the report.
To use the simple case Scenario 1 (only in this instance it covers two bi-weekly pay periods) where an exempt employee (object code 6050) takes 2 vacation days, 1 sick and 1 personal day in a given month, the vacation pay booked to object codes 6052 will not be included on the report, nor will it factor in to the total effort “% of Month” calculation. Please note, the Salary Certification report displays the “summarized” level of transaction detail, and does not display the PTO break-out.
At first blush, this change may seem to understate the employee salary as prior to Absence Management, vacation time was included. So, remember when comparing results between the Salary Certification and Detail Listing reports: the Detail Listings will include vacation object codes and the Monthly Salary Certification report will not include vacation object codes.
4. Report Spreadsheet Scenario View of PTO Changes top
View the following linked document for a sample of how the PTO changes will appear on a Detail Listing report.
5. Need Additional Help? top
Please direct questions and concerns related to the impact of Absence Management on your CREW reports to the UIS Help Desk, (617) 496-2001.
New Revenue Recognition Accounting Policy Issued top
The Revenue Recognition Policy and related procedures for Accounts and Notes Receivable, Reserves for Bad Debts, Deferred Revenue and Deposit Receipts have been issued and are available via the following links:
Revenue Recognition Policy
- Accounts and Notes Receivable Procedures
- Reserves for Bad Debts Procedures
- Deferred Revenue Procedures
- Deposit Receipt Procedures
As noted in the documents, they are effective as of July 1, 2007. Questions may be directed to your tub finance office. Tub finance offices with questions may contact the University Accounting Services analyst or manager assigned to their tub or Amanda Gates, Senior Manager of Accounting Policy, at 617-496-7131 or amanda_gates@harvard.edu.
Preview of the Upcoming New Oracle Homepage top
Plans are in place to introduce a new Oracle homepage in the near future. This is due to an upgrade to the Oracle Framework and will change the screen that users will see after logging into the Oracle system. More details will be provided in a later edition of eNews.
An example of the current and future screens can be seen below:
Current Oracle Homepage
Future Oracle Homepage
New Shortcut Added to Create Journals in General Ledger top
There is a new shortcut path that has been created for users to go directly to enter a New Journal.
From the navigator, users can either click Journals > Enter > New Journal or Journals > New Journal. Both paths will bring the user to an empty New Journal form.
New Section Added to the Departmental Job Profile Report top
A new section on Absence Management information has been added to the Departmental-Job Profile Report (HRJOBDP007). The new section contains Absence Group IDs and Descriptions.
About the e-News top
The Center for Workplace Development publishes this electronic newsletter for users of Harvard University's financial, HR, and reporting systems, policies, and procedures. The e-News is generally published on or around the 15th of each month.
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