Business Matters November 2015
Upcoming Business Forum
Thank you for attending the Business Forum on Tuesday, November 3. The November 2015 Business Forum Presentation Slides are available on the Business Forum web page.
Note that the format of the Business Forums has changed to highlight the collaborative work of University Partner Groups.
The next Business Forum is scheduled for Thursday, February 4, 2016 from 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm in HRTC 141/145. The meeting will be broadcast via Adobe Connect and can be accessed here: February Business Forum Broadcast. Please mark your calendars.
Questions? Contact finhr@ohio.edu or 740.593.1893.
Holidays & Winter Closures
As a reminder, the Holidays and Winter Closures schedules were posted in the October Business Matters on Page 2 as well as in the Holidays and Winter Closure Schedules Memo.
Questions? Contact the Employee Service Center at uhr@ohio.edu or 740.593.1636.
Career Connections to Offer Health Care Plans
Effective January 1, 2016, local temporary staffing services provider, Career Connections, will be offering an affordable health care plan to all of their employees working 30 or more hours per week after an initial probationary period has been met. Career Connections anticipates that this offering will not significantly change their rates or fees. Once details are made available they will be published in Business Matters.
Questions? Contact the Employee Service Center at uhr@ohio.edu or 740.593.1636.
New Promotional Items Supplier
Consolidus has replaced ASW as Ohio University’s promotional item preferred supplier. The improved and easy-to-use catalog is available as a punch-out catalog in BobcatBUY. The new website/catalog has a variety of popular items to choose from. Items are pre-branded so you can see what an item will look like with the Ohio University woodcut logo. The website allows for department names to be added to the standard logo without custom artwork. Consolidus follows Ohio University’s brand standards and provides a dedicated representative to help find any item you may need or to help with custom artwork. (Please note that the Attack Cat and Arched Ohio logos are not available for use without permission from UCM. For more information, please visit the full OHIO Promo Shop article on Compass.)
Questions? Contact Procure to Pay at financecustomercare@ohio.edu or 740.597.6446.
Ohio Univerisity Discount with Delta Airlines
Procure to Pay Services has partnered with Delta Airlines and ALTour to offer a 2% discount on airline tickets booked through Concur or a full-service ALTour agent. As the discount is taken at the point of ticketing by ALTour, the price reflected in your Concur search does not reflect this savings opportunity. However, both your purchased ticket and your receipt will reflect the discounted purchase price.
Questions? Please visit the Travel Services Web Page or contact travel@ohio.edu.
P2P FY 2016 Roadshows Scheduled
Procure to Pay (P2P) has scheduled FY 2016 Roadshows to include discussions on Contracts, Updates to Policies in Progress, and generalized P2P topics from “What’s New” to “Why Do You Do That?” Please join us by registering at:
Questions? Contact financecustomercare@ohio.edu or 740.597.6446.
Important Information on Concur e-Receipts
E-receipts require special attention as they are processed independently by each credit card merchant. Based on processing times, the e-receipts may or may not appear with an accompanying charge. Any e-receipt without an accompanying charge that a Concur user manually pulls into a Concur report will inadvertently process through the system as money due to the employee in error. To prevent this error please follow the e-receipt processing instructions below.
E-Receipt Processing Instructions
If the e-receipt has a charge symbol with an e-receipt symbol then you may pull the e-receipt into the report.
To pull the e-receipt with the accompanying charge into the report:
Step 1: Within the report select “Import Expenses”.
Step 2: “Available Expenses” will appear to the right side of the screen
Step 3: “Select the expense to be imported” by clicking in the white box next to the expense.
Step 4: Select move “To Current Report”.
If the e-receipt does not accompany an orange credit card charge symbol with the e-receipt symbol the e-receipt should not be pulled into the report.
To delete the e-receipt without an accompanying charge:
Step 1: Select “Expenses tab” from top page of Concur.
Step 2: “Available Expenses” will appear toward the middle of the screen.
Step 3: “Select the e-receipt to be deleted” by clicking in the white box next to the e-receipt.
Step 4: Select “Delete”
The best way to check for this processing error is to print the Ohio University Detailed Report by selecting the print button within the report. This will open a report that will indicate if the money requested is due the employee and/or company card. If you are not expecting to receive money and see money due to the employee, this generally indicates a processing error.
Sample Report with “Amount Due Employee”
Questions? Contact Finance Customer Care at financecustomercare@ohio.edu or 740.597.6446.
Supervisory Review of Concur Receipts & Transaction Details
Supervisory review and approval of Concur reports is a key control in the procurement process. Receipts uploaded into Concur should be reviewed by the approver prior to formally approving the transaction. When individual receipts are not reviewed there is an increased risk of undetected irregularities. Post Audit reviews of processed transactions continues to identify a significant percentage of Concur reports approved without a review of the attached documents.
Questions? Contact Finance Customer Care at financecustomercare@ohio.edu or 740.597.6446.
FY 2017 Budget Calendar and Timeline
Planning Unit forecast development was completed on October 30. The Budget Office will review forecasts from November 2 through November 6. Fall Financial Review meetings will be held from November 9 through December 4. Please reference the BPA website and FY 2017 Budget Timeline for more details.
Questions? Contact your Budget Planning & Analysis contact or email budgetplanning@ohio.edu.
Revised Allocated Cost Model and Depreciation Model
On October 15, a revised Allocated Cost Model and Depreciation Model were published due to changes in the space data originally used. Planning Units should have used these updated models for the October 30 submission of THE Budget Sheet and Supplementary Materials. The space data will be re-run when Planning Assumptions are republished in January. Formal communication was sent out via email on 10/15 and is published on the BPA website.
Questions? Contact your Budget Planning & Analysis contact or email budgetplanning@ohio.edu.
New Report Available in OBIEE
The report known at the FMS M900 is now available in OBIEE. The FMS M900 report is a detailed listing of actual and budget transactions by natural account for each cost center (fund type, fund, organization, and project combination) for account reconciliation purposes. This report can be found under Shared folders/Finance and Administration/Published reports/Financial Reporting/Monthly Reports/General Ledger Details.
To run the report, choose one or multiple selections on each of the prompts. The only required prompt is “Period Name.” You may experience a slight delay while the report generates due to the large amount of data retrieved. If you receive an error, try narrowing down the amount of data that is being queried.
Questions or do not have access to published reports folder under finance and administration? Please have your supervisor send a request to finance@ohio.edu.
COMP 2014 Equity Adjustment Moves Forward
The COMP 2014 Project, covering classified non-bargaining employees and administrative/professional employees on all campuses, was successfully implemented last fall. As a result, the voluntary resolution agreement between Ohio University and the Department of Education has closed. As communicated earlier this year, the EEO analysis performed as part of COMP 2014 showed no evidence of discrimination in regard to pay at Ohio University. One of the challenges we anticipated as a result of the project was unintentional pay compression and inversion caused by implementation of a new market based pay structure. Pay compression occurs when there is little to no difference in pay between employees regardless of their skills or experience. In addition, salary compression can occur between a subordinate and a supervisor. Pay Inversion exists when starting salaries for new employees are higher than salaries for existing employees. We requested additional funding in FY2016 to be utilized for base salary increases to address issues that resulted from the salary compression and inversion. We understand that this process will not remedy all pay inversion and compression issues; however, this is a step towards addressing concerns with regard to pay position within the pay grade.
UHR Compensation developed and the Total Compensation Committee approved a Compa Ratio based equity adjustment methodology based on the length of time an employee is in a job (job entry date). Compa Ratio represents the position of employee pay in reference to pay grade midpoint. It is a standard practice to use Compa Ratio when evaluating employee compensation. Our goal is to focus on employees with a Compa Ratio less than 1.0 and who have a lower than expected Compa Ratio based upon the number of years in their current job. This targets our efforts towards employees who are paid below the market reference point for their job.
University Human Resources is working in conjunction with the Compensation Partner Group and Planning Unit representatives to address the identified areas of compression or inversion. Employees who are eligible for an increase will be notified in January 2016 of the plan to address compensation issues. Employees will not receive equity increases that exceed the market reference point (pay grade midpoint) or if the equity adjustment on an annualized basis would be $300 dollars or less. Employees must be actively employed at the time of payout to be eligible. Equity adjustments will be applied on a prospective basis. Given the current snapshot of data and our budgeted funds, employees will be eligible for 28.6% of the total equity increase identified within the model, or pay grade midpoint if less than the total increase. While the funding is not available to address all the equity adjustments this fiscal year, the University is committed to prioritizing this need over multiple years.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Week of 10/19/2015 | Communication/Files Sent to Planning Units |
| Week of 10/26/2015 | Communication published for all employees in scope of project |
| 11/3/2015 | Provide high level overview at Business Forum |
| 11/13/2015 | Deadline for Planning Units to return files to Compensation |
| January 2016 | Employee communication distributed to those receiving and increase |
| 1/15/2016 | Increase included on semi-monthly pay (effective 1/1/2016) |
| 1/22/2016 | Increase included on bi-weekly pay (effective 12/27/2015) |
Questions? Contact the Compensation Office in Human Resources at compensation@ohio.edu or your HR Liaison.
Chart of Accounts Redesign... Design Phase
Since the October edition of Business Matters, the Assessment Phase of the current Chart of Accounts usage was completed and a series of future state design sessions were held. In these future state design meetings, the core project team reviewed internal and external reporting requirements, looked at best practices in designing a new COA, gathered information from other universities’ Chart of Accounts to determine leading practices and to propose a new COA structure. In addition, the group reviewed the proposed Chart of Account segments as presented by the consultant, Navigator.
On October 6, the proposed structure was reviewed with the RC Strategy and RC Technical Groups to validate and determine the order the segments. This new structure and segment order, which meets the “Who, What, Why, Where, and How” requirements, is detailed below.
The new COA Segment Structure and Order (Determined by University Community)
During the month of November, working groups have been assembled to create a “strawman” of the list of values for each segment so that this can be vetted with the University community.
In an effort to ensure that campus feedback and needs are addressed during the design of the new COA values, a Chart of Accounts Partner Group has been formed and is comprised of representatives from the campus community. This group will advise the project team on key decisions that impact campus users and will also inform the RC Strategy Group. The COA Partner Group will meet regularly throughout the implementation of the new COA and for a period of time after Go Live.
The first Partner Group meeting is scheduled for Friday, November 13. During this session, the Partner Group will review progress to date and set the agenda for work to begin. It is expected that this Partner Group will be heavily involved in the definition of the natural account values, provide input on the use of Activity Segment, assist in the identification of business and cross validation rules, and define business cases for demonstrations and testing.
Members of the COA Partner Group include:
- Rosanna Howard, Regional Campuses
- Becky Maccombs, Engineering
- April Ritchie, Arts & Sciences
- Tina Payne, Finance & Administration
- Diane Cahill, International Studies
- John Day, Provost
The project team will also launch a Chart of Accounts Redesign Project website with an estimated completion date in early January 2016. Additional information regarding the website will be published in Compass Points and in future issues of Business Matters.
Questions or feedback? Contact the Chart of Accounts Project Team at coa@ohio.edu.