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News, Enhancements & Tips for Financial Reporting at Stanford
New Expenditure Details Report View

The OBI Consolidated Expenditure Reporting (CER) Dashboard has a new report view designed to support easier monthly reconciliation by sorting by General Ledger (GL) period and showing the full business purpose, PO description and invoice date. It can be found in the Expenditure Details tab by selecting the Expenditure Details – PTA Section view

The new report features:

  • The Expenditure Transaction Long Description field, which gives the full business purpose for expense requests and PCard transactions and replaces the supplier name with the purchase requisition description for AP invoices.
     
  • More space for content in the body of the report because the Project, Task and Award elements have been moved into sections.
     
  • A new field, Reporting Invoice or Expenditure Date, which displays either the invoice date (if the Expenditure Transaction Source Long Name is APINV-AP Invoice) or the Expenditure Item Date (for all other transactions).
For more details about field values, see the Understanding the Data section of the Expenditure Details tab.

Note: The new view will not be visible from the view-by pulldown within any applied customizations that were created prior to October 1, 2021.
New Ad Hoc User Forum

We are excited to launch the OBI Financial Reporting Ad Hoc User Forum where community members are invited to post both questions and answers about using the OBI ad hoc tool. The How to Use Questions Tool describes how to use features such as filtering, up voting questions for ranking, commenting and designating the best answer.

The OBI Financial Reporting Team will act as moderators to promote participation guidelines. The purpose of the forum is to allow peers to share solutions with each other, not to replace Support Request tickets for dashboard reporting, urgent issues or general OBI questions. As a reminder, Open Labs via Zoom are available for one-on-one OBI support.

Using OBI to Identify and Monitor Aging
and Force Cleared Transactions

To reduce the amount of aging transactions on our financial statements, Financial Management Services (FMS) has launched a new process that will recur on a quarterly basis starting in FY22 to enforce the timely clearing of these transactions. 

The Expense Requests and SU Card Activity OBI Dashboard is your go-to tool for identifying and monitoring your department’s aging transactions. With this dashboard, you can run reports on aging credit card transactions, aging expense requests or aging advances

Reminder: Per the Clearing of Aging Transactions Policy, which was created to protect the university against risk, all Pcard and TCard transactions and advances must be verified and approved within 60 days of the:

  • Credit card posted date (for PCards)
  • Completion of travel or posted date (for TCards), or
  • Expected clearing date (for advances)

Otherwise, these uncleared transactions will be force cleared quarterly by FMS, and budget units will be charged $35 per transaction. 

To identify, monitor and clear aging transactions for your department, or to find and reconcile transactions that have been force cleared by FMS, please refer to Topic Overview: Managing Aging and Outstanding Expense Transactions.

COVID Financial Reporting Dashboard:
Logic Updated

The Consolidated Expenditure Reporting (CER) report on the COVID Financial Reporting Dashboard was enhanced on September 24, 2021. CER reports run prior to this date may reflect lower amounts than actual due to missing some COVID relationships.The logic has been updated and now more accurately reflects COVID-related transactions.
Your Feedback Matters!
FMS Client Satisfaction Survey Available Through October 22

If you haven’t completed the FMS Client Satisfaction Survey, please share your experiences with using FMS financial tools, systems and services. The survey includes questions on OBI support services, such as Open Labs, Support Requests and Training, which were not part of the July OBI Financial Reporting Survey. Your responses will help guide improvements to these services. Look for a reminder email with your survey link sent on October 14.
OBI Financial Reporting Survey Update

Thank you for your participation in the July OBI Financial Reporting Survey. We appreciate the thoughtful feedback of the Financial Reporting community, whose 25% response rate was beyond our expectations. Our planning efforts are underway, along with University IT, to address the most pressing issues and opportunities based on your feedback. We will provide updates regarding the survey results and related improvement projects as they are initiated.
Updates and Reminders
Tidemark FY22 Booked Budget Data Available

The FY22 Booked Budget has been loaded. The Tidemark Budget data is available in OBI Reporting.
New Name for Endowment Financial Dashboard

The Endowment Financial Dashboard has been renamed to Unused and Underwater Endowment Funds Dashboard.
New Layout for Labor Distribution Adjustments Report

The BI Publisher Labor Distribution Adjustments (Real-time) Report will soon be updated. It is being reduced from two tabs to one tab with a better organized, easy-to-read layout.
OBI Open Labs: One-on-One Support

You can get live one-on-one support for any of your OBI reporting and ad hoc questions. These remote sessions are geared towards user support rather than training demos and are offered every Friday and Monday via Zoom. Please ensure you have access to OBI Financial Reporting before attending a session.

Sign up for an OBI Open Lab now!







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