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Stanford Financial Reporting News & Tips • Fall 2023

New Report: RFM Projected Budget Variance

Projected Budget Variance is a new report in the Revenue and Fund Management (RFM) Dashboard that provides projected annual variances from budget, incorporating expenditure commitments and projected endowment payout.

Useful report views include:

• Award Balances and Actuals:
  Shows year-end variance projections incorporating commitments and endowment payout across all types of activity, including receipts and transfers, and not just expenditures.

• Award Budget Incremental, Actuals, and Variance:
  Shows incremental variance, without projections, to compare year-to-date actuals with year-to-date budget.

• Award Balances and Actuals CB COA and GL Period:
  Shows variance of budget versus actuals using Tidemark reporting rollups (Consolidated Budget, Chart of Accounts), pivoted by GL Period.

To view more details, drills are available on budget amounts, funds and expenditures amounts, and expenditure commitment amounts.

Award Balances and Actuals view (showing projected annual variance):

Drop-in OBI Ad Hoc Training:
Prompts, Presentation Variables, and SQL Defaults

Attend this drop-in ad hoc training session to learn how to add prompts to an analysis so users opening the analysis are prompted to enter their own search values. We will also discuss using presentation variables in filters and how to use SQL codes to fill prompts with default values, such as current fiscal year or the date one week ago (to pull activity for the past week).

Friday, November 10, 2023 | 10-11 a.m. PT

No registration needed, just drop in!

Zoom link (Stanford authentication required)

Add to calendar (click to download ICS file).

Job Changes in November: Transitioning Salaried Non-Exempt Employees to Hourly Non-Exempt

On Nov. 1, Stanford is changing the designation of salaried non-exempt employees (job code NX1) to hourly non-exempt (job code NXH). University HR is directly communicating to employees and managers about this change. This will have no impact on salary commitments, which are calculated as 1/24 of annual salary per semi-monthly payroll period.

Paychecks for salaried non-exempt employees transitioning to hourly non-exempt will reflect pay based upon the number of hours worked each pay period, which varies from pay period to pay period, rather than upon a set salary each pay period. This variation, which is relatively small, is overshadowed by the impact of vacation credits, which cause much larger swings in the per pay period expenditures for salary.

Both pay group codes and job classification codes are changing to preserve historical data. Reports will show the old codes through Oct. 31, and all new transactions going forward will show the new codes.

Force Clearing Reminder and
Updated Credit Card Suspension Process

Quarterly Force Clearing Deadline

Clearing aging transactions on time supports good financial stewardship and helps your department avoid force clearing fees. Departments should clear PCard, TCard, or advance transactions aged over 60 days (with aging starting Aug. 31, 2023 or earlier) by Oct. 31, 2023. Any remaining aging transactions will be force cleared by Financial Management Services (FMS) to the guarantee PTA or AP Default PTA on Nov. 3, 2023 and charged a $35 fee per transaction.

• Learn more about force clearing and view quarterly clearing deadlines in Policy: Clearing of Aging Transactions.

• Learn which OBI tools can help you manage your aging and force cleared transactions:

  • Topic Overview: Managing Aging and Outstanding Expense Transactions:
    This revised Fingate page is now easier to search, reorganized by transaction type (PCard, TCard, advances, expense reports), and includes How Tos on finding aging credit card transactions and advances.

  • Applying the Data: Managing Aging Transactions (Oct. 11, 2023 webinar):
    This recent event is a companion piece to the page above and covers policy, best practices, and tools, plus a brief Q&A session with FMS experts; access the recording and slides (enter your SUNet ID) on the FMS Events page.

Updated Card Suspension Process Starts this Fiscal Year

An updated suspension process to reinforce proper use of cards begins this fiscal year. Starting with the first quarterly force clearing in 2024 (which will occur on Feb. 2, 2024), individual PCards or Travel Cards with transactions that are force cleared in two different quarters in a rolling 12-month period will be suspended for 60 days. Learn more in the Fingate announcement.

PCE Dashboard: New “PCard Verifier Stats” Tab

The PCard Efficacy (PCE) dashboard has been enhanced with a number of additional fields as include columns and in report drills. Refer to the PCE Reporting homepage for details. A new tab, called PCard Verifier Stats, includes sections for counts of transactions returned to or withdrawn by the verifier.

Brief Updates and Tips

AP Invoice Transactions: Expenditure Item Date Changing to AP Invoice Date

Historically the Expenditure Item Date (EID) in the Consolidated Expenditure Reporting (CER) Dashboard reports for AP invoice transactions has displayed the date of the requisition submission. As of Sept. 1, 2023, the EID shows the AP invoice date instead. During year-end close September transactions were still using the old logic, but a data fix on Sept. 23, 2023 converted September transactions to the new logic.

RFM Dashboard: Updated Stand-Alone Award Attributes Report

A new version of the Award Attributes Report is available directly from the Revenue and Fund Management (RFM) homepage. This report provides award attribute information such as award name, organization, status, award owner and manager, award type and purpose code, and award start and end dates. This report is also available in At-a-Glance, but it runs faster as a stand-alone report.