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Stanford Financial Reporting Newsletter • Spring 2024

New sections: CER Expenditure Balance Report

Two new sections have been added to the Consolidated Expenditure Report (CER) Dashboard’s Expenditure Balance Report that show expenditure trends compared to budget in multiple configurations, such as year to date, incremental month, and full year. This supports more detailed analysis of actual expenditures versus budgets in various time frames including trending amounts in graphical format, which are suitable for management presentations.

• Expenditure Balance Summary Trend by GL Period displays the trend of actual expenditures and includes budget, remaining budget balance, and factors in commitments to show projected remaining budget balance.

• Budget Incremental Variance Graph and Summary by GL Period displays incremental budget and expenditures, incremental variance by period (such as incremental YTD variance), in fiscal-to-date or project-to-date views. The information displays in both graphical and tabular formats.

New drill: Expense request details in ERR Dashboard

Progress report: OBI performance improvements

In response to feedback from the OBI Financial Reporting Survey and FMS Client Satisfaction Survey, FMS and UIT have carried out a focused effort to address multiple components of OBI’s performance with the goal of reducing run times for key reports and ensuring timely availability of data.

Activities

• Streamlined design for OBI Dashboard reports, including Revenue and Fund Management (RFM), Consolidated Expenditure Reporting (CER), Payroll and Labor Management (PLM), and Procure to Pay (P2PR)

• Tuned OBI Dashboard reports and BI Publisher reports, including Payroll and Labor Management (PLM)-Actual Pay, Prepare Bulk Labor Distribution Adjustment Upload, Fiscal to Date Fund Statement (BIP 153), and Posted Journals (BIP 162)

• Upgraded Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW)/OBI servers

Results

• Provided faster overall report run times and improved individual report run times

• Improved ability to run reports for a broad scope (Level 4 org and above)

• Eliminated errors due to timeouts

• Reduced time to load report prompts

• Reduced wait time to execute report after applying the report prompts

• Improved responsiveness when modifying reports (move/include/exclude columns)

Next steps

• Implement dashboard versions of key BI Publisher reports, such as the Fiscal to Date Fund Statement, to take advantage of dashboard capabilities (e.g., utilize time series and data partitions)

• Monitor performance to identify and deliver additional enhancements (ongoing)  

  
  

If you have questions regarding OBI performance or encounter any performance issues, please submit an OBI support request.

Drop-in OBI Ad Hoc training: Drills and prompted filters

Learn how to create drills by linking a field in one analysis to a different analysis that runs when the field value is clicked. We will cover parameters that are passed to the drill analysis and the use of “Is prompted” as a filter operator.

Friday, March 29, 2024 | 10-11 a.m. PT

No registration needed, just drop in!

Zoom link (Stanford authentication required)

Add to calendar (click to download ICS file)

Requisition and PO Query Tool improvements

Several improvements were made to Stanford’s financial systems, processes, and policies in February 2024, including new self-service functionality to change PTAs and cancel purchase orders (POs) using the Requisition and Purchase Order Query Tool. Along with the Finally Close PO feature, these self-service functionalities allow departments to initiate common PO tasks directly in a secure and compliant manner.

Reporting tip: To find POs that may be eligible to cancel, use the OBI Procure to Pay Dashboard’s Procure to Pay at a Glance Report. In the Purchase Orders with Outstanding Commitment Amount section, look for rows with zero in the AP Invoice Amount line. The default selection criteria for creation date range is the prior year, but looking further back in time might be more useful.

Update: Gift Securities NII Excise Tax Report

Starting FY24, monthly net investment income (NII) excise tax charges have been charged to a general fund budget award for donor gifts of appreciated securities received that have a gift value of less than $500,000. Designated budget officers and finance managers have access to view these charges in the Gift Securities Net Investment Income Excise Tax Report. For details, see the “Net Investment Income Excise Tax Charges” section at the bottom of Topic Overview: Donor Gifts. For questions, contact your school/unit's fund accounting representative.

Brief Updates, Tips, and Resources

Tip: Use the OBI Directory as your launch screen/homepage

Some users set the OBI Financial Reporting Directory as their default starting page instead of the Home tab. Links to all the production reports are presented in a single page, making every OBI report just one click away.

Tip: Use Credit Card Aging reports prior to force clearing deadlines

Run the Credit Card Transactions - Aging Report on a regular basis to track credit card transactions that need to be cleared. Refer to Topic Overview: Managing Aging and Outstanding Expense Transactions for guidance on the process.

Update: Fingate search enhancements

The Fingate website was enhanced in late 2023 to help users find specific information more efficiently and effectively, including improved search indexing, a new search preview feature, and a simplified search results filter. Learn more.