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Financial Management Services (FMS) continually assesses Stanford’s financial ecosystem for opportunities to improve and simplify its systems and processes. Launching the end of January, several enhancements to PTA Manager’s Capital Projects Closeout functionality (abbreviated as PTAC Closeout) will streamline the process to close or cancel capital projects and recover unused funds. These enhancements will result in increased operations efficiency, improved user experience, and financial stewardship.

Impact on current transactions in PTAC Closeout
To facilitate the transition, the following one-time actions to clear pending transactions must be completed.

  • For requests pending department approval: Requesters will need to resubmit their request for completion. Affected users will receive an email with instructions the first week of February.
  • For approved requests pending Capital Accounting processing: No action is required. Requesters and approvers will see the transaction marked as complete in PTAC Closeout by Feb. 2, and Capital Accounting will confirm via email when the project is closed.

What's changing in PTAC Closeout?

System functionality improvements

Requesters can expect more helpful in-system guidance, project information, and efficient workflows.

  • Clearer in-system guidance and project details
    • New pop-up instructions will be available on key pages to help guide users.
    • Open Work Order/Purchase Order page will include the supplier name and work order description.
    • Transaction headers will have eight new fields auto-populated with relevant project details (including project category, location, management, trailing cost, debt status, etc.) to help requesters in their stewardship responsibility throughout the process.
PTAC Closeout’s enhanced interface includes eight new headers that provide relevant project details (shown in red frame)
  • Non-capital General Use Permit (GUP) projects eligible
    • Close and cancel requests for these projects can now be submitted through this system instead of via email to Capital Accounting.
  • Optimized workflows
    • The in-service date will only need to be saved once per transaction.
    • More attachment options will be available, including Form 1s and Board of Trustee funding agreements.
    • The Return Funds page will be redesigned to:
      • Include new columns: Unused Funding Amount and Capital Funding Source.
      • Automatically indicate the order in which unused project funds will be returned, prioritized by returning savings to restricted funds to free up unrestricted funds.
      • The Destination Project Number and Destination Award Number columns will autopopulate with data; requesters can still edit to choose which project and award they want their returned funds transferred to, with an explanation and attached approval.
      • Return Checkbox enhanced: When one or more capital award(s) are assigned to the same capital funding source group, users will now be able to select which capital award gets their project savings returned first. 

Email notification improvements

Requesters and approvers can expect automated emails to include more contextual project information.

  • Transaction update emails (e.g., request accepted/assigned, revised in-service date, open work order/purchase order) will include the project name.
  • Transaction completed emails  will include returned funds, budget, and funding adjustments.

Resources and support

Requesters and approvers will particularly find the updated How Tos helpful for navigating newly added elements.

Get updates

Financial Management Services (FMS) has partnered with University IT (UIT) on an enhancement project to streamline, standardize, and automate the capital projects closeout and cancellation process by adding new functionality to PTA Manager. PTA Manager is a system in Oracle Financials that enables schools and departments to request, approve, track, and close non-sponsored and miscellaneous accounts (PTAs).

The new functionality, PTA Manager Capital Projects Closeout and Cancellation (abbreviated as PTAC Closeout), launched Oct. 9, 2023. Those identified as Form 1 users and approvers with a need for access to PTAC Closeout will be granted the appropriate authority by their unit’s budget officer or designee. Setting up a capital project PTA will remain unchanged and follow the process in Topic Overview: Request New Account (PTA).

Why the change?

  • Opportunity (current state): The current capital project closeout process is manual and inefficient. Schools/departments email closeout/cancellation requests and the FMS Capital Accounting department manually creates iJournals transfers to return funds. In fact, closeout/cancellation is the only capital project lifecycle function process not yet automated.
  • Improvement (future state): The new functionality will leverage existing PTA Manager system capabilities to create an integrated interface and workflow for closeout/cancellation requests and the return of unused funding. The interface will include: automated PTA validations, financial reporting details to help users review their capital project financial position before submitting their request, and fields for schools/units to provide detailed instructions to Capital Accounting for fund return.

Benefits

The new functionality will provide many benefits to distributed users across Stanford schools/units:

  • Standardization/documentation: Maintain central record of capital project closeout/cancellation requests and attachments (versus manual emails that do not have tracking mechanisms and/or can get lost with employee turnover).
  • Internal controls/accuracy: Automated validations prompt users to confirm that the in-service date is correct and all purchase orders and work orders are closed before allowing the closeout/cancellation request to proceed.
  • Process improvement/efficiency:
    • Action can be taken first by those most knowledgeable about the fund, enabling more thorough information provided and efficient review/completion of requests from Capital Accounting.
    • Automated processes (validations, routing of requests, and follow-up email notifications) will enable financial analysts to spend less time manually collecting/processing data and gain more time for reviewing/analyzing the data.
    • Return remaining capital project funds faster to schools/units, enabling them to recommit these funds earlier for other purposes.

Resources and support

Learn how to use the new functionality and get support with the following resources:

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