April 1, 2023, begins the next biennial cycle for the physical inventory process. Department Finance Administrators and their Equipment Custodians should review the updated 2023-2025 Physical Inventory Custodian Schedule on the Controller’s Office website.Additional guidance on performing physical verification of capital assets and Equipment Custodian responsibilities are available on the Controller's Office website. You should also review all pertinent policies, including BUS-29: Management and Control of University Equipment (opens in new window), and if appropriate, policies and guidelines for the funding agency.If you have questions regarding the biennial physical inventory process, email [email protected].
Update: a previous version of this announcement did not include the go-live date. The announcement was also updated to include a training video link.On April 17, 2023, UCPath will update the Ask UCPath support site with a new design that improves access to information for all employees submitting an inquiry to the UCPath Center. Users will experience a redesigned landing page with the following features:Enhanced "Quick Search" for fast access to frequently requested contentA list of trending topics with commonly requested items like tax formsA frequently asked questions (FAQ) sectionEasy to access employee resource linksTo access the Ask UCPath support site, click the Ask UCPath button from any page in UCPath online (opens in new window). Ask UCPath is provided by the UCPath Center to employees systemwide.Watch the Ask UCPath Overview (opens in new window) video for helpful information about the updated site. UCSF employees should visit the Get Help (opens in new window) page on the UCPath at UCSF website for a complete list of support contacts related to UCPath, human resources, benefits, and pay.
As the amount of data in MyReports continues to grow, MyReports is partitioning some reports into current and archived versions. This change is expected to reduce the duration of the nightly data refresh for MyReports.The following UCSF Health Financial reports have been partitioned into current and archived versions:Balance Sheet ReportIncome Statement ReportIncome Statement Variance ReportKey Operating TrendsCurrent reports:Contain data from the three most recent fiscal yearsContinue to be accessed in the same way as they are todayAre refreshed nightlyArchive Periods:Contain data for all years prior to those available in the current reportAre accessed through new links provided in the current reportsAre refreshed each weekend in order to update any changes made to PeopleSoft trees or to chartfield descriptionsNew links to run reports for Archive Periods are available next to the Run Report button in the top right area of each filter page. Users must clear their web browser cache to take advantage of these changes. Contact the Controller's Office Solution Center if you have any questions about MyReports or to report a potential issue.
April 2023 Enhancement to the Employee and Position Distribution and Roster Reports
In July 2019, UCSF implemented a policy to provide Health Sciences Compensation Plan (HSCP) faculty a 12-week childbearing and childrearing (CB/CR) leave benefit. To support CB/CR leaves the campus applies an assessment to HCOMP faculty salaries. Salary and benefit expenses incurred while on a CB/CR leave are charged to the faculty’s normal department funding and are reimbursed from the CB/CR assessment pool.Relief to department funding for CB/CR leaves has been completed by salary cost transfer since 2019. This relief method has been inconsistent and slow since the transition to UCPath, resulting in a backlog of reimbursements. In order to resolve the backlog and move forward with a timely reimbursement process, relief to department funding going forward will be completed by financial journal.The CB/CR backlog of reimbursements will be cleared by financial journal in the March accounting period and recorded using Journal ID 09PRCBCRREL. The journal line description for each relief transaction will reference the employee ID and the earning period being relieved in the format MMYY.As an example, for journal line description "CBCR109909900721":"10990990" represents the employee ID"0721" reflects the earning period relieved (July 2021) Revised Relief ProcessConsistent with the current practice, the posting of relief to department funding will occur upon the completion of the following events:The faculty member returns from an eligible childbearing/childrearing leave.The faculty member confirms their return to work with Human Resources, and the dates of eligible leave are confirmed and finalized.Human Resources communicates the final dates to the Controller’s Office.The Controller’s Office will process a financial journal to credit faculty funding for the dates they were confirmed to be on an eligible CB/CR leave.Upon confirmation by HR, all credits for the entire leave period will post in the month the faculty member returns from leave.. The relief cannot be processed mid-leave because the dates of eligibility are subject to change and are not finalized until the faculty member returns.How will I identify if my funding has been reimbursed?A PeopleSoft financial journal with Journal ID beginning with "MMPRCBCRREL" (where “MM” represents the accounting period) will be prepared on a monthly basis. The journal will credit the original department chartstrings charged salary and benefits during the CB/CR leave and will debit a central liability account where the assessment is pooled. The relief transactions will contain a reference to the employee’s ID and the earning period being relieved.The reimbursement will not appear on the Distribution of Payroll Expense (DPE) Report. The original expense will be visible on the DPE, while the reimbursement will be visible on the Transaction Detail Report (TDR) and other General Ledger sourced reports.Can I perform a Salary Cost Transfer of CB/CR earnings?You may perform a salary cost transfer of CB/CR earnings; doing so will not automatically transfer the relief credit. If you need to move the relief credits you will need to complete a financial journal.The reimbursement will be to the original chartstring charged; however, if you transfer the salary prior to the completion of the relief journal, the Controller's Office will apply the relief credit to the chartstring to which the salary was transferred.What if I don’t see a relief credit to my department chartstring?If the faculty member has returned from leave and you do not see a relief credit processed your first step should be to contact your Academic Leave Specialist (opens in new window) to validate that the dates of the eligible leave have been confirmed and finalized and the complete status communicated to Payroll. If confirmed as complete you can open a case with the Controller’s Office Solution Center to confirm when the credit will be processed.
The UCPath Center announced a new go-live date of November 19, 2023, for the redesigned salary cost transfer (SCT) process. In December, the UCPath Center announced they were reevaluating the March 2023 go-live date for the SCT Redesign project and that the system integration phase of the project would be extended. With the additional time, the UCPath Center completed a focused analysis to understand inconsistencies in percent of effort calculations across UCPath pages and processes. These inconsistencies require manual reconciliation by users in order to tie Distribution of Payroll Expense (DPE) data to UCPath Funding Entry and Salary Cost Transfer pages. A separate but integral initiative has started to establish a consistent effort calculation methodology across UCPath components.In order to undertake this additional initiative, the SCT Redesign go-live date was postponed. The UCPath Center sought feedback from all locations on proposed timing to go-live in late July or November. The UCSF project team, with input from the UCPath Customer Advisory Board, provided feedback that a July go-live would be a hardship for our finance community and supported a fall implementation.In July, UCSF’s project team will begin user acceptance testing, which will include testing activities by campus department transactors nominated by our UCPath Customer Advisory Board. Look for future updates, including training resources, to be announced this summer.
Improvements to the department accounts receivable (Dept A/R) process became effective on March 1. The improvements announced in last month’s Newsletter were based on stakeholder survey responses and interviews with the goal of making the process easier and more efficient for departments without requiring modifications to the UCSF financial system.Departments that used the previous sundry debtor process have transitioned to the new Dept A/R process and must use the updated invoice form, remittance information, and monitor invoices using the MyReports Department Accounts Receivable report. We are happy to report that many users were able to make this transition easily using the information available on the Controller’s Office website without additional direction from the Controller’s Office staff. Thank you for reading and following the Dept A/R process steps.We held our first group office hour on March 16. Attendees were all previous sundry debtor participants. In addition to a brief overview, attendees received answers to their department specific questions about the improved Dept A/R process.We will continue to hold group office hours from 1 to 2 p.m. on the third Thursday of every month. Departments are encouraged to attend the next session on April 20, where we will include a brief overview of the process. Current users should also consider attending a session to get answers to non-urgent questions or to see a demonstration of the new Department Accounts Receivable report. Registration is not required; click here (opens in new window) to join at the start of the session. You must log into your UCSF Zoom account to join.If you have questions about the department accounts receivable process, contact [email protected].
UCSF is enhancing the HBS Timekeeping System to address invalid chartstring values, also known as FAU (Full Accounting Unit) values. Effective as of the biweekly pay period ending February 4, 2023, this enhancement prevents the transmission of invalid chartstrings from UCPath and removes existing invalid and expired chartstrings.HBS users can expect to see the following changes:Current TimesheetsUpon clicking <FAU Look Up> on the current timesheet, the Chart String Lookup functionality will search for and display only valid and chargeable chartstrings. A UCPath account code has been added in parentheses to the end of the chartstring. This code uniquely identifies the chartstring and is for informational purposes only.For example, UCPath account code “000332193” added to the end of chartstring SFHEA-5020-851011-1111111-42 will display in Search Results as SFHEA-5020-851011-1111111-42 (000332193). In addition, only valid chartstrings can be selected on the timesheet. If you find an expired chartstring that should be removed or if you need help to add new chartstrings using the Chart String Lookup functionality, contact the Controller’s Office Solution Center.Cost Center FavoritesFavorites that display in the <Use Funding> drop-down list on the timesheet are managed using the Cost Center Favorites page in HBS.With this enhancement, only valid and chargeable chartstrings are available on the Cost Center Favorites page. Invalid or expired chartstrings previously available are no longer included in either the Available or Favorites section. Invalid or expired chartstrings also are no longer available for selection in the <Use Funding> drop-down list on timesheets.
MyReports Adds Data Refresh Timestamps to All Reports
The next Research Administration (RA) Town Hall will take place on Thursday, March 16, from 9:10 to 11 a.m. via Zoom.We will communicate further details about the Town Hall through the Research Administration forum on Microsoft Teams. We use Teams to communicate agendas, the Zoom webinar link, and any technical issues or updates during the Town Hall meetings. You can also use Teams to submit topic requests for upcoming Town Hall meetings.To join the new Research Administration forum on Microsoft Teams.Sign into Microsoft Teams and navigate to the Teams page.Click Join or create team.Type “Research Administration” in the Search teams search box.From the Search results, hover over the Research Administration team and click Join team.Visit the UCSF Information Technology website for more information about using Microsoft Teams (opens in new window).
