Reminder about Invoices from Accounts Payable

We want to pay your supplier’s invoices in a timely fashion, and we know you want that too! Please encourage your suppliers to submit invoices that include the following basic information:

• Vendor name
• Vendor invoice number
• Amount due
• Invoice date
• Description of services or products provided

The document also needs to be clearly marked as an invoice (see the sample provided below).

Click the image for a larger view

If your suppliers submit invoices without this information, please ask them to correct their submission. Without the proper information, we cannot pay them! We are happy to remind them, but a word from you could help as well. Thanks for your support!

OSP & Finance Partner to Create New Fund Hierarchies

The Office of Sponsored Programs and Finance have partnered to create new fund hierarchies, which are the high-level of funding sources associated with non-sponsored driver worktags (DN, GF, and PJ). The fund hierarchy, FDH087-Allowed for Cost Share, will be entered as an Allowable worktag on cost-sharing grants and sponsored grants that are subject to a salary cap. 

In the current state, OSP Pre-award requires the department to provide their non-sponsored worktags for cost-sharing & over the cap salaries. Under the new process, a cost-share grant will be set up with fund hierarchy FDH087, allowing the departments to select the non-sponsored driver worktags directly on transactions, provided the driver worktags used roll up under FDH087 (Allowed for Cost Share).

New cost-share grants will have FDH087 as an Allowed worktag and DN000001-FD005 (or as specified by dept.) Default worktags. Grants with salary caps (DHHS agencies, including NIH, HRSA, etc.) will have sponsored fund FD021 and FDH087 fund hierarchy as Allowed worktags and FD021 as Default worktag.

Existing cost-share grants and grants subject to salary cap will be updated with FDH087 as an Allowed worktag. Default worktags will remain the same.

With these fund hierarchies in place, there will be efficiencies in reporting, system configurations, and turnaround time for award creation by OSP.

Reviewing PO Balances and Obligations: Helpful Reports

When you need to look at open obligations on purchase orders, there's a new Workday Report available to help you investigate.

Open Obligations on Purchase Orders  - This new report can be run on a cost center, designated, gift, or grant.  You can look up a purchase order or a specific supplier.  By default, it will include canceled and closed POs and will exclude POs with no obligation remaining.  See the sample report image below for an idea of the fields available to view in the report.  The report can also be modified to show POs with zero obligations remaining that are not closed or canceled (these are good candidates for closing!).

Click the image for a larger view

This new report is in addition to the previously available Open Purchase Order Report.

Travel & Expense Expo: Winners, Pictures, and more seminar opportunities!

Over 300 UVA travelers and travel planners attended the Fourth Annual Travel & Expense Expo on August 3. After a four-year COVID-induced hiatus, it was great to see everyone in person at Newcomb Hall. Over 35 travel-related vendors provided exhibits and giveaways for attendees, and Passport Services and the DMV were also on hand.

Thank you to everyone who attended and those who volunteered!

For those who didn't get to attend the seminars offered at the Expo, mark your calendars for the following dates in September when we'll make them available again via Zoom:

• September 12: TravelUVA
• September 14: Workday Expense Q&A

We'll share more details on the blog and in the Travel & Expense Newsletter as the dates approach.

Click here to see the raffle winners!  All attendees were entered in the raffle (double entries for those who RSVPd and checked in at the event).

See all the Travel & Expense Expo event photos on UVAFinance's Flickr page.

UBI User Hub Becomes UBI Portal

The UBI User Hub is now the UBI Portal, featuring upgrades to both usability and functionality.

This new name reflects the module's purpose, an entry to UBI Reporting and Analytics, and reduces confusion with UBI Analytics Qlik Sense Hub.

In this new UBI Portal, you'll be able to do many of the same things as before, including:

• Explore and access UBI apps and modules
• Find which fields are present in what UBI modules
• View the access roles required for each app
• See the latest reload timestamp for any app and see important alerts for the UBI reload process in general.

In the new UBI Portal, you’ll also be able to:

• View approved data definitions from the Data Catalog, which replaced Data Cookbook
• See if UBI fields have an associated data definition
• View your current UBI access roles

We look forward to sharing this revamped UBI portal with you. You can access it here.

Need help?

We’ve developed a quick reference guide for the UBI Portal and posted it on the Data and Analytics Community Teams site. If you’re already a member you can access the guide directly via this link or in the resources channel under the files tab.

If you’re not yet a member of the Data and Analytics Teams, you can join by:

• Open Microsoft Teams.
• Click the Teams icon on the left-hand side of the window.
• Click Join or Create a team (at the very bottom of the screen).
• In the Join a team with a code box, enter this code: 7g617dn

If you are a Heath Center or UPG employee, the code will not work. You’ll need to email the UBI Team to request access to the Team. Once you’ve been granted access, be sure to use your @virginia.edu account to log on to the Team.

 

Fund Validations Added for Function Worktag

As of August 4th, validations have been added to the use of the function worktag in Workday Financials.  

Here are some basic points to know about the function validations: 

• Validations ensure the usage of Scholarships and Fellowships functions (FNH100) only with SC0153-155 and all SCs included in SC hierarchy Scholarships & Fellowships
• Functions in the hierarchy FNH098 Institutional Support (FN029 - FN034) can only be used by certain Cost Center Hierarchies (configured on Function worktag). 
• Function FN062 Hospital can only be used by Cost Centers in the UPG and Medical Center CC hierarchies (configured on Function worktag).
•  Allowed Funds on Designateds will be set equal to the default fund outside of a few exceptions. 

These validations will keep errors from occurring, which is a good thing, but users should be on the lookout for transactions that don't go through.  As long as users aren't changing the fund when they enter a designated value and leave the default, there should be few issues.   If you have problems with transactions due to function errors, please contact Ask Finance. 

Continuous Improvement Corner: High Impact Purchase Order Distribution Method Clean Up

The Issue:  Issued Purchase orders were not delivered to the suppliers because there was an outdated distribution method on file. This caused department users and Central Buyers confusion, delayed delivery of items, and unproductive administrative time to track down Purchase Orders.

Actions Taken: A group of Procurement team members collaborated to find non-catalog suppliers with no distribution method. They filtered to suppliers who were active in the past FY and used the Pareto rule to identify the ones with high impact. Then, they collaborated with the Supplier Management team to send new Paymentworks invitations and clean up supplier profiles in Workday and Marketplace. ​

Findings:​ In the last FY, UVA did business with 710 suppliers that had a bad distribution method. That's 4824 Purchase Orders worth $41.6 million,  and 238 high-volume suppliers with 3697 Purchase Orders worth $36.5 million.​

Impact on UVA Users:  Created efficiency in the sourcing process for department users and Central buyers and helped the disbursement team by reducing the time to manually adjust supplier profiles. This means schools and units can have increased confidence that when their PO is approved, it is being distributed to the accurate address at the supplier.  The team continues improvement activities in terms of purchase orders in order to achieve as high a degree of accuracy as possible!

Results:  As of 8/2/2023, we have fully registered and approved 64 suppliers​ and processed 1115 Purchase Orders,  $13.9 million worth of business

Major Contributors in this project:​  Andrew Clark, Franky Kong, Susanna Huang, Sri Ranjani Murthy

Keeping the Goods & Services Guide Up to Date

As reported in July, the Goods & Services Guide has been overhauled after an intensive cross-functional project spearheaded by several teams in Procurement.  The Guide, located on the UVAFinance website, has several new and useful features (see all the changes in this July blog post).

The Goods & Services as it exists online is the most current version.  The Procurement team will continually monitor and update it, so downloading the document is discouraged.  The Guide is a 'living document' governed by a cross-functional team.

That team asks for your help in keeping the Guide as up-to-date as possible.  If you know of changes that should be made, please propose them by emailing them to AskFinance@virginia.edu; we'll be happy to investigate and review any discrepancies, gaps, or inaccuracies, and address them.  

Josh Breeden Leaving UVAFinance

Josh Breeden, formerly a Senior Workday Finance Architect, has his last day on Friday, August 11th. He is moving on to be a Workday Senior Associate, working in post-production support with Huron.

Although it is sad to see him go, Breeden is looking forward to broadening his Workday knowledge. At Huron, he will have the opportunity to partner with other customers using Workday Financials and see how they leverage the technology to its maximum potential. He is excited to work with and learn from people that have used Workday for a lot longer than he has.

Despite that, Breeden is very grateful for all that he learned from his eight years at UVAFinance. He remarks, “I have had the chance to delve into cross-functional challenges to develop my operational knowledge, and then most recently build up my Workday knowledge base as a part of FST and the Workday Support Team.” His experience at UVAFinance will stick with him as he moves on to Huron.

He reflects that he will genuinely miss working with the various stakeholders across UVA: “I am thankful for the trust they put in me and for their partnership in challenging the status quo.”

Breeden will go on to do great things at Huron. Best wishes Josh!

(You can keep in touch with Josh via his LinkedIn.)

Heads Up on Aging Transactions

The Travel & Expense team is working to clean up a number of aging transactions over 90 days old.

If you receive an email regarding aging transactions for you or one of your direct reports, please expense these as soon as possible. 

The new My Card Transactions report is an easy way to see if you have any outstanding transactions. Often items are ‘hidden’ in draft expense reports. 

Thank you for your help!

Update on Two-Approver Process for Expense Reports

The Expense team is working on a better way to achieve a two-approver process for expense reports that will work for both compliance purposes and for our schools and units.  

They've just finished internal testing on a process that is a significant improvement over the initial course of action we tried out (and pulled back) in May.  This process will be tested with a spend focus group; once more feedback has been gathered, we'll share the results at the September 6 Fiscal Administrators' Group. 

Want to be added to the Fiscal Administrators email invite list?  Email Stacey Rittenhouse.

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Related information:  You can find the 2023 Fiscal Administrators' Meeting Schedule, along with Agendas and Meeting Recordings, on the UVAFinance website here (click Fiscal Administrators): https://uvafinance.virginia.edu/finance-community-engagement/meetings-and-resources 

Wellness Resources: August 2023

Upcoming Wellness Webinars

• Grow Fulfillment & Well-Being through Career Development

Tune in on August 9 at 3:30 pm. Click HERE to register.

• Fine-Tuning Your Retirement Strategy

Tune in on August 24 at 12:00 pm or 3:00 pm. Click HERE to register..

Create a Hoos Well Portal Account

Create a Hoos Well Portal Account and earn up to $500 in awards while enhancing your well-being! Thousands of your colleagues are already reaping the benefits of the Portal and its offerings. Watch the recorded demo to learn how to get the most from the Portal.

Seeking Hoos Well Stories

Do you have a Hoos Well success story that you'd like to share? The Hoos Well team is looking for testimonials and quotes that they can use for Hoos Well resources. Click HERE to learn more and complete the survey. Also feel free to attach a picture to the survey if you'd like!

 

Derrick Carter: Business Analyst Extraordinaire

If Derrick Carter could describe his role as a Business Analyst, he would say that he’s like a “Swiss army knife.” He does a variety of things, for a variety of people, and for a variety of reasons.

Carter was originally brought on for the FST Workday project, but now he’s continuing his role as a Business Analyst in a slightly new position with the Change Enablement and Continuous Improvement (CE/CI) team.

Mainly, he looks at processes. Between the start and end, Carter highlights the potential deficiencies. He analyzes this data and works with people to determine what training or systematical change is needed to make things better. After he finds problems, he helps teams fix them.

One of Carter’s favorite parts about his role is the variety of it all: “I like being able to jump and move to different things and see things from a different perspective, inside and outside of finance.” Previously, he worked a lot with the School of Medicine and Facilities Management, but for now, his focus is going to be on our UVAFinance teams and processes.

Within the CE/CI team, Carter collaborates with the training and development team to get data and point out specific points of need. He is also involved in several other projects to help the UVAFinance as a whole, including work on documenting workflow and approvals for various business processes and working with teams to develop standard operating procedures.

He reflects that he has, “the mindset to take on different challenges,” which contributed to this particular role. Overall, we’re excited he’s moving forward as a Business Analyst in UVAFinance! Best wishes as you continue your work, Derrick!

UVAFinance Welcomes Justin Green

The Green Family

This July, UVAFinance’s Financial Accounting Department welcomed Justin Green as its newest member. Green takes on the role of Director of Financial Reporting, a position for which he’s well prepared, given a 20+ year career that includes a plethora of experience with corporate accounting, international accounting, auditing, financial projects, and much more.

Green comes to UVA most recently from FedEx, where he moved up the ranks steadily over the years from 2005 until he recently decided to make the change from Memphis, Tennessee, to Virginia. Why the change from the big city and corporate accounting to a smaller city and academia? The answer lies with his family.

Green and his wife Sara, a pediatrician, decided they wanted a less urban environment in which to raise their two children (Abigail, 7, and Andrew, 5). While they enjoyed hiking and riding bikes in Memphis, they were attracted by the possibilities afforded by a slower pace of life, and since they had family who lived in the Crozet area, they thought Virginia would be a good fit.

When you add UVA’s reputation to the mix, says Green, his choice of employment was an easy one. “Once I started to investigate the opportunities at UVA, I could see that there was a good culture, and opportunities for advancement within the organization,” says Green.

The Greens will be transitioning from their home in Memphis to a recently purchased 28-acre farm in Virginia. While they do some renovations on the farmhouse (complete with a cottage from Green’s mother), they’ll rent a home (and, says Green, maybe contemplate some cows or sheep to graze his acreage instead of mowing it). When they’re not out exploring the outdoors, the Greens enjoy traveling and have recently visited France and the United Kingdom.

We wish them well during their big move – welcome to UVA, Justin!

New Endowment Resources

UVA's endowment is an essential source of permanent support.  For the last 15 fiscal years, spending from the endowment has increased, providing a reliable income stream that we can count on to support excellence and affordability.

If you've ever wondered why UVA can't use its endowment to fill budget gaps or had someone ask you why we have to raise tuition when we have such a healthy endowment,  you're not alone.  

We've produced two new resources to help internal and external audiences alike understand better how our endowment works.  You'll find these resources on the UVAFinance website: 

How Does the Endowment Work? (video resource)

How Does the Endowment Work? (print resource)