UVAFinance is celebrating National Take Your Dog to Work Day in Pictures!

Wonder what his
 typing speed is?

Tuesday, June 22 is Take Your Dog to Work Day, and we'd like to virtually meet the amazing animals that bring you joy!

The inaugural UVAFinance celebration of this date will feature team members and their special companion(s) displayed on the lobby monitor.

Don't have a dog?  No worries!  Our celebration is all inclusive!

Please submit a digital photo of you and your pet (any kind of pet) to Lynne Schwar for inclusion in the slideshow.  

Deadline for submission is Friday, June 15.  

Research Administrative Dashboard makes grant and financial management smart, easy, and insightful

Research administrators in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences were used to maintaining several hundred spreadsheets to keep track of faculty research projects. This method of tracking was common but separately maintained, across all schools at UVA, with data entered manually across multiple files in multiple locations.

It's easy to imagine how this made it hard for researchers and research administrators to stay on the same page (both literally and figuratively).

Fortunately, a new dashboard from the UBI Engage consulting team is one step closer to bringing both research administrators and principal investigators a shared platform that brings post-award data together in a way it has never been done before.

After six months of development in partnership with the Curry school and an initial, internal pilot with Curry and SEAS, a broader pilot of the new dashboard is now being tested within Curry, SEAS, the School of Medicine, Arts & Sciences, and the Office of Sponsored Programs.

Dubbed the Research Administration Dashboard, or "RAD," the tool is being tested by team leads or "Radvocates" within the pilot areas.

The functionality is just what research administrators have hoped for. The dashboard is not only a reliable, consolidated way to see data, but also, it's a one-stop window into the financial issues and trends associated with sponsored research.

UBI Developer Andrew Yeung says the dashboard uses Qlik Sense to marry central data sets with other pieces such as student aid and the Vice President for Research's training repository, in a way that allows unprecedented clarity for researchers and research admins, especially for things like how the project's student payroll compares to available balances on grants and awards which wasn’t possible previously. All of this information is updated daily.

"There's no lag period with the app," says Yeung.

"This is the most accurate picture of your financial health that you can get right now."

Kozuch honored by American Payroll Association

UVAFinance's own Darrell Kozuch, Senior Director for Finance, was honored this May by the American Payroll Association with a Special Recognition Award for his long service to the Association.

Kozuch has been an APA member since 1985, and a UVA employee since 1991, starting out at the University Medical Center, where he set up the payroll department and implemented their payroll system in July 1994. Kozuch "came across Hospital Drive" to the academic world in 1998 to work on the same payroll system, transitioned the Y2K conversion, and implemented the Integrated HR/Payroll system in 2002. He transitioned from Finance to Human Resources in 1999, and sat in many different seats within HR, where he moved from Director to Assistant Vice President over payroll, benefits, temp services, HR IT, HR Budget, and the call center, until he transitioned back into Finance in 2015. Currently, his work in Finance involves testing, data setup, and conversion on the implementation of Workday.

To the crowd at the award ceremony on May 18 in Washington DC, Kozuch said, "This is the best day ever! None of us would be here if it wasn’t for the good people around us. Thanks to my wife and children and to UVA for supporting me all of these years.”

Kozuch has served on the Best Practices Subcommittee and as Co-Chair of the Educational Institutions Subcommittee of the Strategic Payroll Leadership Task Force, as well as on the National Speakers Bureau.

He received a Meritorious Service Award in 2015.
______________

Darrel Kozuch, APA Executive Director Dan Maddox,
and Susan Baptista, who was also awarded.

About the APA: The American Payroll Association is the nation’s leader in payroll education, publications, and training. Since 1983, it’s been our goal to increase the payroll professional’s skill level through knowledge and a supportive community of peers. Representing more than 20,000 members, we are the industry’s highly respected and collective voice in Washington, D.C. and beyond.

$10 ticket offer for UVA's Season Opener

Exclusive opportunity to purchase discounted tickets in reserved University seating! 

Save over 70% off the standard ticket price for UVA’s Season Opener at Scott Stadium!

UVA Football vs. Richmond

Saturday, September 1, 2018 │ Scott Stadium │ Game Time: TBA

UVA employees may purchase tickets for $10 each in 

reserved sections 112 and 114 of the lower level, while supplies last.

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE YOUR DISCOUNTED TICKETS

Come out and support the Cavaliers!

This opportunity brought to you courtesy of Uteam and Virginia Athletics

UVA Financial Wellness Program peer counseling service to pilot this fall

SFS's new program aims to alleviate student financial worries.

A budding new peer financial counseling program, spearheaded by Student Financial Services (SFS) and with financial support from both the Jefferson Trust and a UVA alum, will help UVA students learn from their peers how to make better financial choices. The program, funded by a grant from the Jefferson Trust, will have a pilot program in place by the end of the Fall 2018 term.

Students experience stress from a host of sources: classes and grades, work and extra-curricular activities, and, of course, financial responsibilities and looming student debt. Studies have found that financial worries can contribute significantly to students’ overall stress level, as well as their physical and emotional health.

Chris Doran, communications manager in SFS, says the program is part of SFS’s overall continued efforts to help students realize the impact of borrowing on their future. Through outreach and counseling, SFS team members have worked to encourage UVA undergraduates to limit their borrowing of unsubsidized loans and raise awareness of their current indebtedness. The peer counseling program will be another large step in the right direction.

Taking the mystery out of gifts and endowments

Gift & Endowment ImageNow system available now

Nearly 6500 files have been scanned and moved to a new system that can be accessed and searched electronically, providing unprecedented access for schools and units into their own gift and endowment accounts.

In the past, when departments or units had questions about restrictions relating to an endowment or a gift, they’d have to ask Wanda Breeden in investment accounting for help. Then Wanda would get her keys and head down to the Carruthers Hall basement (the “dungeon”) to research the question.

“SFS was only one of many units that called inquiring about gift and endowment accounts. We’d call and ask her for clarification of the endowment’s requirements or the donor’s intent, and she’d have to search the paper files to find the pertinent information. Some files could be several inches thick,” explained Lisa Shuler of Student Financial Services (SFS).

UVAFinance Procurement Analyst Represents UVA at a National Conference

Stage selfie- from Left to Right: Ron Moraski,
Director of Procurement Services,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Shannon Wampler,
Director of Strategic Operations, University of Virginia,
Lauren Leonard, Sourcing Analyst, University of Pittsburgh,
Dan Traub, CEO / Founder, FinVantage Solutions LLC

A standing-room-only panel session at the recent National Association of Educational Procurement (NAEP) Annual Meeting had a familiar face – Shannon Wampler, Director of Strategic Operations in Procurement & Supplier Diversity Services. The panel, “Getting Results through Data-Driven Procurement,” compared and contrasted the approaches three different higher ed institutions were using to solve procurement problems using data analysis.

“Most large institutions are using data analyses to support big changes,” said Wampler, “but that can be difficult for smaller schools to wrap their heads around."

"I tried to focus my points on small steps any college or university could take to make incremental changes with either their suppliers or their departmental clients.”

What data-driven procurement means to you

If you'd like an analysis of what you're spending in your department or unit, PSDS is happy to help.

One thing the data has already told analysts in PSDS is that remanufactured toner equals big savings.  Get in touch with Shannon Wampler if your department wants to be a part of a pilot program switching to remanufactured toner in return for a free printer!

Register now for Lean Fluency

We’re excited to announce the second Lean Fluency class, which will be held on June 7, 1:30-4:30, in Carruthers Hall, Conference Room 2. 

This class will be limited to 15 participants due to the size of the room, and is open to all, although UVAFinance employees have priority.

Description:  Many people in UVAFinance and across Grounds have completed the Lean Certification program. If you don't understand the concepts of Lean or know the terminology, it may seem like they are speaking a different language. If you feel like the intent of process improvement initiatives is being lost in translation, then register for Lean Fluency! 

This is a 3-hour workshop (with some pre-work which you will get by May 31^st) designed to familiarize learners with the basics of Lean principles, vocabulary, and tools. 

Register HERE by May 30th, 2018. 

If you have questions, please contact the training team at foc-training@virginia.edu.

New Recon Site Launched

http://recon.vpfinance.virginia.edu/

The newly refreshed site for Recon@ went live last week, sporting not only a new look but also easy-to-navigate content and information on both GA and GL!

What else is new? 

You're invited to go check the site out -- take it for a spin and share your feedback with the team at recon@virginia.edu 

UVAForward: Register now!

Registration for UVA Forward 2018 is now open!

UVA Forward will be held on May 24th, at the Darden Business School. We hope that you will find many of the sessions inspiring and useful to your personal or professional development. To read more about the sessions and the speakers and to register, please visit the UVA Forward website at forward.virginia.edu.

Only a few tickets left!  Register now!