UVAFinance Welcomes Back Kriszti Kiss

Kiss and her husband at Angkor Wat

Kriszti Kiss is all about new beginnings. Back in 2016, when UVA was in the early stages of the Managerial Reporting Project, aimed at improving reporting and data analytics across the enterprise, Kiss was on the team. She also helped launch University Business Intelligence (UBI), the custom tool that resulted from that team’s efforts.

Kiss also assisted with the groundwork and launch of ExpenseUVA, and just a little later, she was one of the first members of the Finance Strategic Transformation Project Team. Kiss worked on the FST project team up through the configure and prototype phase in September 2021 and then left UVA for a year and a half of traveling and adventure.

UVAFinance is pleased to welcome her back for another new beginning this March in as a Finance Data Analyst working with the Business Intelligence & Analytics Team. In her new position in the beginning days of Workday Financials and Adaptive Planning, Kiss will focus on gathering requirements and case testing when new reports are requested, something she expects to enjoy very much given her affinity for testing.

Guest Photographer

“I like lifelong learning,” she says. “I was sad to leave the FST project before testing began because that is something I enjoy.”

Kiss explains that her position appeals to her two main loves: working with data and working with people. She looks forward to learning the reporting tools such as Salesforce and Adaptive and being able to work with the Business Intelligence team to assist finance users across Grounds to get the information they need.

When Kiss and her husband Bobby traveled the world during her 18-month absence from UVA, she had plenty of opportunity to gather lots of data and meet lots of people as they toured Southeast Asia and visited family in Europe. Just some highlights of their adventures include kayaking in Ha Long Bay, visiting Angkor Wat, taking cooking classes and snorkeling in Thailand, sampling all the coffee Vietnam’s rich coffee culture has to offer, and going to sailing school in Gibraltar.

At Ha Long Bay

Did You See This? Reporting & Analytics Release Notes for March

In the last blog digest, we shared the Reporting & Analytics Release Notes for March 9.  If you didn't get to take a look, here are a few highlights you might've missed: 

• The Quick tip of the month:  Saved Filters (Workday) and Bookmarks (UBI) – remember that if you regularly the same report with the same filter(s) for CC, Grants, or other worktags, you can save your filters using the Saved Filters option in Workday or using Bookmarks in UBI. Bookmarks in UBI can be shared, Saved Filters in Workday cannot. As a best practice, you should leave the Period prompt empty when you save since you will likely need to update that from month to month anyway. Directions on how to use Saved Filters and Bookmarks can be found in the Reporting Training Resources.  (just go to Workday Finance Training and scroll to Workday Reporting)
• A chart of the Top Ten Reports your finance colleagues are using  (check it out in the notes)
• A reminder about the New Simple "BBA" Report for Expense Budget vs. Actuals
• AND MORE!  Check out the release notes if you haven't already!  Remember that past release notes are also archived just under the latest version, so you can always check out anything you missed.

>>>> Reporting Analytics & Release Notes on the UVAFinance website

Continuous Improvement Efforts Ramping Up: Account Certification & Reporting Groups

As part of the ongoing effort of supporting Continuous Improvement, the Finance Change Enablement & Continuous Improvement team is piloting two improvement initiatives to help schools/units identify improvements/optimizations internally.  The groups are focusing on two areas of great interest to UVA in general:  Account Certification and Reporting.

1.  School of Medicine Continuous Improvement Working Group: Account Certification process

This group's focus is on improving understanding and confidence in the Account Certification process and finding ways to minimize frustration, and unnecessary tasks, and doing the most effective aspects of the Account Certification Process

The group consists of nine SOM team members currently working through an improvement framework where they’ve already: 1) Conducted a deep dive of the current process to understand the process fully and 2) Identified and prioritized the pain points they’d like to address.

Their next step is generating ideas for improvement within SOM (things they can control) and submitting their recommendations to UVAFinance for consideration in future enhancements.

2.  Facilities Management Continuous Improvement Working Group:  Reporting 

This group's focus is improving understanding and confidence in reports and the reporting process, as well as identifying ways to minimize frustration and unnecessary tasks, and have a standard of practice, related to reporting. 

Six FM Team members are currently working through an improvement framework where they've already: 1) Conducted an in-depth study of a certain report and the current process to understand reports and 2) Identified and prioritized the pain points they'd like to address.

Next up for this group is to generate ideas for improvement within Facilities Management (items they can control). and then share their recommendations with UVAFinance for consideration in future enhancements. 

Want to know more about Continuous Improvement?  UVAFinance has a wealth of CI resources, including videos, Tips & Tricks, Training, and much more, on our Continuous Improvement webpage.  Go take a look!

Melody Bianchetto is Staff Recipient of 2023 John T. Casteen III Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award

President Ryan, Bianchetto, faculty 
awardee Barbara Brown Wilson, 
and VP for DEI & Community 
Partnerships Kevin McDonald

UVAFinance's recently retired Melody Bianchetto was honored earlier this month as the staff recipient of UVA's Annual John T. Casteen III Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award.  There were over 44 nominees for this prestigious award.  

You can read more about Bianchetto's efforts and those of the other fantastic winners of this year's awardees on UVAToday.

See pictures from the event on UVAFinance's
Flickr.

Active Attacker Prevention and Response Training, April 11

Active Attacker Prevention and Response Training
Tuesday, April 11, 11:30 am – 12:30 pm
Newcomb Hall South Mtg. Rm.

Since 2020, the Department of Safety & Security has conducted multiple Active Attacker Prevention, Response, and Notification trainings for over a thousand members of the University community. Although incidents of active attackers at universities and medical centers are statistically rare, the impact on the individuals and communities affected cannot be overstated. In that regard, and especially following the tragedy that occurred on Grounds on Nov. 13, 2022, the Department of Safety & Security continues its commitment to further educate the UVA community about public safety.

In this 60-minute training, the Department of Safety & Security will discuss what the University Threat Assessment Team, Office of Emergency Management, and Police Department are doing to prevent and, if needed, respond to, and notify the UVA community of an active attacker event.

Participants will learn about Emergency Notifications, how to report concerning behavior, and easy-to-remember options for people who are faced with a violent situation. This training is free and open to all students, employees, faculty, and staff of the Academic and UVA Health Divisions. For more information, contact Rachel Slotter (Office of Emergency Management) at ras5zm@virginia.edu. Please register for the training here.

UVAFinance Welcomes Alicia Mellenthin to Payroll Services

Alicia Mellenthin and payroll go way back . . . all the way back, in fact, to when she was 14 years old, doing the payroll for her parents' taxicab company in Dubuque, Iowa (fun fact:  she also did dispatching and drove a bit when she was older).

"I've been doing payroll so long it's become second nature," says Mellenthin.

This March, Mellenthin brought her wealth of skills and experience in the industry to UVA as she took up a position as a Senior Compliance Analyst.  In her position, she'll be working specifically with payroll taxes, a role with an analytical bent that appeals to her. 

Mellenthin, a certified payroll professional, comes to UVA most recently from the private sector in the Cedar Rapids area, where she still resides.  She got the jump on most of us and began working remotely about a decade ago when her husband needed to relocate for work and her employer offered her a remote position to keep her. 

"I'm a disciplined person, so working remotely isn't a problem for me.  I knew when I saw this position on a job board that I was very interested in the work and I'd enjoy it," she says. 

She notes it's been interesting onboarding in a new role, but having Zoom and Teams has made the process a lot easier, and her team in UVAFinance has been welcoming and helpful.  

We're grateful to have Mellenthin's 30-plus years of experience in payroll. When she's not working, she and her husband enjoy the great outdoors, particularly water-based activities such as tubing and boating.  She has four grown children and two grandkids on the way.

New in the World of Expense

Contributed by Raegan Harouff Gaye

Employee Award Taxable for Gift Cards of Various Amounts

If gift cards of varying amounts are purchased in one transaction using the T&E card, please itemize different gift card amounts so the recipients are taxed correctly. For example: If you purchase one $100 gift card and one $200 gift card in the same transaction (on the same receipt) and you don't itemize, Workday will divide the total into equal amounts and tax each recipient for $150 rather than one at $100 and one at $200.

Business Meals – No Business Purpose Taxable Entry

The field previously titled "Number of Attendees without a Business Purpose (Included in total # of Persons)" has been renamed "No Business Purpose (enter # of attendees with no bona fide business purpose, included in total # of persons)" in hopes of reducing confusion.

This field should be left blank if all participants in the business meal have a bona fide business purpose. If there are attendees without a bona fide business purpose, that number should be entered into this field.

The expense items affected are:

• Business Non-Travel Meals
• Business Travel Meals | Domestic
• Business Travel Meals | Domestic, Travel, Employee Training
• Business Travel Meals | International
• Business Travel Meals | International, Travel, Employee Training

Lastly, we added a step to the business process. All expense reports with a number entered in this field will now route to the T&E team for additional approval.

Expense Item Edits

The Expense Item Descriptions page on our website is up to date, reflecting all of these changes.

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Related content:  Did you know you can find those Expense Items Descriptions inside a Twinkie?  What are we even talking about?  Click here to find out.

 

Delegating Workday Transactions: Delegates vs. Alternate Delegates

There has been confusion between assigning delegates and selecting an alternate delegate. When you delegate transactions in Workday you are choosing someone to act on your behalf. If a backup is needed for the person to whom you delegate, you can enter additional names in the Delegate field. A delegate cannot further delegate or choose a backup for tasks that have been delegated to them.

What is an Alternate Delegate?

When delegating transactions, you are required to either check the box to Use Default Alternate or select a different alternate. An alternate delegate is not your backup or additional delegate but rather serves as an alternate approver. The Default Alternate is your primary manager. The alternate delegate field only pertains to delegating inbox tasks since a delegate themself cannot approve transactions that relate to them. This is to ensure the submitter does not receive and approve their own tasks as an approver.

For Example: A delegate is assigned to approve expense reports. The delegate submits an expense report for themself. The expense report will route to the alternate delegate for approval instead of the delegate.

The following resources may be helpful:
Overview of delegation, FAQs, and best practices 

Delegate Workday Transactions Quick Reference Guide

Help for your Vendors

When your vendors have questions about doing business with UVA, have them contact UVAFinance directly using askfinance@virginia.edu or 434-924-3400.  That way we can work with them directly and you don't have to be in the middle.  

Our User Success agents can answer many questions right away, or they can put your vendor in touch with an expert in procurement as needed.

When you're doing business with a new supplier and want to ensure they're registered with PaymentWorks, avoid having them duplicate their record in PaymentWorks by checking to see if they're already registered under a different email. Also, note that misspellings of supplier names and the use of personal emails rather than a more general inbox name can cause problems (harry@virginia.edu vs. receivables@virginia.edu),

See this helpful training information.  You can also refer your suppliers to this information about registering with UVA (here's where they can launch PaymentWorks to check their registration)

Wellness Resources: March 30

COLON CANCER AWARENESS

It’s Colon Cancer Awareness Month and we’re highlighting the importance of screenings. Did you know you’re at an increased risk of getting colon cancer if a family member has had it? Even if you don't have a family history of colon cancer, it’s recommended that you get screened at age 45. UVA Health is ready to answer your questions about screenings. Call

434.297.8427 or email crcscreening@virginia.edu. Be sure to speak with your primary care provider about which option is right for you.

OWN YOUR JOURNEY TO YOUR BEST PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL SELF
April 18, 12:00 pm
Join special guest speaker Edward D. Hess, Professor Emeritus of Business Administration at UVA's Darden School of Business and author of 14 books, as he shares his wisdom on high organizational and human performance. Professor Hess will detail practical strategies from his new book so you can learn to cultivate happiness, success, and meaning in your work and relationships while preventing feelings of anxiousness and overwhelm during our age of smart technology and radical change.
Register for the April 18 webinar

CIRCLE OF LIGHT
4th Thursday of each month
Join an emotional wellness space where individuals can process their experience with racial trauma through the exploration of shared stories and lived experiences. We will help participants understand how racial trauma can affect mental and emotional well-being and how to incorporate ways to interrupt the trauma response by drawing upon culturally-grounded healing strategies. You will be seen, heard, felt, and can let your light shine!
​​​​​​​Register for the April Circle of Light session

UVAHR Features Myron Ballard

 

UVAHR's March Employee Spotlight was none other than our own Myron Ballard, Finance Project Associate.  

Read more about what he does, why he loves it, and why project management is important on the UVAHR website.  Plus, you'll get to see some of his amazing artwork!

We're grateful to have Myron on our team.

UVAFinance: Need a Headshot?

UVAFinance team members, we still have a few slots open for our spring headshot session on April 26.  

If you need a headshot, please visit our Sign Up page and see if we have a slot that works for you.  

If you are an employee who comes to Grounds ONLY for the twice-yearly All-Hands meetings, we will have a special headshot session just for you in May (more details on that later).  

Questions?  Contact Brandi Van Ormer

A Tale of Too Many Payroll Adjustments

Kay Johnston, an accountant in Recreational Sports, recently found herself staring down almost 2000 lines of payroll adjustments.  Pressed for time and operating with the understanding that these could only be done one at a time, Johnston and her supervisor Erica Perkins were quite reasonably alarmed.  

Thankfully, Perkins reached out for help and UVAFinance trainer Erika Priddy pitched right in.  Priddy confirmed payroll adjustments can't be done in a mass upload to Workday Finance, but that's not the same thing as doing them one at a time.  During some "time with a trainer," she showed Johnston how to remove the duplicates per position for each pay period on her spreadsheet (meaning multiple pay periods were done in one adjustment).  

The end result?  Johnston had one-tenth as many payroll adjustments to do and was very relieved. 

The moral of the story:  Our UVAFinance Trainers are happy to help you with your Workday Finance issues.  Check out the new Time with a Trainer schedules on the Workday Finance Training page. 

Stuck in Workday? Maybe you need a Twinkie!

When we think of Twinkies, golden spongecake with a sugary white filling usually comes to mind.  Whether you think they're delicious or dubious (I mean, they're supposed to outlast the apocalypse, right?) we can all probably agree that Twinkies aren't good for us.

UNLESS you're in Workday.  Then, Twinkies are pretty much always good for you.  

In Workday, "Twinkie" refers to the little rectangle with three dots that appears next to any blue text or magnifying glass icon . . . and that means it appears next to a majority of the text you see in Workday. All you have to do is hover your cursor over the text, and the twinkie appears!

It's particularly helpful when you're working with expenses. For example, the Expense Item Description Spreadsheet that so many of us use is really helpful, but did you know that if you hover over Expense Item in Workday, the Twinkie will pop up and you can select a description without leaving Workday?

The “Twinkie” is actually called the "related actions" button because in some instances it provides access to a menu of actions related to the transaction.

 For instance, if you have an in-progress Accounting Journal (not yet approved), the related actions or twinkie is where you can Edit, Add Attachments, and Copy the journal.

You can also access the Twinkie in reporting, which can make for quicker work of finding information or performing actions like completing Accounting Adjustments during or after the Account Certification process.

There are related actions, helpful instructional text, definitions, and descriptions of terms, plus descriptions of categories routed to, and so much more, all available through the Twinkie. 

Even if you're not having a problem per se, we advise clicking on the Twinkie and seeing what it will tell you about the task at hand -- it's a great learning tool within Workday!

Fun fact:  The Related Actions Button is called a "Twinkie" because of its resemblance to the bottom of the snack cake. 

A First 90 Days Message from Augie Maurelli to UVAFinance

On March 9, 2023, Vice President for Finance Augie Maurelli shared his vision for the first 90 days as he transitions into the leadership role with the UVAFinance team.  The following are the main points of that presentation.

First, thank you for all the work you have done to get us to this point.  We have just come through a major time of transition with the implementation of Workday Financials and all of the other deliverables involved with Finance Strategic Transformation.   I appreciate your tenacity and dedication and acknowledge the uncertainty you may feel as we're faced with another period of change.

As we embark on a new era of UVAFinance, here are some assurances in our approach for the next 90 days:

• We will continue to leverage data and feedback to drive our decisions.  Even preconceptions will need validation. 
• We will be targeted and deliberate in our efforts and manage expectations appropriately.
• We will broaden our engagement horizontally across the organization and with our stakeholders.
• Communication, collaboration, and co-creation are fundamental to how we work.
• We will continue to embrace our self-developed core values in our actions. 

While some things will remain the same, there will, of course, also be some opportunities for change during this time of transition.  Change is not always our favorite meal; however, we can determine the size of the bite.  Here are some of those opportunities UVAFinance will embark upon: 

• Truly understanding all of UVAFinance's needs, challenges, aspirations, and concerns.  We will develop an internal survey and share the results of this survey during our May All-Staff meeting.
• Assessing current training and development mechanisms and seeking improvements.  We will work with directors and our training team to create a reliable, equitable way to appropriately focus our training development.
• Establishing meaningful relationships and tapping into our collective genius to arrive at solutions together.  We'll revisit and establish an appropriate meeting cadence and engagement.
• Continuing our path to success.  The aggregation and accumulation of repetitive work is what ultimately creates success.  We have made significant investments in major systems and we need to maximize them.  
• Co-creating a long-term vision.  How do we want to define success?

To achieve these aims, the first 90 days will require not only the aforementioned survey but also a listening tour (both internal and external), as well as my meeting with all directors.  We will also survey our stakeholders, seeking feedback on the current state, identifying key areas of improvement, recognizing effective tools as well as cumbersome ones, and more.   

As you might imagine, we'll also need to address key vacancies and critical needs.  That's a key priority we're working on immediately.  Departments are also revisiting goals with the aim to share them this spring.  As we approach May and the All-Staff meeting, we'll be looking to have a vision for UVAFinance 2.0, including a road map for a UVAFinance five-year strategic plan.  Major goals already established include a successful fiscal close and audit for FY2023, clearing all finance management points, improving multi-year financial planning, and developing an excellence scorecard/dashboard for UVAFinance. 

My ask of the team in UVAFinance during these first 90 days is to consider the following carefully: 

• How do you impact the team?
• What are your accountabilities?
• What do you enjoy about your role?
• What type of work do you enjoy that makes you lose track of time?
• Where do you struggle?
• What would you change about your job?  About the team?
• What would make your job more enjoyable?
• Are you challenged?  
• What metrics are meaningful to you?

These will be important considerations to have in mind as we work together to co-create the future.   Our aim is to consider not just what should we be doing, but what could we be doing.  I look forward to building UVAFinance 2.0 with you!

Augie

Members of UVAFinance's Change Team Speak at EACUBO

 Change management was a big part of Finance Strategic Transformation.  

Members of the UVAFinance Change Team Angela Knobloch, Patty Marbury, and Brandi Van Ormer shared lessons learned from that experience at EACUBO's 2023 Workshop in Boston in a session called "Transforming the Experience of Stakeholder Change."

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UVAFinance Team members:  Did you or your colleagues present at a conference or do something otherwise cool?  Let us know about it!  Email bv8h@virginia.edu with all your news!

Bringing Invoice Processing In House

 

An update from Amanda Lockhart Davis

As I mentioned in my recent update to you, our stakeholders, our team has been organizing and prioritizing our workload, pinpointing the issues causing the most pain and getting solutions in place as quickly as possible. I'm pleased to let you know today that we've put one of those solutions in place.  Because of the difficulties with our optical character recognition (OCR) provider, we're bringing invoice processing back in-house.  This requires us to staff up and train that staff so that your vendors' invoices will be processed correctly and quickly.

We'll continue to consider long-term solutions for invoice processing at UVA, but this step should have positive implications for our vendors.  We're working closely with AskFinance to make sure they can answer vendor questions that may arise, so feel free to send your vendors directly to them.  

There has been no change to the email vendors use for invoice submission, and we have adjusted the physical address on POs.

Know that while this affects many UVA vendors, some areas in UVAWise, OPS, Facilities Management, the Library, Law Library, the Bookstore, and Cavalier Computers, have special arrangements outside of normal operations that will continue to function as normal.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at askfinance@virginia.edu.

I look forward to updating you further both on this issue as it evolves and on other solutions we're working on, with your continued partnership at the top of our minds!

How to Work With the Workday Support Team

 In the last blog digest, we introduced you to the Workday Support Team.  This team works behind the scenes to work out issues with Workday Finance, implement new functionality, review and adjust current configuration and business processes, and partner with stakeholders to assist in process simplification.

So how do you work with the Workday Support Team if you need their assistance?

The team uses Salesforce to identify issues and requests that need to be addressed, you can send your requests to askfinance@virginia.edu, and those will make their way to the Workday Support Team, but know that this may take some time.  To speed up the process, you can create a case directly in Salesforce and assign it to the FI-Workday Support Queue, so the issue will go directly into the Workday Finance Support Team's queue.

The Workday Support Team will track issues and requests using Workday Adoption Planning.  They'll  work with stakeholders to prioritize requests, and larger projects may require prioritization by the Cross Platform Support Governance Committee.

Reporting & Analytics Release Notes March 9

Finance Reporting and Analytics Release Notes for March 9th have been posted to the UVAFinance website. 

 This update includes significant new reports and modifications that have been released since February 9th as well as known issues that we are investigating or working on currently.

A friendly reminder that you can always find this information and more reporting resources at Business Intelligence & Analytics | UVA Finance (virginia.edu)

Quick Tip of the Month:  Saved Filters (Workday) and Bookmarks (UBI) – remember that if you regularly the same report with the same filter(s) for CC, Grants, or other worktags, you can save your filters using the Saved Filters option in Workday or using Bookmarks in UBI. Bookmarks in UBI can be shared, and Saved Filters in Workday cannot. As a best practice, you should leave the Period prompt empty when you save since you will likely need to update that from month to month anyway. Directions on how to use Saved Filters and Bookmarks can be found in the Reporting Training Resources.

Head on over to the site to see what finance reports people use the most!

Working with AskFinance

Joey Carls, User Success Manager of the Ask Finance Team, shares updated guidance on how our AskFinance team works with you, our finance partners.

What happens after I send a case to AskFinance?

Following the submission of a case to askfinance@virginia.edu, you will be sent an automated message with your case number. You may respond to this email to provide additional details on your case so we encourage you to hold it until your case is resolved. The user success team will work with you to gather additional details and/or resolve your question or issue. Complex cases beyond their scope of knowledge will be escalated and you will be notified at that time. UVAFinance functional teams will see your case to resolution at which time your case will be closed generating a satisfaction survey.

How do I flag my issue for a specific person in UVAFinance?

If you have already contacted someone in UVAFinance about an issue you are experiencing and wish for your case to be directed to them, please note that in the body of your initial email to AskFinance. Feel free to forward pertinent email chains and attachments as part of the initial email as well. It is important not to add individuals to the CC or BCC lines of your email, as this creates case messy duplication and ultimately slows our response times.

When can I expect a response from UVAFinance?

The user success team strives for a same-day response to inquiries received before 4pm, Monday-Friday, and aims to resolve or referred cases within two business days. Case volume and complexity may create some variation in response times, particularly after a case is referred. If you desire a status update, please call the Solution Center at 434-924-3400 and have your case number ready.

How can I get my issue resolved or referred more efficiently?

Part of the user success agent’s role is information collection and troubleshooting which at times may delay an expedient resolution. Providing as much detail as possible about the specific issue(s) you are experiencing, including the worktags you are using and any resources you have already referenced to aid you in the transaction, and attaching images or other pertinent documents will allow us to serve you more efficiently. Resources/details that are useful include PO numbers, screen captures of error messages, email conversations, associated documents, etc. Any and all documentation is great! More detail means the user success agent’s first follow-up question to you is less likely to be a request for further information.

My case was closed by UVAFinance but I did not receive a response or the response I needed. How should I proceed?

If your case is closed unexpectedly or you received a solution that did not fully resolve your issue, please do not respond to the survey email. Rather, find the original autoreply for your case or the last related email you received and send a reply noting your concern with the case closure. Your case will reopen with the professional who closed the case.

How can I provide feedback on my experience?

Once your case is resolved, you will receive an email that includes a brief survey about your experience with the solution center. We strongly encourage you to complete this survey and urge you to share written comments regarding your experience. We welcome your acknowledgment of individuals just as much as we welcome your constructive criticism. You may also provide feedback by emailing Joey Carls, our User Success Manager at jcarls@virginia.edu.

AP Tips & Tricks Part II

Director of Disbursements Amanda Lockhart Davis asked her team to share some of their top suggestions for smoother sailing when working with AP transactions.  

See their first crop of tips and tricks on the blog here.  

Invoice/Payment Research:

You can see when/how a payment was made on an invoice by clicking the “activity” tab.

Invoice Payment Status Lookup:  https://invoices.uvafinance.virginia.edu/

Suppliers:

• When to use which registration form in Payment Works:

    -         A supplier registration form is used when a person is doing business as themselves or a                             company is providing goods or services to the University

    -         An individual payee is a person receiving payment for:

•  being a research participant
•  reimbursement
•  a monetary gift from the University
•  a royalty payment 
•  an honorarium from the University
•  a stipend as a Pre / Post Doc Fellow or Grad Student

• The first thing anyone should do is look in Payment Works to see if a company or person is registered before placing any orders and invite them to register if they are not registered already.

T&E Card: 

• If a cardholder says that they have “received a reimbursement by mistake”, these are keywords to identify that they may have incorrectly submitted their T&E Card transactions in Workday causing an accidental reimbursement to be sent to themselves. If a cardholder submits a receipt on an expense report without selecting a T&E card transaction, they will reimburse themselves instead of correctly expensing the card transactions. The following link provides instructions to correct it: https://uvafinance.virginia.edu/resources/how-do-i-correct-accidental-reimbursement

• Cardholders have access to view their T&E Card account in Bank of America Works. We have updated the following instructions that will cardholders with viewing their T&E Card transactions, billing information (phone number and address), card limits, and identifying why their card has been declined: https://uvafinance.virginia.edu/resources/bank-america-resources

Expense:

Remember to Delegate Approvals When on Vacation/ Leave: Approvers must delegate their approval responsibilities when on vacation or leave. We've had numerous reports get "stuck" waiting for an approver who is away. This can cause cards to be suspended and delayed reimbursements. 

To delegate an approval, search My Delegations>> choose Manage Delegations>> Do Inbox Tasks on My Behalf >> For Business Process>> select Expense Report Event>> keep Retain Access box checked. This will have to route for approval, so we recommend approvers complete this process at least two business days ahead of planned leave.

Meet Todd Hite, UVA Claims Adjuster

The Hite Family

As the claims adjuster for the University of Virginia, Todd Hite handles claims for everything except matters involving medical center patients.  As he explains it, this means claims adjusting for anything involving anything UVA owns, including property, cars, buildings, and more, from UVA-Wise all the way to a research station in Alaska.  

Hite has been with the University in the Office of Property & Liability Risk Management for almost six months and has a 20-year career in the insurance industry.  He comes to us most recently from the Virginia Farm Bureau, where he had worked since 2012.  Hite was interested in the move to academia because of the focus on risk management instead of decisions about liability/fault.  He says, "My focus at UVA is taking care of our stakeholders, and I've enjoyed that change."

He acknowledges that acclimating to UVA has been a substantial learning curve since the University is like a big city.  Yet that scope is also fundamental to his enjoyment of his work.   "There are many entities under each of the many different departments, and I get to work with all the different departments.  I've enjoyed building those relationships with the people we cover," Hite says. 

In addition to getting to know his colleagues in the broad range of departments and units with whom he works, Hite says the claims themselves have been interesting to work with, as they've run the gamut from proper coverage for significant events to dealing with vandalism on a research facility in a remote area. 

Hite and his wife of 22 years Heather have a son, Vaiden (16), and a daughter, Logan (11).  A sports enthusiast, Hite enjoys attending his son's baseball, basketball, and track events, as well as supporting his daughter in her volleyball and artistic pursuits.  As a Waynesboro native, he recommends trying out the River Burger Bar or Greenleaf Grill if you find yourself in town.

New Payment Services Vendor

UVAFinance is now using a third-party service to provide payment card administrative services to UVA schools and units that take electronic payments. 

Due to the growing technical complexity required for the position as well as the increased complication of payment platforms and processors, UVAFinance made the decision to secure the services of Arrow Payments, a company that currently provides administration services to a number of major universities including Cornell, Northeastern, Purdue, the University of Maryland, and many others. 

Not much should change for our users across Grounds.  Arrow will be working behind the scenes to resolve issues on our behalf.  Please continue to send your merchant-related questions and requests as normal.  Responses will be monitored both by Arrow and the UVAFinance team.

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Learn more about the switch to Arrow Payments by viewing Bill Define and Logan Hobbs' presentation to Fiscal Administrators from March 1 at the 1 hr 39 min mark, available on the UVAFinance website under "Fiscal Administrators."

New Expendable Fund Balance Resources

Need some help navigating the resources available to find your expendable fund balances?  

There are new resources available on the UVAFinance website to help with this:

Expendable Fund Balance Quick Reference Guide:  Includes three different ways to pull expendable fund balance data (via Workday or UBI).  Direct Link to the QRG.

Expendable Fund Balance One-Pager: Explains the terminology, accounting, and report parameters at work with expendable fund balance. Direct Link to the one-pager.

Did You See This? The Research Admin Dashboard is Back!

Research Administrators and Principal Investigators love the Research Administrative Dashboard; so much so, in fact, that it was a top priority after the go-live of Workday Financials to rebuild the dashboard with Workday data.  

RAD 2.0 was released as soon as possible in autumn 2022, and RAD 3.0 was released in February, with more improvements still to come.  Want to see what's available in the third iteration of RAD?  Read last week's blog post, and/or check out this quick video tour with primary developer Bradley Kurtz.

Fiscal Year 2024 Budget and Multi-Year Financial Plan: What's Next

Great job, everyone, on submitting your FY24 Budget and MYFP!  

At this point in the process, the budget team will be conducting quality checks, taking the FY24 original snapshot, and preparing for budget meetings, which begin on March 14. 

What's next?  We'll prepare for budget approval at the June Board of Visitors meeting, and make preliminary decisions on funding requests.  Those decisions are pending full budget approval by the BOV and will not be communicated until after the BOV meeting.

Remember, even though Adaptive Planning is currently in read-only status, you can still log in, run reports, and view your data.

UVAFinance: Join us for March Sprint Discussions

It’s March, so no matter what that groundhog said, spring is approaching, and so is our next series of Sprint Discussions. Building on our Allyship discussions from February, we’ll be moving on to the topic of fear in March.

What kind of fear are we talking about? So many different kinds: 

• Social fear that moderates societal behavior
• Fear in black employees
• Fear of black men
• Fear of interacting with other races
• Fear for our children
• Fear of moving beyond our comfort zones
• Fear of demographic change

Don’t be afraid to join us on March 9 and 23 from 4-5 pm (ah see what we did there? PUNS!) for two great sprint discussions with your colleagues and friends. 

 If you missed the Allyship discussions and want to get up to speed, you can always check out The Sprint podcast for February 2023, in which LaVerne and Patty will get you on track in about 8 minutes.

UVA's Annual Financial Report Available

It's not light reading, but it's definitely interesting and has lots of great reference material.  

View UVA's 2021-22 Financial Report on the Financial Reporting & Accounting portion of the UVAFinance website.  

Here's a direct link for your convenience.

Kristin Dinwiddie Award for Commitment to Youth Safety

Kristin Dinwiddie, UVAFinance Senior Manager of Risk Control, received the 2022 UVA Youth Protection Champion of the Year award!

This is a new award from the Department of Safety & Security, created in recognition of a partner or stakeholder at the University who has consistently championed youth protection efforts across Grounds.

Dinwiddie played an instrumental role in connecting many programs and events with the Office of Youth Protection and supported the Office's goal of delivering safe and fun programming to youth through collegial collaboration.

We are so proud to have Kristin on our team!