Happy Fiscal New Year!

In January, we celebrate the beginning of a new calendar year, with all its unwritten possibility. There’s a similar feeling surrounding the beginning of the academic year each fall – the new school year is another fresh start. In the financial world, the real New Year is July 1, when the new fiscal year begins. The transition between old and new doesn’t involve clinking champagne and singing Auld Lang Syne, however: it’s a lot of very hard work done by a team of dedicated financial professionals.

Here’s an inside look from UVAFinance Financial Planning & Analysis and Comptroller team into the hectic transition of putting the old year to bed and getting the new one started, financially speaking.

Judy Rowe, Director of Academic Budgets

June and July are busy months for Financial Planning & Analysis. We have multiple deadlines associated with the Board of Visitors and State, plus deadlines for closing the current fiscal year and opening the new one. One of the interesting activities that some may not be aware of is that every year, on July 1, even if the 1st falls on a Saturday or Sunday, three or four of our staff, along with support from IT, actually load the operating budgets into the Integrated System. We manually stage files to process the uploads, ensuring that installments, funding and budgeting are entered accurately on every PTAO with a year to date boundary code.

Imelda Carter, Manager of Operational Accounting

I guess you could say I’m the keeper of the cash. All of the cash accounts the departments use are reconciled each month in Oracle by Judy McDaniel and me, every month of the year. The only time we stop this ongoing process is on June 30 when Oracle shuts down. That’s when we make sure the cash object codes equal to the bank statement. We love that moment . . . it’s just beautiful when it all comes together. Our Oracle close went very smoothly this year. We had been watching our projections and making the entries we could before the system went down. On Saturday, July 1, I came in to prepare the state expenditure files, and that was a little more tricky. But basically, it is just like reconciling your bank accounts, and it allows you to get a clean start for the new year.

Judy McDaniel, Local Bank Reconciliation Accountant

In my role, I make sure the eight bank accounts we have with Bank of America are reconciled for year-end closing. Every line for each statement must be reconciled or amounts won’t balance with Oracle. It gets hectic at year end, and you always have the feeling that you need to get this done, because something new is coming tomorrow. Then, we basically start the new year for each bank account, making sure all lines are reconciled and researching any problems that may occur. My biggest achievement this year was that I had all bank statements reconciled and reports run by July 5, which was a new record for us.

Anne Marie Cumiskey, Budget Analyst
I assisted units with their FY17 close out activities, and I processed budget reductions for the FY18 budget, preparing for the load into Oracle and making any final changes. I started this job last year and had heard many anecdotes about prior budget loads on July 1. I was full of anticipation, and although this year July 1 was on a Saturday, it was fun. In the middle of the morning, a coworker surprised us with coffee and donuts. We were all huddled together, watching the computer screens, and making certain the load ran smoothly. Richard Parkins from ITS was great help to us getting everything loaded (and kudos to Mike Hayton, our own technical support person, for getting me up and running in a day when my laptop died during the last week of close)!

Christine Maxwell, Senior Budget Analyst
During the year end process, I work very heavily in both current year actuals and the future budget year, which as you can imagine can become confusing…sometimes I even forgot what year it really is and I found myself signing and dating things as 2018 instead of 2017. Although we’re often working in the future budget year, at year-end time, it’s nice to really work on actuals and look at the variance with what we had planned and budgeted a year prior. This was my 2nd budget season and I think every year I’m getting better and improving. The budget process involves lots of moving pieces from all members of our team and I think the process brings us closer. The veterans on our team have lots of knowledge to share and they are willing to share it. I think our new team members are caught up to speed in record time.

James Cathro, Budget Analyst
In my role, I see an uptick in picking up loose ends and cleanup work as we try to reconcile everything for year end. I spend more time than usual in Oracle updating awards and projects and submitting ICOMs on behalf of units. I jumped in with the budget team and EA for a few hours on Saturday, July 1, as they performed the upload, and I was struck by the great attitude and enthusiasm everyone had, even on a Saturday morning. They know they’re doing the necessary work to keep the University on track and on budget.

Rohan Patel, Senior Budget Analyst

The FY18 budget review process was challenging and exciting at the same time. This year, for the first time, I reviewed the budget submissions from the submitting unit from both a budgeting and University Financial Model (UFM) perspective. The challenge was to get the budgets balanced in UFM with zero or positive bottom line with the unit’s budget and allocated/calculated provost support, central services cost, crossing funding, and tuition dollars in the least amount of steps possible and get it ready in time for the Academic Unit’s budget review with the Provost. It was a big achievement for me to do that as accurately as possible, given all of those moving parts, for every single unit.

Yvonne Metheny, Accounting and Financial Analyst

Year-end is different from the rest of the year because of the greater intensity and urgency. My main year-end duties include estimating the State funds that the University needs to spend down before year end, updating and maintaining the files we have to send to the State (which Imelda worked tirelessly on during the July 4 weekend), maintaining the year-end calendar, analyzing data for accuracy, and generally running around trying to put out one fire after another. Almost every day I got asked some unique questions, which meant for multiple collaborations to figure out the correct answer or solutions. The biggest achievement is knowing that as a team, we made it through. I like the fact that I can help with workloads, answer questions, and be a go-to person for those who need help, both centrally and in the departments, and I’m very appreciative of the great bunch of people I work with!

Putting Together the Pieces: Semi-Annual Endowment Spending Distribution

This July will be busy for Wanda Breeden. Breeden, who works in Financial Operations as Assistant Director for Investment Services, is gearing up for the semi-annual endowment spending distribution.

January and July are the two times per year when money made on UVA’s endowment, which is in the Long Term Pool invested and managed by the University of Virginia Investment Management Company (UVIMCO), is shared out to schools and units within UVA.

For Fiscal Year 2017, the distribution was over $196 million; for Fiscal Year 2018, it will be over $200 million.

For departments, which have been expecting the distribution, this time of the year means funding and budgeting their projects.

For Breeden, it’s a time of assembling puzzle pieces.

Wanda Breeden of UVAFinance

“I have about 2000 accounts that make up all the pieces of the puzzle,” she said.

“I have to tie all of those back to UVIMCO in terms of total share and market value, and then I dissemble those and share them out to departments.”

Breeden has been a part of financial services at UVA for thirty years, nearly all of which have involved work with gift and endowment accounts. Her work behind the scenes has changed a lot since she began, going from spreadsheets and manual effort to loading and tracking money in Fundriver, Financial Operations’ endowment accounting system.

“There’s definitely a tight window between getting the funds processed and distributed,” Breeden said.

This summer, she’ll again be balancing the important task of endowment distribution with year-end duties, nimbly working a 2,000 piece puzzle so that UVA can carry on with its important work.

A Fresh Look at Accounts Receivable

Josh Breeden has had a busy first year as a Staff Accountant in UVAFinance.  A new graduate of James Madison University, Breeden started in October 2015, diving into his new role, learning the ropes, and adapting to the culture. 

It wasn’t long, however, that he started tackling process improvement.  

Josh and the King take a moment to contemplate the past year.

Breeden’s position in the Comptroller’s office had been vacant when he arrived.  Without shadowing a predecessor, he found himself free to formulate his own way of doing the job.

“During my first days on the job, I heard Pat Hogan encourage employees to ‘not be afraid to fail,’ and I took that as my mentality for my first year,” says Breeden.

Trial and error was a part of Breeden’s process, and the results have been successful indeed.

“Josh was a fresh set of eyes,” says Randy Ellis, Associate Comptroller for Financial Operations and Reporting.

“He’s streamlined numerous accounts receivable and collection processes, improved documentation of procedures, and launched training for all billing departments across grounds.”

One of the first things Breeden noticed was that there was a collections module within Oracle that wasn’t being utilized, which meant the process was being done by hand, based on reports run from Discoverer.   He quickly started working with ISDS

to implement the module.

“The collections process at UVA requires us to send 3 collection letters and 2 phone calls, per state guidelines,” says Breeden. “It can be a lot to keep up with if you’re doing it by hand.  The collections module makes it easy to store all of that information and keep track of everything. It’s all right there.”

Because of this improved efficiency, Breeden wasn’t devoting as much time to aging reports, and he found he could help out around the department where and when he was needed.

His improvement efforts weren’t contained solely within UVAFinance, either.  Later in the year, he facilitated a training on policies and procedures for all billing departments across Grounds. 

“During the training session, we bounced new ideas around to help improve the billing process across Grounds,” says Breeden.

Based on the questions raised in these sessions, Breeden plans to meet with attendees one on one to further smooth out the billing process across the University.

Although his efforts have certainly improved processes within UVAFinance and provided great service to financial partners across Grounds, Breeden says he can’t take all the credit.

“We have great teamwork,” he says.  “Laverne Beasley has been here close to 20 years, and her historical knowledge was the perfect match for my fresh set of eyes.”

He adds that his leadership team was also receptive to new ideas, lending their expertise to his ideas and helping him move forward.

“I bounced ideas off of a lot of people,” he says.  “That’s how you find better ways of doing things; that and being open-minded to change, and not stopping at ‘this is how we’ve always done it.’”

Now that he’s been here a year and has several successes under his belt, you might wonder what’s next for Breeden.

“I don’t have any plans at the moment,” he laughs.  “But we’ll see what happens in the New Year.”

Financial Statements in Record Time

Despite inherent challenges and extra complicating factors, the Financial Operations and University Reporting team did something extraordinary this year:  they got UVA's complex financial statements pulled together, formatted, reviewed by auditors, and bound and printed, almost one month earlier than normal.  

The end of each fiscal year begins an intense and complicated process of  gathering a wealth of financial information from multiple sources, both inside and outside of the University, synthesizing that information into one consolidated financial statement, addressing questions from auditors, and, sprinkled throughout, a good amount of waiting.

There's the Academic side and the Medical Center side to be considered: two separate state agencies that are, from a financial perspective (and from the State of Virginia's point of view), one.   Ten foundations are also added into this mix.  And, of course, there's the scrutiny of state auditors and the State Department of Accounts (DOA) to be addressed.

Randy Ellis, Associate Comptroller with UVAFinance, explains the usual financial statement timeline this way: "We usually have the information from the academic side together by the third week of August, and get the information from the Medical Center by the first week of September.  The foundations that are part of our process have their own independent auditors, so we have to wait on them as we put the academic and medical center information together.  Everything bottlenecks during that second week of September, right up against the deadline of September 24 to get it to the state auditors and to the DOA."

Ellis admits the process can be fairly stressful for the team.  "I've been here at midnight the night before it's due, getting ready to hit the send button," he recalls.  

This year, he says, the academic side was prepared by the second week of August, and the medical center slid under the finish line a week later.  

Financial Operations team members celebrating their
achievements with Cav Man at a recent women's
basketball game.  Go UVAFinance! Go Hoos!

Financial Operations then had time to review the information and anticipate auditors' questions before the statements were submitted.  The review time was quite beneficial; normally the DOA has 20-30 follow-up questions, but this year, they had only seven.

One of the most significant benefits of being early is that the Board of Visitors will be able to review complete financial statements by the December board meeting, instead of waiting until February.

"Information in the statements will be more relevant to the BOV," Ellis adds.  "We're talking about three months versus six months after the year-end close."

What made the difference this year?  Ellis cites two big contributing factors:

• Clear expectations:  "We wait on lots of different departments," says Ellis, "but this year we gave them attainable deadlines, asked for things earlier, and held them accountable to the deadlines.  The entire team worked to keep everyone on task."
• Process improvements: "We got quicker, better, and more efficient.  We streamlined how we put things into the system and how we got information from departments.  We use UBI, which made things easier, and allowed us to give the auditors access to the financial records, enabling auditors to have temporary access to different schedules.  This improved their efficiency and  reduced our internal workload.  UBI speeds things up for everyone."

These improvements weren't done under the most ideal conditions, either.  

"We were climbing over filing cabinets most of the summer, due to construction, and we still got this done," says Ellis.  He's quick to give kudos to Karyn Tancredi in Finance  and Kim Holdren, the Comptroller at the Medical Center, for their roles in this achievement.

"I am very appreciative of my staff," he says.  "Without the dedication of the entire team, this would not have been possible."

Even with such a big achievement in their rear-view mirror, don't expect Financial Operations to pat themselves on the back too much:  "We've set an expectation now," says Ellis with a laugh.  

"We'll have to do this from now on.  Early is going to be the new normal."

_____________________________________________________________________

 Know of another department or group of UVAFinance employees who have done amazing things? Please share your success stories!  Please comment below or send your ideas to bv8h@virginia.edu 

Assuring Integrity: UVAFinance Hosts Risk Management/Internal Control Meeting

UVAFinance recently hosted 21 people representing 13 in-state schools to discuss internal control standards and best practices that directly support the vision and objectives of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Specifically, the meeting was a practical forum to network and discuss state Agency Risk Management and Internal Control Standards (ARMICS). 

In 2006, the Commonwealth mandated through ARMICS the annual assessment of internal controls systems.  Each state agency is required  to provide reasonable assurance of the integrity of all fiscal processes related to the submission of accounting information and financial statements to the Department of Accounts, compliance with laws and regulations, and stewardship over the Commonwealth's assets.

The Compliance Team led the meeting of peer in-state schools in informal workgroup style, sharing experiences, lessons learned, and discussing common questions and approaches. 

"ARMICS was essentially the Commonwealth of Virginia's response to the federal Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a bill that was enacted in response to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals, such as Enron," says  FOC Senior Compliance Analyst Lynn Galasso.

"This meeting was a great opportunity for all of us to discuss ARMICS objectives."

The group plans to continue with ongoing meetings; the next discussion will be scheduled before Spring Fiscal Officers of Colleges and Universities State Supported of Virginia (FOCUS).

Comptroller: Cardinal, BOV Reporting, Hellos & Goodbyes

Cardinal Update
The Commonwealth went LIVE with Cardinal on February 1st. The transition went relatively smooth with only a few minor technical glitches. Now comes the challenging part of getting proficient with the new Cardinal (PeopleSoft) program. Interactions with the State occur each day and at month-end when all state expenditures are uploaded to the system. The state will continue to “dual-process” transactions in both CARS and Cardinal, and UVA’s accounting services department will be in charge of ensuring the two systems agree. This dual processing will continue until 6/30/16 at which time CARS will be deactivated.

Enhanced BOV Reporting
The University produced for the first time a CONSOLIDATED, modified accrual-based interim financial statement showing both Academic and Medical Center financial information for the six months ended 12/31/15. This took the effort of several folks on both the Medical Center and Academic sides. These reports will enable upper management to see better financial information for the entire University on a more timely basis.

Saying Hello…
The Comptroller’s Office welcomes Michael Hayton to our Computing Systems Support group.  Michael comes to us from the Fluvanna County School system where he worked for 13 years, most recently as the Network Administrator for the division.  He has been very busy getting to know our systems and our people, and we are glad he is here!

Saying Goodbye…
It is with sadness, but excitement that we say goodbye to Susan Herod, who will be leaving the Comptroller’s Office to become the Assistant Dean for Finance in the School of Continuing & Professional Studies, effective February 8th.  Her central office knowledge and experience will greatly benefit SCPS and promote collaboration between central offices and the school.  Our loss is a tremendous gain for SCPS and the University as a whole.  Best wishes Sue…we will miss you!

Comptroller's Office: Staffing Update

Joshua Breeden joined the Office of the Comptroller’s in October as an accountant in the Central Accounts Receivable department. Josh grew up right outside of Charlottesville, in Fluvanna County, before heading off to college at James Madison University. At JMU, Josh was involved in a community service organization and volunteered at the Harrisonburg Salvation Army, then graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration with an Accounting focus in May 2015. As a long-time UVA fan, Josh is looking forward to delving into all that the University has to offer!

Bookmark This: GMS Interface Codes & Contact Info

If you are preparing or approving a monthly reconciliation, you may have asked “What are these transactions that begin with GMSA-?” The prefix GMSA- tells us that the transaction was uploaded to the Integrated System from a file generated by a school or department. Check out the GMS Interface Contact Information sheet to crack the code found in the transaction number that tells which area created the batch. To navigate to this document from the Comptroller's home page, click "Important Links," then "ISP Contact Information."

Comptroller's Office: Updates on Audit and Cardinal

The audit is in its final two weeks and going smoothly. The APA is frantically trying to wrap up their audit. The University submitted its consolidated financial information to the State on 9/23 (as required) for the State’s CAFR.

Cardinal implementation is entering its training phase where several UVA folks will be attending both on-line and in-person classes with the Cardinal training team. This will continue until the end of October. We have already done testing on “Mock” data, comparing CARRS reports to Cardinal reports and noted NO exceptions. February 1^st is till the “Go Live” date for Cardinal.

Updates from the Comptroller's Office: APA Audit & Cardinal

APA Audit
The audit is progressing as usual, and the APA will be on-site full time in early to mid-August. A new GASB Pronouncement (GASB 68) effective for FY15 will have a significant impact on the University’s financial statements, thus requiring additional time and effort.  Our goal this year is to have the completed financial statements by the November BOV meeting.

Cardinal 
The Commonwealth’s transition to Cardinal is still going on with the February 1, 2016 “go live” date rapidly approaching. The Comptroller’s staff will begin going to individual training workshops that address specific users and modules of the new Cardinal System over the next few months. IS-EA has been busy “stamping” the new Cardinal accounts in Oracle and Accounting Services has also been involved in numerous tasks related to this project.

Facilities & Administrative Rate Submission

The University periodically renegotiates the Facilities and Administrative (F&A) rate with the federal government, through the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). This rate is applied to federal grants to offset the ‘overhead’ costs associated with research. Our rate is currently 58%. The rate calculation submitted June 30, 2015 demonstrates that our costs associated with research grants are 67.34%.

Creating the rate proposal requires effort across many parts of the University, coordinated by the Cost Analysis unit in the Comptroller’s Office. Detailed information must be gathered on buildings, personnel, utilities, equipment inventory, and other costs. Dozens of people are either directly or indirectly involved in the data collection before Cost Analysis uses the proprietary software CRIS to calculate the rate and create the hundreds of pages of unique reports required for the submission.

Although it is unlikely we will receive 67%, for every percentage point of change it will be worth approximately $1 million to the University in the first year of implementation (most likely fiscal year 2016). Under UFM, those funds will go directly to the schools doing the associated research. A negotiated rate is agreed to for a term of three to four years when implemented, so that new rate will most likely be in place until 2019.

The Cost Analysis team is Sara Tarkington, Yvonne Metheny, and John Wallace-Smith. For more information on F&A check out their FAQ page: http://www.virginia.edu/finance/finanalysis/FA_FAQ.html.

Updates from the Comptroller's Office: Cardinal & APA Audit

Cardinal 
We are now eight months away from going live with the new State Accounting System, Cardinal. The behind the scenes work is being done not only by the Comptroller’s Office but also Procurement and ITS/Enterprise Applications. We have mapped our existing chart of accounts into the new Cardinal chart of accounts and ITS/EA will begin doing some “sample” state stamping in the next several weeks. The Cardinal team went to Richmond this week to see our first “live” demo of the Cardinal system and were quite impressed. The PeopleSoft-based program appears to be very user friendly and we were most impressed by the reporting module. Rather than rely on the State to produce reports, we will be able to create and run our own reports and queries directly from the Cardinal system daily/weekly/monthly.

Even though there is much more work to do, we are slowly beginning to see what our processes will be with the new system. A very big thank you should go out to Imelda Carter, Sue Clements, Richard Parkins and Terry Butler for all the work they have been putting in these past several months.


APA Audit
The Comptroller’s office held the annual Entrance Conference with the APA for this year’s financial statement audit. Although it will be an entirely new team from the APA, we are looking forward to working with them. They are set to begin preliminary fieldwork on June 8th, with the majority of the audit fieldwork to start in early August. Our time frame is to have the audit completed by mid-October with the University’s financial statements being released around the week of Thanksgiving.

Compliance

University Policy FIN-023 requires departments to reconcile their financial activity at least once a month by the 15th calendar day of the month for the previous month’s activity (or by an approved alternate schedule).

Over the past year, on-time reconciliation rates have increased from 56% to 81% - up by 25 points! This is largely due to implementation of the system-generated emails designed to improve compliance. Reminders are sent to all reconcilers each month 5 days prior to the due date, as well as monthly notices to Deans and Vice Presidents when reconciliations are overdue.

Additionally, we have found that reconcilers appropriately continue to review and approve transactions after the due date passes - resulting in a less than 1% rate of reconciliations not approved.

A big thank you to all of our reconcilers who strive to ensure this important internal control is met!

Comptroller: University Financial Report and Trainings

2013-2014 Financial Report 

The University experienced another strong year of performance in fiscal year 2013-14. Thanks to the skill and dedication of all of our people, we are better positioned than most universities to address the challenges facing public higher education. We have made significant strides in mobilizing the necessary resources to address the generational turnover of faculty and to pursue the strategic directions established in the Cornerstone Plan. We are focused on advancing the University’s distinctive qualities—an emphasis on close faculty-student interaction in an unparalleled setting, cutting-edge research, and affordable excellence—that continue to distinguish us in a highly competitive landscape and that enable us to deliver value to the citizens of the Commonwealth, the nation, and, increasingly, the world.

Advanced Excel Training
The pilot class developed by Peggy Reitz (University Human Resources) was presented to people from Managerial Reporting, AVPF, OSP and the University Comptroller for their comments and feedback. This is considered a critical foundational class in a rigorous financial training program that will ensure that employees with financial or budget responsibilities have the analytical skills they will need to be successful.

GA/GL Training 
The pilot class of a new combo GM/GL training session has been developed by Lynn Galasso (Office of the Comptroller) and Peggy Reitz (University Human Resources) and will be presented to a targeted group for feedback. The purpose is to develop a session that incorporates technical Integrated System training with related polices and best business practices, for a more integrated approach to how we do business. This is important as we begin to consider how to better integrate our training resources into a comprehensive financial curriculum.

Your New Staff Senate

The existing Employee Councils are being merged into one new entity representing over 5,100 staff. The mission of the new Staff Senate is to be a representative and deliberative voice for staff in matters relating to the University.

The first meeting of the Staff Senate will be on Thursday, August 7, at a luncheon meeting with President Sullivan. Officers and representatives from all of the current councils will remain in place through August 2015. If you are interested in participating, please contact your area representative.

There is a position currently available to represent SFS and the Comptroller's Office. If you are interested in participating, please submit your name to Mary Fields (mrf2n@virginia.edu) by August 4.

Staffing Updates: University Comptroller

Karyn Tancredi has accepted the position of Director of Financial Reporting in Financial Operations & University Reporting. She is a CPA and in addition to her public accounting career, she brings with her 8+ years as the Director of Financial Reporting at the University of Richmond and 2+ years as the Director of Financial Reporting with Hanover County. We are very excited to have Karyn join our team.

Patricia Li joined the Office of the University Comptroller the week of July 1 and is already very busy working on an endowment project. Patricia is a rising third-year at the McIntire School and taking summer classes. The Comptroller’s office is glad to have her helping on a part-time basis.

Welcoming Summer Interns!

In partnership with the McIntire School of Commerce, the University Financial Area had five new members start this week. Please join us in welcoming these summer additions.

  

Comptroller
Yafei Zhang graduated from Pennsylvania State University, Smeal College of Business in May prior to moving to Charlottesville to work with Lynne Schwar. She will matriculate into McIntire’s Accounting program this fall.

Managerial Reporting
Lubna Al-Nsour graduated from UVa in 2013 and spent the following year with Amtrak in Washington, D.C. She is working with Judy and new hire Andrew Yeung on Data Stewardship prior matriculating into the Financial Services program at McIntire in the fall.

Annie Helbling just moved to Charlottesville after graduating from Duke University in May and is working with Jessica Rafter in the Project Management Office. She will matriculate at McIntire in Marketing and Management this fall.

Brandan Hummell is a recent UVa graduate and will matriculate to the McIntire School of Commerce Marketing and Management program in the fall. He is working with Mark Anderson and new hire Tom Kim on Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management and Cost of Education (HPCM/COE).

Treasury
Joseph Ripple is new to the area after graduating from Marquette University. He is working with Julie Richardson this summer before matriculating into McIntire’s Financial Services track in the fall.