FST Decision: Intercompany Transactions

In current state, all transactions are run through Oracle whether or not the involved organization or entity is affiliated with the University. Certain issues often come up because of this policy. For example, sometimes one entity (e.g. UVAMC or UPG) doesn't have a transaction recorded on the Academic side. The Financial Reporting team then has to go in and manually reconcile information between that entity and the Academic side. Also, it can be challenging to identify all intercompany transactions in Oracle.

The Finance Strategic Transformation team wanted to see what could be done differently with inter and intracompany transactions in Workday Financials. They worked with a company called General Counsel to review proper handling of transactions with non-Agency entities. General Counsel recommended UVA maintain an "arm's length" relationship with these external entities. 

The FST team then divided entities into three categories and determined proper action taken for entities within each category: 

• University-Affiliated Organizations: UAOs will be set up as companies in Workday for consolidated reporting purposes only. Any operational activity must be handled as an external customer/vendor. No intercompany settlement will be done at month-end. 
• Agency: Agencies will be set up on the balance sheet only and activity will be recorded to the ledger. 
• Non-Agency/Non-UAOs using YYs: Today, Oracle uses LO or YY-prefix projects to track balances and activities for entities that are engaged in intercompany activity with the University. In future state, these will be handled as external customers/vendors. No intercompany settlement will be done at month-end. 

You can find out more information on this decision here. 

FST Decision: GL Balance Conversion Approach

With Workday Financials going live in just a little over six months, people are wondering how different balances will be converted to Workday. The FST Team is completing GL Balance Conversion by following these guiding principles: 

• Meet External Audit Requirements: The General Ledger is the source of truth--it must balance by Company and Fund. 
• Timing: We need "correct" balances in FDM for departments and units as early as possible after the start of the fiscal year.
• School and MBU Balances: We need to match Settlement amounts provided by FP&A within a reasonable degree of materiality.
• Department/Unit Balances: Departments are best positioned to know what balances they are expecting in specific FDM strings.
• Gift & Endowment Balances: Balances need to reconcile to ending Oracle balances for individual gifts/endowments.
• Fund Balances: Balances need to reconcile in aggregate by Company
• Assignee/Program/Activity Balances: Schools/units need the ability to capture balances down to a level lower than MBU or cost center. 
• Complexity: Minimize rework and effort given the complexity of the task. 

With these guiding principles in mind, the FST Team looked at three potential conversion approach options:

•  The first of these options is to convert Oracle GL Balances to Workday "as is." However, while this option would work for Central Finance, the team determined this was not the best option for schools and units because they would be responsible for any reconciliation of Cash Balances to GL Balances. 
• The second option, converting UBI Cash Balances to Workday Fund Balances based on the UBI Cash Balance Report, was also rejected because converted Cash Balances do not agree with GL Balances from UVA's financial system of record. 
• The third option is to convert the GL Balance "as is" at a high level, then realign balances across units' FDM worktags in Workday. This option is what the team has determined as the best option for UVA. With this option, converted GL Balances will be accurate from an external reporting and compliance perspective. 

You can read more about this decision here. For the latest information on all decisions, check out the FST Decision Log here. 

November 2021 RAPID Decision Updates

At this month's Advisory Group, the FST team provided an update on several upcoming decisions.  Below, we've provided a short explanation of each decision discussed in this month's governance meetings.

• WFCA Workflow Changes: UVA's financial leadership has expressed a desire to shift away from the University's current heavy reliance on detailed post-transaction reconciliation and move towards front-end, real-time transaction approvals. These efforts will reduce time and increase accuracy on the back-end, which may translate to more effort upfront. You can read more about this topic here. 
• Intercompany Transactions: In the future state, University-affiliated Organizations (UAOs) will be set up as companies in Workday for consolidated reporting purposes only. Any operational activity must be handled as an external customer or vendor. No intercompany settlement will be done at month-end. 
• GL Balance Conversion Approach: Possible conversion approach options include converting Oracle GL balance to Workday "as is," converting UBI cash balances to Workday fund balances based on UBI Cash Balance Report, or converting GL balances "as is" at a high level and realigning balances across units' FDM worktags in Workday. The recommendation is to go with the third of these three options. 

You can read more about these specific upcoming decisions here. For more information on all decisions, check out the FST Decision Log.

RAPID Decision Documentation on the Community

The FST team is constantly looking for new ways to keep stakeholders better informed. For RAPID decisions, the project team has created the FST Decision Log and provides consistent decision updates here on the blog and the Community. In addition to those resources, you can now also find documentation explaining how the project team and stakeholders made each major decision. 

These documents, and a general explanation of the RAPID decision-making process, have been posted on the Community. Links to all documents are on this page, but you can also use the search tool in the upper right-hand corner if there's a specific decision about which you would like to know more.

FST RAPID Decision Updates

On a fast-paced project like Finance Transformation, decisions need to be made quickly but must also receive thorough consideration. Here's a look at what's going on with current topics under discussion: 

• Expenditure Credit: UVA will leverage ad hoc bank transactions to record expenditure credit deposits against their original spend categories. This decision is currently awaiting formal sign-off. You can find out more information about this decision here. 
• Salary Certification: UVA will transition from effort reporting to salary certification. The University will adopt and integrate a third-party solution known as Huron Employee Compensation Compliance (ECC) to meet salary certification requirements. You can read more about this decision here. 
• Workflow Controls & Approvals: UVA financial leadership would like to move away from the University's reliance on detailed post-transaction reconciliation and move towards front-end, real-time transaction approvals. The goal of Workflow Controls & Approvals is to enhance internal controls that facilitate "getting it right the first time." The Functional team is working with a third-party organization to provide a risk assessment and suggestions for building an enterprise risk management framework. The Functional team will finalize an approach based on guidance from this third-party organization and will share recommendations with stakeholders. 
• Intercompany Transactions: Many transactions occur among UPG, Medical Center, and the School of Medicine on a routine basis. FST will transform these transactions to align with leading practice and accounting rules. The FST team has collaborated with these groups to identify processes that need to be transformed. They are working to design future-state processes and to socialize those new processes to people impacted by the change. Multiple meetings have taken place to confirm current state activity and outline considerations and issues for future-state. The next step is to present findings to the FST Leadership Council. 
• Improving Fund Ownership Visibility: The project team is considering whether or not UVA should move away from using budgetary spending authority and instead base spending authority at the major business unit level on fund balance. There are many benefits to making this change, including enabling expendable fund balance reporting, clear ownership of funds, eliminating significant amounts of tracking outside of systems records, reducing the risk of errors, and increased staff capacity. You can read more about these benefits here. 

For more information on decisions, check out the FST Decision Log.

FST RAPID Decision Updates

 

At this month's Steering Committee, the FST team provided an update on several decisions that are currently in the works. Below, we've provided a closer look at what's going on with some of those decisions.

Finalized Decisions: 

• Customer Portal: UVA will adopt Workday's Customer Portal to enhance customer service experience but will not integrate with a third-party payment processor. This means customers will not be able to make credit card or e-check payments via the portal. The FST Leadership Council has formally approved this decision, and adoption is underway. 
• Expenditure Credit: UVA will leverage Ad Hoc bank transactions to record expenditure credit deposits against their original spend categories. This decision is currently awaiting formal sign-off.
• ETF Usage Threshold Guidance Change $500 - > $5,000: This decision is finalized and will soon be brought to the Leadership Council for final endorsement and approval.

Open Decisions: 

• System Admin Responsibility Approach: The Functional Team is determining an interim admin assignment approach for testing; this will be updated based on leadership decisions related to Cross-Platform Support before go-live. 
• Workflow Control and Approval: The Functional Team is working with a third-party organization providing a risk assessment and suggestions for building an enterprise risk management framework. The Functional Team will finalize an approach based on guidance from this third-party organization. 
• Recon@ in Future State: It is likely that an outside (of Workday) tool is needed to meet requirements for recon. More information will be provided at next month's Steering meeting. 
• Salary Certification: The FST Team has become aware of an opportunity to move away from effort reporting that will largely automate this process. The plan is to shift away from effort reporting to salary certification. The first step is to determine how to make this transition and confirm that salary certification meets UVA's needs. The team is hoping to define a decision by the end of the month. The decision will be informed by some of the data collection done in 2016. 

For more information, make sure to check out the FST Decision Log for the latest updates on all decisions. 

UVA Chooses Workday's Customer Portal to Enhance Customer Service Experience

At this month's Fiscal Administrators Meeting, the FST team announced the decision to adopt Workday's Customer Portal. This platform is a restricted view of Workday that will allow self-service capabilities for the University's external customers. 

Once a customer is added in Workday, they will be given access to the portal where they can do the following: 

• View invoices, statements, and payment information
• Print and download their invoices and statements as PDFs
• View delivered reports (e.g. open invoices, recent payments)
• View Customer Portal Invoice Aging worklet
• Access the "My Invoices and Payments" Dashboard

However, customers will not be able to make credit card or e-check payments through the portal, as UVA decided not to use a third-party payment processor. 

The decision to use Workday's Customer Portal has been shared with billing specialists and units. Also, the security process has been analyzed by specialists in ITS. Documentation should be signed soon.

Make sure to check out the FST Decision Log for updates. 

The Latest Finalized Decisions from FST

 

In addition to working on the FDM, finalizing plans for the second round of Customer Confirmation sessions, as well as several other important tasks involved in finance transformation, the FST Team is still diligently collecting input from stakeholders and using that input to make final decisions. 

Earlier this month, they announced quite a few decisions that are awaiting final signature. These decisions include Discontinuing WebWire, Requisition User Access, OCR Vendor Selection, and Future State Non-Catalog Requisition Process Flow. 

Also, the decision regarding Receiving in Workday (formerly Invoice Matching Redesign) received its final sign-off. The team determined that receiving acknowledgment will only be required for invoices greater than $10,000. Receiving acknowledgment will be indicated by approval of an invoice, and users will have the ability to add receiving documentation at the time of approval. 

For more info on decisions, check out the Decision Log on the FST website. 

RAPID Decision: Workday Expenses vs. Chrome River

Finance Strategic Transformation project decisions are made using the RAPID framework. RAPID is a decision-making tool that maps out every stage of the decision-making process, defining roles and identifying what is needed for a solid, well-informed final decision. Read more about RAPID here.

The Choice: Should UVA keep ExpenseUVA (Chrome River) as its expense management system, or adopt Workday Financials’ expense management module upon go-live?

This was not an inconsequential decision: in 2019, Chrome River had nearly 9,000 users. UVA has nearly 2500 active T&E cardholders and an average of $4.9 million pass through the system each month.

The Input: To make this decision, the team sought input from its governance groups and from those stakeholders who used the system. The process took over six months of discussion, demonstration, surveying, and gathering feedback.

The Decision: The ultimate decision to implement Workday Expenses when Workday Financials rested with project sponsor Melody Bianchetto, VP of Finance. This first RAPID decision is a milestone for the project. 

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You can view discussion around the decision, as well as an expanded version of this article that includes pros and cons identified in the RAPID process, on CommunityHub.