Are you a Procurement Shopper? You can now Close your Own POs!

Exciting news for the purchasing community across UVA!  As of May 8, everyone with the Procurement Shopper role in Workday Finance can close POs in Workday.  This decision returns some functionality users experienced in Oracle.  

Here's what the new permissions allow you to do:

• Close POs
• Close PO lines
• Reopen POs
• Reopen PO lines

What you cannot do: 

• Cancel POs
• Close or reopen Requisitions

We have Quick Reference Guides for Closing Purchas Orders available online.  

Important Note:  Please close all POs that won't have any additional activity, or that you don't want to have reflected in next year's budget obligations.  Unlike Oracle, Workday doesn't auto-roll over any closed POs.  Any POs that remain open on June 30th will be rolled forward as obligations against your FY2024 budget. 

This change is a result of UVAFinance working with finance users across Grounds and listening to their feedback.  Thanks to everyone who shares their thoughts with us so we can do our best to make things easier over time!

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Related Content:  AP Tips & Tricks

Year End Closing Dates (Plus a Printable PDF)

Year End Closing Dates are available on the UVAFinance website.  Access them by clicking this link: https://uvafinance.virginia.edu/year-end-closings

You'll notice the deadlines are listed chronologically, but you can also search by "Finance Activity" (functional area).  Note that the calendar contains two pages; click the "next page" button in the bottom right to navigate it chronologically.

NEW:  Just want a printable pdf of all the dates?  Download it here!  

New on Finance Matters: Stillness is the Key

Patty and Brandi discuss Ryan Holiday's book Stillness is the Key, a NY Times bestseller that describes how to stay steady and draw on inner peace while the world is anything but quiet. We go over the book's main concepts, historical examples, and practical applications, in the hopes that you'll find at least two or three ways that you can increase your own clarity, calm, and happiness. We learned much from Holiday's book and hope you will, too!

LISTEN IN 

Wellness Resources: May 2023

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. 

How to Be a Mental Health Ally, May 18, 3:30 pm

Join FEAP and Hoos Well for this reward-eligible webinar to learn about the impact of mental health stigma and how this can impact those who experience mental health challenges. This webinar will also review specific ways in which you and your organization can help others by being an ally for those with mental health challenges and for those who may be experiencing mental health stigma.  Learn more and register.

Free Access to Healthy Minds@Work, a personal guided journey to a healthier mind.

FEAP Virtual Resources - A collection of resources to support mental and emotional wellness.

Insight Timer - The UVA Community has free access to this meditation app's premium content.  Access guided meditation, music tracks, and other recorded and live events for relieving stress, improving sleep, coping with challenges, and many other aspects of well-being and flourishing.  Here's how to access the app or upgrade your current access. 

Invoice Processing has Officially Moved In-House!

Contributed by Amanda Lockhart Davis

L to R: Rebecca Clore (temp), DeAnna Snead (temp), Jack Jensen (trainer),
Leslie Williams (AP), Brittany Ripple (temp), and Sarah Outten (temp)

How excited are we to report that invoice processing has moved in-house?  SO EXCITED!  And we know you're excited, too!

All invoices are being processed in-house, on-Grounds, and within UVAFinance, by warm bodies with thoughtful brains.

This Monday, April 24, a group of sharp-as-a-tack temps arrived to train with AP's Leslie Williams and UVAFinance trainer Jack Jensen.  While our AP team works through the more complicated invoices in our backlog, the temps will tackle new invoices that come into the system.  

You may have to reassure your vendors that the change in the address they may notice on their invoices is on the up and up.  And of course, as May progresses, you should start to see a real difference in the backlog.

We're so happy to deliver on a promised improvement and we look forward to keeping you up to date as the initiative progresses.   

Click the image to read her cheeky sign ;)

UVAFinance In Action: April 27, 2023

 UVAFinance team members share their expertise far and wide this month:

Amanda Lockhart Davis and Adeline Coe were featured speakers and panelists at a CPE event hosted by PaymentWorks and Carahsoft.  They shared their knowledge and experience on risk mitigation and the strategic importance of your vendor master file.  

Angela Knobloch was a panelist at CUPA-HR's Spring Conference in Boston.  Her focus?  Change Enablement across Finance Stakeholders.  She's pictured here with a fellow panelist who should look familiar to the UVAFinance team; it's Love Anderson, one of our Deloitte partners from the FST project!

Scott Adams, Teri Bowen, and Joey Carls represented UVA at Salesforce's 2023 Education Summit in Florida, learning so much that can be used back here at UVA!

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Related Content:  Jacob Mair is the new Senior Director of Financial Accounting & Reporting;  Mark Cartwright is the new Senior Director of Procurement & Supplier Diversity Services

The Online Community's Sun Has Set: Here's where your Resources Live

The Online Community, or CommunityHub, is a fond memory at this point, having sunset on April 19.  If you find yourself missing something you used to access there, here's where it landed:

Finance Content

Much of the Finance content on CommunityHub was FST-related and has been archived. Content that was still relevant to the work we do, such as information related to the FDM, it has been moved to the appropriate area on the UVAFinance website. If you find yourself in need of something and you can't find it on the website, email askfinance@virginia.edu and ask for your case to be sent to Brandi Van Ormer.

UBI Content

UBI users have a new interactive space in Teams that features the core components you've come to enjoy in CommunityHub, including resources, and a place to ask questions about UBI, UBI training, and news. This space is called the Data and Analytics Community. Just ask to join this community in teams to begin using this space.

Continuous Improvement Content

We had a thriving Continuous Improvement space on CommunityHub. Those resources have been moved to the UVAFinance website. You'll find resources for managers, CI tips & tricks, Lean Training, videos, and more. We'll add to this site continuously, so check back frequently (or just watch for updates in the blog). Have a CI resource or idea you want to share? Feel free to send it along!

Announcing Senior Director of Financial Accounting & Reporting

Jacob Mair has accepted the position of Senior Director of Financial Accounting and Reporting, effective immediately. Mair has most recently served as Director of Financial Reporting and Accounting, was a leader on the Finance Strategic Transformation Project, and was even recognized last year with a Leonard Sandridge Award for his work and dedication throughout the FST project.

This new role will have broader engagement regarding our annual audit and collaboration with the Medical Center, along with a greater focus on our external reporting and compliance needs. As so many are assisting with transitions and personnel changes, Mair has also agreed to provide interim oversight of our State and General Accounting area as well as our Financial Compliance area. 

UVAFinance is making steady progress in filling key vacancies with capable leaders who have demonstrated success in terms of doing the work and leading teams. We're grateful for Mair's commitment to UVA and our stakeholders and for always being up for a challenge.

A Note from Your Friendly Neighborhood LSP

For UVAFinance Team Members

A Cisco AnyConnect update began rolling out on April 24th. This update is safe and you should install it when prompted.

The prompt should occur sometime over the next month when you attempt to establish an HSVPN connection.

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

A new set of Finance Reporting & Analytics Release notes were posted on April 10.  Did you miss them?  You can see the whole release online here.  There were lots of goodies in this month's notes! 

There were so many updates and new things, in fact, that you may have missed:

• The Research Administration Dashboard is now accessible to principal investigators.
• There's a new report in Workday that gives a managerial summary of current and projected fund balances for the Academic Division.
• The Worker Costing Allocation Information report in Workday now pulls position restriction (labor suspense) costing allocations
• UBI now has a Workday NACUBO Function Analysis app that allows you to compare Function Worktag usage between FY23 and Workday and FY22 in Oracle for reviewing the correct and accurate use of the Function Worktag.

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See the April 10 Reporting & Analytics Release Notes on the UVAFinance webpage

The Great Clean-Up Has Begun

L to R Jarod Verkleeren, Nika Vest, Dallas Pitt, 
and Jim Stolz:  our Clean-Up Squad!  You'll
hear more about these awesome folks soon.

Spring.  It's the time of the year we clean out closets, wash windows, dust the blinds, and do other deep-cleaning chores.  It's also a great time to tidy up financial transactions!

UVAFinance is pitching in to help schools and units in the necessary cleanup of financial transactions before the end of the fiscal year by creating the Clean-Up Squad. We've onboarded a talented team of temps who will, for the next months, take up the task of spring-cleaning thousands of financial transactions for you!  It's like having someone come in and clean your house when you're swamped at work.

Our Clean-Up Squad will focus on cleaning up a few priority areas: 

• Ensuring the function worktag is used properly in actuals to date and PO and payroll costing schedules
• Cleaning up designated and fund mismatches
• Fixing any remaining transactions on DN999999

As the Clean Up Squad delves into the fray, each school and unit will need to play their part by being ready to review transactions that we identify and ensuring they're prepared to move any approvals forward when it's time.  

The Clean-Up Squad also takes requests!  If you have other areas you'd like them to focus on for clean-up, contact us through Ask Finance.

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We'll feature more news and information on the Clean-Up Squad (including meeting the squad members!) in future blog digests.  

Important Note about Requisitions with Zero Dollar Lines

Sometimes, requisitions you submit to Procurement will have a line with $0 (zero dollars).  Usually, this is a free sample or to document the transaction liability reasons, etc.  In any case, zero-dollar requisitions occur every once in a while.  

Here's the important part:  until we implement a system fix that's in the works, please let us know via Ask Finance if you submit a requisition including a zero-dollar line.  All we need is the requisition number!  

Why?  Because currently, a system constraint in Workday sends requisitions with a zero-dollar line into a sort of "requisition purgatory" from which it's very difficult to filter for them without identifying data.  

We should have a permanent solution for this very soon, but until then, if you provide us with information upfront, we'll be able to rescue your requisition and get it on its merry way quickly.

Note:  If your entire requisition has a zero-dollar amount, a Contract Request should be submitted instead.  A Contract Request is used when you need a contract reviewed and signed by PSDS and you do not need a PO issued to a supplier.  See this Quick Reference Guide for more info. 

Announcing the New Senior Director for Procurement & Supplier Diversity Services

After completion of a thorough and robust national search, UVAFinance has chosen Mark Cartwright as the new Senior Director of Procurement & Supplier Diversity Services, effective April 24. Cartwright served in this role on an interim basis for three months, providing excellent leadership, and prior to that,  led Supplier Diversity for over a year.

Cartwright has a long and varied background in leading procurement teams, including those at Virginia Tech and the Commonwealth of Virginia. He has devoted his career to fostering business growth opportunities in academic and business settings. His energy, ingenuity, and desire to partner with our stakeholders across Grounds and in the greater Charlottesville Community make him an ideal leader for UVA's procurement efforts.

UVAFinance welcomes Carwright's stellar expertise and experience in this position and we're very excited to partner with him on all things Procurement and Supplier Diversity.  

End of Year Closing Dates

https://uvafinance.virginia.edu/year-end-closings

Year End Closing Dates are now available on the UVAFinance website. 

 Access them by clicking this link: https://uvafinance.virginia.edu/year-end-closings

You'll notice the deadlines are listed chronologically, but you can also search by "Finance Activity" (functional area). 

 Note that the calendar contains multiple pages; click the "next page" button in the bottom right to navigate it chronologically.

New Quick Reference Guides for PaymentWorks

Five new Quick Reference Guides for PaymentWorks are posted on the UVAFinance website for your use.  

You'll find them under the "Training" section when you're working with Supplier & Payee Registration content, but for your convenience, we've also linked them directly below.

• PaymentWorks:  Track Onboarding Status
• PaymentWorks:  Search for a Payee
• PaymentWorks: Payee Registration Steps
• PaymentWorks Troubleshooting FAQs
• PaymentWorks: Invite a Payee