Departmental suspense

To:     MOU Leads
Finance and HR TIPs
University Business Managers
HR Officers and Secondary Contacts
Research Administrators Support Group

From: Dennis Press, University Controller and Asst. Vice Chancellor

Among the many changes we are all adjusting to with ConnectCarolina, a new one is the use of departmental suspense chartfields for payroll transactions with expired or invalid funding.  It will be in the best interests of departments, divisions and schools to proactively initiate any needed funding source changes for faculty and staff that are partly or wholly funded by a source that has an expired end date.  If a funding source, for example a research grant, has a funding end date that has passed, the payroll expenses will not post to the research grant.  Instead, the payroll expenses will post to departmental suspense chartfields.

This is a significant change from legacy processes in which payroll expenses would post to expired funding sources and could negatively affect the availability of departmental funds.  In addition to being proactive in reassigning charges, you should actively monitor departmental suspense chartfields and assign the correct charging as quickly as possible.  If you do not keep on top of this task, you could face a significant amount of work later in the fiscal year.

How are Suspense Chartfields Used?

• Suspense – default is used to post payroll transactions when a position or an appointment does not have a valid funding source in the Department Budget Table.
• Suspense – delivered is used to post payroll transactions when the funding source for an employee with a single funding source has expired.
• Suspense – NC is used to post payroll transactions when one or more funding source for an employee with multiple funding sources has expired.

How do I Avoid Suspended Payroll Transactions?

Campus departments should monitor project end dates on sponsored awards and funding end dates on non-OSR funds, and then move the portion of the employee’s salary to a new source of funds before the next payroll is distributed.  This can be accomplished through the use of the Funding Swap ePAR (electronic Personnel Action Request) in the HR/Payroll system.  If a project end date has been extended by OSR, the department will need to process a fund swap form to extend the funding end date for each employee paid on that project ID. If this does not occur in a timely manner, the payroll for the affected employees will be distributed to suspense.

What is the Correction Process for Suspended Payroll Transactions?

In order to correct the posted transactions and move the payroll expenses from the suspense account to the correct funding source, a retroactive adjustment to salary and benefits (RASB) will need to be processed.  There will be two different RASB processes:

• Delivered functionality will be used for payroll transactions that have been processed in ConnectCarolina on or after October 1, 2014.  To initiate a transaction, you should submit a Funding Swap ePAR with the appropriate effective date.
• Customized functionality will be used for legacy payroll transactions for the 15 months period ended September 30, 2014.  This process is under development and additional information will be provided at a later time.

Both of these processes may be used beginning November 1, 2014.

Closing

Please be mindful of the need to regularly review your positions and appointments to avoid expired funding end dates that will cause payroll transactions to post to your departmental suspense chartfields.  As a helpful reminder, reports will be emailed each pay period that contain upcoming funding end dates that are 30-60-90 days out.  Thank you for your assistance and please remember – don’t keep your payroll transactions in suspense!