To: MOU Leads
University Business Managers
Research Administrative Support Group
Cc: Human Resources Officers and Secondary Contacts
From: Dennis Press, University Controller
Frances A. Dykstra, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Enterprise Applications
Date: March 11, 2015
Please review the following IMPORTANT UPDATES TO CRITICAL CONNECTCAROLINA ISSUES right away. Action on your part may be required. This communication contains information on:
- Extension of project end dates
- Impacts of end-date extension for multi-year projects on labor expenses
- What will be corrected centrally
- What campus is responsible for correcting
- Combo Code effective date fix
Extension of project end dates for multi-year projects
Project dates were extended on 631 projects over the weekend of March 7-8, 2015. For HR/Payroll, the end date in the department budget table was not programmatically extended, but for Finance, the project end date and the Commitment Control (KK) end date were programmatically extended. This means that purchase requisitions, ePro orders, vouchers, journals and other finance transactions using those projects will now be valid. See Impacts of end-date extension for multi-year projects on labor expenses below.
Impacts of end-date extension for multi-year projects on labor expenses
What will be corrected centrally, related to employee funding?
For monthly employees, the Commitment Accounting (CA) team will correct Funding End Dates for projects that originally had a funding end date (or budget end date) on March 31, 2015, or earlier, and are on the list of projects that will be extended through the project end date. This will prevent those chartfield strings from going to suspense when the M09 payroll is distributed.
For biweekly employees, the CA team will correct Funding End Dates for projects that originally had a funding end date (or budget end date) on March 8, 2015, or earlier and are on the list of projects that will be extended through the project end date. This will prevent those chartfield strings from going to suspense when the B18 payroll is distributed.
IMPORTANT EXCEPTION: The exception to this, for both monthly and biweekly employees, is that the CA team will not charge the project if a subsequent action has already been entered to intentionally remove the employee from the project.
What is campus responsible for correcting, related to employee funding?
For monthly employees, campus should initiate funding swap ePARs to pull in the new funding end date for projects that originally had a funding end date (or budget end date) on April 1, 2015, or later, and are on the list of projects that will be extended through the project end date. Priority should be given to funding end dates that were originally scheduled to end anywhere between April 1-30, 2015. Technically, anything with a March 31, 2015, funding end date wouldn’t go to suspense until the M10 payroll is distributed.
For biweekly employees, campus should initiate funding swap ePARs to pull in the new funding end date for projects that originally had a funding end date (or budget end date) on March 9, 2015, or later, and are on the list of projects that will be extended through the project end date. Priority should be given to funding end dates that were originally scheduled to end anywhere between March 9-19, 2015, since the payroll lockout for B19 is March 26, 2015. Technically, anything with a March 20, 2015, funding end date wouldn’t go to suspense until the B20 payroll is distributed.
When a funding swap ePAR is initiated, a new grid is inserted to effect the changes on a particular date. When a new grid is inserted, the old grid is copied forward. When the grid is copied, it also copies forward the old funding end date. To correct this, delete the row that contains the old funding end date, insert a new row in the grid, and re-enter the chartfield string or combo code. This will prompt the system to look up the new funding end date.
The CA team will prepare and disseminate reports by MOU showing the updates the CA team made and updates the MOU/departments need to make.
Combo code effective date fix
New combo codes are generated in HR/Payroll any time a particular combination of chartfields has never been used. The project team discovered an issue with the effective date assigned to newly created combo codes. A fix was moved into the system late last night, March 10. This fix accommodates forms that were already entered and had to be put on hold. The fix does not require that the ePAR form be initiated from scratch.
If you have questions, please contact Dennis Press at dennis_press@unc.edu or 919-962-7007.