Please share with the ConnectCarolina Finance users in your school/division. Updates are sent on an as-needed basis.
Top Issues
NEW! May Month-End Close: Central offices have officially closed the month of May.
NEW! Fiscal Year-End Closing Date and Procedures. This week marks the beginning of a series of key dates for fiscal year end. These deadlines must be met to ensure use of your 2016-2017 budgets rather than your 2017-2018 budgets.
School/department staff should be checking daily to make sure vouchers are through department workflow and don’t have any errors. Vouchers not through departmental workflow by the June 16 deadline will be deleted. All voucher entry (and requisitions and POs) needs to be complete by 5 p.m. – no exceptions. Journal entries not approved by departments and the Office of Sponsored Research (when applicable) by the June 23 deadline will be deleted. See the June 8 memo and the 2017 Fiscal Year End web page for details.
REMINDER! Preliminary Rollover. The preliminary rollover of all funding sources for active appointments and positions into FY2018 occurred at 5 p.m. on May 30, 2017. This initial rollover allowed departments to begin submitting Job Changes, Transfers, and Funding Swaps effective July 1, 2017 and beyond. Departments may continue to submit ePARs effective for FY2017 and the final rollover will be done at 5 p.m. on June 30 to account for any additional funding changes made since the May 30 rollover. Any FY2017 funding changes not submitted, approved, and executed by 5 p.m. on June 30, 2017, will need to be resubmitted in the new fiscal year.
NEW! Top 10 Changes You May Notice When the Budget Ledger Groups are Simplified.
As you’ve probably heard, the budget ledger groups in ConnectCarolina are being simplified beginning July 1. While most of the changes are behind-the-scenes, here are the top 10 changes you may notice if you do budgeting, create budget journals or run reports in ConnectCarolina or InfoPorte:
- State, F&A, and Trust are being combined into the new “FAST” ledger groups.
- You will choose the fund type, instead of the ledger, when running reports in InfoPorte.
- Only State and F&A transactions will be recorded in the FAST_PAR parent ledger.
- State fund codes will roll up to the FAST_PAR parent ledger.
- Nine account codes are being consolidated with other accounts as budget rollups.
- You should still submit separate budget journals and transfers for State, F&A, and Trust funds, even though the system will let you combine them on one.
- You need to use the updated Excel template for uploading budget transactions in the system.
- Starting with fiscal year 2018, you will choose the FAST, FAST_PAR, or FAST_REV ledger group when running reports in ConnectCarolina.
- When using the Budgets Overview inquiry in ConnectCarolina, it’s best to create new inquiries.
- When using the Program/Cost Code tabs in InfoPorte, you’ll notice that the Expenses column on the reports has been renamed Revenue/Expenses.
For more information on the budgets, the ledger groups, and the changes, go to https://ccinfo.unc.edu/ and click Finance and then Budgets-Related Resources.
NEW! New Contact Email for Disbursement Services. Please note that due to system streamlining, the Disbursement Services general contact email is now disbursementsteam@unc.edu, instead of the previous disbursements_team@unc.edu. You may wish to update your contact lists.
NEW! Federal and State Tax Withholding Requirements for Payments to Non-Resident Aliens Performing Services in the United States. New forms are required for non-resident alien Independent Contractors (IC), which require more processing time for approval and payment. For details, see the June 9 memo.
REMINDER! Subscribing to Business Managers listserv: Finance and accounting personnel who would like to subscribe to the business managers listserv can do so by following the instructions at https://finance.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/298/2016/09/joinbusinessmgr.pdf.
Questions
Users should utilize the Business Systems Help Desk when they are unsure who to contact for issue resolution. This is the fastest way to obtain assistance and allows the project team to be able to track issues to determine the scale of the impact to all users. Users can reach the Business Systems Help Desk at 919-962-HELP or via a remedy ticket submitted online at help.unc.edu (select ConnectCarolina > ConnectCarolina Finance > the appropriate area of concern).
Suggestions for content can be emailed to financecomm@unc.edu.