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The following information has also been communicated by e-mail via the EFS listserv. Please note that information on these EFS Updates may have changed since the Updates were issued.

Also see Alerts, Announcements and Q & A.

Issues & Resolutions 10-29-08

Updated Workflow for General Ledger

Journals that are prepared by users with a department approver or Certified Approver role will no longer be automatically approved. These journals will need to follow the normal workflow and approval process. The update will prevent a preparer from approving an entry they initiated. This will affect all journal entries created in the general ledger: General Ledger > Journals > Journal Entry > Create/Update Journal Entries.

Issues & Resolutions 10-7-08

Reports Slowdown

Many units have indicated that they are having issues in the production (FSUMPRD) and reporting (FSUMRPT) instances with report generation and report printing (such as for department deposits). The EFS SWAT team is working to resolve these issues and asks that users refrain from rerunning their reports while their reports are in queue. Reports in queue will run. However, the slowdown issue is compounded when reports are rerun as it puts more reports in queue.

The team appreciates your continued patience and asks for your help with this issue.

Issues & Resolutions 9-17-08 - Update

Carryforwards

When viewing the carryforward page (navigation -- GENERAL LEDGER > REVIEW FINANCIAL INFORMATION > UM CARRYFORWARD BALANCE) please keep in mind that the "Prior Year Carryforward" line at the top of the page may not equal the corresponding FY08 year-end balance in CUFS or what you were expecting to see as carryforward. There are two reasons for this:

1) period 14 activity has not yet been manually entered into PeopleSoft, and

2) if activity occurred in period 13 that brought the balance to $0, the page is currently not recognizing that $0 as a balance and therefore is going back to the prior period with a dollar value balance (period 12 for example) and displaying that balance as the carryforward.

Until these two issues are corrected, carryforward balance (cash basis) for individual chart strings can be found by doing an inquiry in the Actuals ledger. Do the inquiry for fiscal year 2008, from period 913 to period 913 and choose account code 900102. This will give you the correct carryforward (as of period 13) for that chart string. When doing an inquiry in the Actuals ledger, remember that a negative entry in that 900102 account code is a credit balance.

Questions on this and other financial system issues should be directed to finsys@umn.edu

Issues & Resolutions 9-10-08 - Update

RESOLVED - Crystal Reports, September 25, 2008

The Crystal Report issue that we were experiencing in early September has been resolved. Although reports default to the English language, users have the option to select another language. Since selecting another languages other than English causes issues, any report executed in a language other than English will be automatically changed behind the scenes to execute the report in English.

Crystal Reports Issue Update

The crystal reports problem that occurred on Monday, September 8 was the result of a single report being run using a language other than English. Until a permanent solution is in place that prevents this type of error, users are asked to execute reports only using the English language. The report run control pages offer a language field as an option, as noted in the example below. This language option should be defaulted to English for all reports. Users are asked to accept this default and refrain from changing the value to any option other than English. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation until this issue is resolved.

-- EFS SWAT Team

crystalreport

Issues & Resolutions 9-08-08

Crystal Reports Issue

Currently, we are experiencing crystal reports issues. All crystal reports that have executed in production as of 9:43 this morning have been ending in error. The impact of this issue varies among the business processes. We are aware of the problem and are working on a resolution.

Issues & Resolutions 8-12-08

Budget checking for payroll transactions for month-end processing has caused a delay in month-end close. The procedure that processes the budget transactions is running longer than expected. Reporting for actuals versus budget will not be correct until the processing completes.

Issues & Resolutions 8-8-08

Accounts Payable

Resolved on 8/12 - Users can continue to do the vendor payment approval. The Vendor Payment Approval process was suspended for a short time following an unsuccessful batch run of the program on 8-8.

Issues & Resolutions 8-7-08

Accounts Payable

Vouchers In Denied Status: Currently, certain denied vouchers are getting automatically approved after corrections have been made by the voucher specialist. The exception to this is if the voucher specialist changes any one of these four fields: DeptID, PCBU, Amount, or Gross Amount. These changes will route the voucher through the approval stages. Therefore, any denied vouchers should not be worked on until we have resolution to this issue. We expect to have a resolution within the next couple of days. If the voucher needs to be processed immediately. Please delete the original voucher and reprocess.

Expenses

Active Employee Status: In addition to the four employee statuses communicated previously (9-month appointments, suspended employees, leave of absence, and leave with pay), terminated and retired employees are considered "inactive" within the Expenses module. Since employees must be both authorized and considered as "active" employees in order to enter expense reports or receive employee reimbursements, these employees must be activated in Expenses. Until a permanent fix is in place, users are asked to call the Financial Helpline to activate the employee. This will allow the preparer to enter the expense transaction.

General Ledger

Payroll Transactions: While payroll journal entries have been successfully posted to the general ledger, payroll journal entries have not been posted to the commitment control ledger. An update to the journals will allow them to be posted for month end processing. Actuals to commitment control will not balance until after month end close processing has completed.

Grants/Projects/Contracts

Sponsored Award Summary, Sponsored Award Overview, and Sponsored Project Detail Reports: Two display issues are occurring - salary and fringe benefit commitment and expense activity accounts not associated with Budget Categories/Items. Several formatting issues also exist. A fix is in progress to include missing items on these reports.
Sponsored Transaction Detail - Expenses Report: In addition to several formatting issues, salary and fringe benefit commitments currently are not being displayed. A fix is in progress to include missing items on these reports.

Procurement

Procurement Card Activity: Credit (negative) transactions were loaded erroneously into PeopleSoft in an "approved" status. As a result, reconcilers are unable to add justifications or change the ChartField string. Until this is fixed, the following workaround should be used for these transactions:

Reconcilers should ask the approvers to set the status from "Approved" to "Staged" and then Save it. The reconciler can then add the justification and the appropriate ChartField string(s) as needed and "Verify" the transaction. The approver can then approve the transaction.

Please note: All of the July Procurement card activity has been loaded into PeopleSoft as of 8/5/08. Additionally, the processing time frame for reconciliations and approvals has been extended through Friday, 8/15/08. Departments need to keep in mind that when reviewing sponsored financial reports from Sponsored Financial Reporting (SFR), they must ensure that all related Pcard activity is reflected in the reports. If any Sponsored transactions are missing, please contact SFR.

Purchasing

Multiple Line VCPS's: Currently, vouchers generated from multiple line VCPS transactions are only picking up one line from the VCPS. As a result, vouchers are created for the amount of that one line only. As a temporary solution, VCPS's affected by this issue are being identified daily, and vouchers for the remaining lines are being created to ensure that vendors are paid the amount of the VCPS. Until this issue is resolved permanently, please create single line VCPS transactions to ensure that vouchers are created for the amount of the VCPS. Be sure to image any expense receipts and the vendor invoice or check request.