Availability Control ( Grant Budgeting ) Forum Forum to discuss AVC in IRIS March 28, 2006

Availability Control(Grant Budgeting)

Forum

Forum to discuss AVC in IRIS

March 28, 2006

Availability Control Agenda

Welcome

Ground Rules

Budgeting - FRS vs SAP

Timing of AVC

How AVC works

Known issues and solutions

Tools to use

Discussion

Budgeting

Budgeting

FRS

Object Code

ABR Rule

No Equivalent

ABR Pool

SAP

G/L Account

BudRule

Sponsored Class

Budgeted Sponsored Class

Budgeting

Sponsored Class and Budgeted Sponsored Class

A Sponsored Class may have one or more g/l accounts

Sponsored Classes track to a BUDGETED Sponsored Class depending upon the BudRule, just as in FRS different ranges of object codes tracked to an ABR Pool depending on the ABR rule

To understand your budget, you need to know the g/l account and the BudRule

Budgeting

ABR 9 BudRule 9

1000 – All E500000 – Direct Expenses

9998 – F&A costs E590020 – F&A costs

Budgeting

ABR 5 BudRule 5

1000 – Salaries E510000 – All Salary & Benefits

3010 – Travel E530010 – Travel – All

3105 – Consultants E530130 – Consultants

E530170 – Train Participants

3114 – Sub CT < $25K E530200 – Sub-contract < $25K

3118 – Sub Ct > $25K E530201 – Sub-contract > $25K

3050 – Current Expenses E530300 – Direct Current Expenses

5000 – Equipment E550000 – Equipment

9998 – F&A costs E590020 – F&A costs

Budgeting

ABR 4 BudRule 4

1000 – Direct Salaries E511000 - Direct Salaries & BenefitsE513000 - Student Salaries & Benefits

3010 – Travel E530011 - Travel - DomesticE530033 - Travel – Foreign

E530040 - Travel – Student

3105 - Consultants E530130 – Consultants

E530170 - Train Participants

3114 – Sub-Ct < $25,000 E530200 - Sub-contract < $25K

3118 - Sub-Ct > $25,000 E530201 - Sub-contract > $25K

Budgeting

ABR 4 Budrule 4

3050 – Direct Current Exp E530300–Direct Current Exp

E534040- Rent/Lease Land/Eqp

E534041-Rent/Lease – Bldg

E536120-Patient Care & Support

3701 – Fellowship Payments E537010 – Fellow/Trainee Stip

3711 - Grants in Aid - Other E537030 – Trainee Tuit/Fees

5000 – Equipment E550000 – Equipment

9998 – F&A Costs E590020 – F&A Costs

Budgeting

ABR 4 BudRule 4

Examples of CAS items possible with approval:

1203 – Secr/Clerical E512030 – Secr/Cler Sal & Ben

3335– Office Supplies E540334 – Office Supplies

3203 – Postage E530402 – Postage

3031 – Equpmt/Line Charge E531199 – CAS Communication, includes all the items in left column

3033 – Work Orders

3034 - Cell Phone

3035 – Internet Charges

3036 – Voice Mail

3037- Answering Services

3039 – Pager Services

Availability Control

Availability

Controls


Why do we need AVC?Not in compliance with OMB circulars

Not compliant with Federal sponsor regulations

Not compliant with UK policies

Sponsor audits more frequent

Findings may be extrapolated to all other grants from same sponsor


Steps taken prior to implementation of AVC:

AVC presented to Research area budget officers on 02/03/2005

AVC presented to Provost area budget officers on 2/24/2005

CAS items needed to be cleared from grants in FRS prior to end of August

Remaining items were moved from grants to CAS accounts prior to conversion to SAP

CAS items were allowed to be moved from the CAS accounts to grants in SAP through the end of January 2006.

Availability Control - Timing

Why turn on AVC now?

October FI go-liveGrants budgets did not post until NovemberProblems with conversion dataSpent October dealing with conversion issues with

grantsNovember was spent adding the ability to charge F&A

costsDecember was spent correcting F&A postings that

were overchargedJanuary first month where these and other issues were

successfully resolved


Why turn on AVC now?

Advantages: AVC tested during HR parallel testing environment AVC adjusted and back office procedures refined to deal with

issues resulting from parallel testing Turned on 02/07/2006 – After January month end Beginning of February to allow full month to resolve issues Turned on two months prior to HR go-live Turned on five months prior to fiscal year end AVC configuration adjusted and back office procedures refined

to deal with errors in the AVC program


Mechanics

Availability Control Definition

Availability Control (AVC)

Verifies sufficient budget is available prior to allowing documents to post

AVC has three levels of tolerance

Tolerances

Level 1000 – Warning messages at 100%

Level 2000 – Warning message at 90% and Error message at 100%, Payroll document warning

Level 3000 – No message

SAP Messages

Messages in SAP may be confusing: (Actual messages from SAP)

Information messages: Blue I

Budget consumption 62.82 USD GM PB Availability (less than overall budget for item 000009)

Warning messages: Yellow triangleYellow triangle

Budget consumption 62.82 USD GM PB Availability (less than overall budget for item 000009)

Should be able to use the green check mark or the “enter” key to bypass the message

Error messages: Red X

Budget consumption 62.82 USD GM PB Availability (greater than overall budget for item 000009)

Availability Control – How it works

How it works

Tolerances are assigned by grant type and sponsored class

Grant Types excluded:

CB – Cash Basis

HC – Human Clinical

FA – Federal Appropriation (College of Ag)

SF – Student Financial Aid


How it works, cont.

Sponsored Classes excluded

All Payroll & Benefits sponsored classes (including fellowship):

E510000 E511000 E511010 E511011 E511099

E512000 E512010 E512011 E512019 E512030

E512031 E512039 E512040 E512041 E512049

E512070 E512071 E512079 E512099 E513000

E513199 E522000 E522010 E522011 E522041

E522071 E522099 E523000 E523199 E537010


How it works, cont.

Other sponsored class overrides:

E540348 – Pro-card default

E590000 – E599999 F&A costs

Revenue sponsored classes – All

Will only stop payroll, pro-card or F&A costs if the entire grant is over budget


Issues Identified:

02/07/2006 – AVC initially activated

02/07/2006 - Found that the budget roll-up was not working properly

Status – Resolved – transport to production on 02/07/2006

02/10/2006 – Found that certain contracts handled on a cash basis needed a different grant type in SAP

Status – Resolved – new grant type in production 03/01/2006


Issues identified, cont:

02/10/2006 – Found that encumbrances from a subcontracts were not liquidating

Status – Resolved initially on 02/13/2006 by liquidating encumbrances as found. Submitted

suggested procedural changes to MM team on 03/09/2006, 03/14/2006 and 03/15/2006

Issues Identified, cont:

02/15/2006 – Various instances of invalid messages to users

Status – Resolved on 03/01/2006 by modifying AVC configuration and change in procedure for budget postings by Sponsored Projects Accounting.

Availability Controls

Issues Identified, cont:

03/02/2006 –Grants that have department number or functional area (PCS) changes were getting error messages.

Status – Resolved on 03/13/2006, by modifying configuration

Various budget roll mistakes were identified

Status – Resolved on various dates as they were identified


02/08/2006 Service center and recharge center not posting at all

Status – Resolved 03/01/2006 – able to post and suspend

03/01/2006 Service center and recharge centers suspense entries

Issue: Not getting paid for services

Status - Unresolved

Proposal - Set up a overrun cost center per area (at lowest level desired by business officer) to post charges if budgeted

sponsored class is over budget


Other related issues:

Grants with duplicate budgets (6) - Deleted extra budget document

Grants with duplicate F&A budgets (65) – F&A budget offset 03/23/2006

Grants converted with the wrong Bud rule (10) – Call Sponsored Projects Accounting to have the Bud rule changed and the AVC roll-up reinitialized

Grants where pre-posted budget errors occurred (3) - resolved

Out of all issues identified – only one remains unresolved


Tools you can use:

GMAVCOVRW – Use the variant /UKDefault

BudRule Crosswalk – available on the following web sites

http://www.research.uky.edu/ospa/

http://www.uky.edu/EVPFA/Controller/spahome/

http://www.uky.edu/IRIS/Financials GL Accounts from FRS object codes are also available on this site


Tools you can use, cont:

Grants Analysis class has been revised with up to date information – retakes are allowed. Contact IRIS training team to add back to your training plan.

Research Administrators and College Grant Officers

Sponsored Projects Accounting financial administrators

Use OSPA prior approval form to guide written justifications

Coming Soon

IRIS web-site dedicated to Grants Management

Link to IRIS web-site dedicated to Availability Controls


Coordination between OSPA and SPA

Re-budgets are high priority in both offices If justifications are in place, may be processed through both offices

within days of receipt.

OSPA, SPA and IRIS resources are dedicated to identifying and resolving issues as they occur.

Summary

Policy has not changed from FRS

System protects the integrity of UK by being compliant with federal and UK policies governing grants

Pro-actively managing grant budgets is necessary

Budget Rules are modeled on FRS where possible

Re-Budgeting will be more frequent

Better coordination exists between OSPA and SPA

Assistance will be provided as requested


Open Discussion

Process

All comments and questions will be summarized

Sent to Karen Combs and Dan Wentz for verification of accuracy

Summary sent to IRIS team

Responses to summary dispersed to Karen Combs and Dan Wentz

Response from users gathered

Recommendation made to IRIS team

IRIS team will take recommendation to business owners for final decision

Documents

Availability Control ( Grant Budgeting ) Forum Forum to discuss AVC in IRIS March 28, 2006