Business Service Center

UNT Health Science Center Partner Meeting

August 23, 2013

ePAR Updates

•  Now  able  to  do  9/1  transac2ons  •  Warning  messages  vs.    

                       Error  messages  •  No  need  to  create  9/1  transac2ons  for  current  

employees  with  no  changes  •  Transac2ons  currently  in  the  works  =  Transfers  to  

Another  Department  •  New  How  To’s….on  website  

Questions and comments ePAR  Update      •  Donna  Shell  noted  the  difference  between  a  warning  and  an  error.    Many  of  you  have  

probably  gotten  a  warning  about  “future  dated  rows.”    That  does  not  stop  you  from  submitting  the  ePAR  

   •  On  hourly  ePARs  there  is  a  selection  box  now  and  you  must  make  a  selection  or  you  will  get  

an  error  and  not  be  able  to  submit  the  ePAR.      •  On  salaried  ePARS  there  is  also  a  selection  box  that  must  be  completed  if  you  are  making  a  

change  to  salary,  like  an  increase.    If  you  don’t,  you  will  get  an  error  that  will  cause  your  ePAR  to  not  process  properly.  

   •  Also  on  salaried  ePARs  when  you  are  increasing  someone’s  salary,  you  will  get  a  warning  to  

include  a  comment  about  the  source  of  funding.      Budget  needs  that  information,  so  please  include  it.    It  will  not  inhibit  you  from  submitting  the  ePAR.    

   Questions  were  asked  about  end  dates  for  positions  paid  on  grants  (projids).      •  8/31  end  date  on  many  of  your  jobs      •  If  your  funding  has  ended,  you  need  to  put  in  the  new  source  of  funding,  regardless  of  

whether  it’s  for  9/1  or  middle  of  the  year  or  any  other  time.    You  have  to  take  action  and  indicate  where  the  funding  is  coming  from  to  continue  paying  that  position  when  funding  ends.  

Questions and comments •  Question  was  asked  about  grants  ending  on  varied/different  dates  and  accounts  going  into  

suspense  when  they  shouldn’t  –  Donna  Shell  asked  that  they  send  her  examples  and  she  will  be  glad  to  look  into  it  and  conference  call  with  them.  

   •  Question/issue  with  employee  changes  being  made  due  to  multiple  departments/multiple  

funding  sources  for  one  position.    The  other  department  is  unable  to  see  the  end  date  that  was  previously  entered  when  they  do  the  ePAR  for  the  part  they  are  funding  so  the  funds  are  not  encumbering  correctly  (it  is  not  recognizing  the  end  date  and  is  encumbering  for  the  remainder  of  the  Uiscal  year).  

   •  Donna  Asher  noted  that  when  you  go  in  to  make  a  change,  instead  of  seeing  an  end  date  you  

should  see  a  Suspense  date  on  a  new  row  (a  future  dated  DBT  row)  for  the  date  after  the  end  date.    She  said  that  we  need  to  look  into  the  DBT  process  and  how  encumberances  are  working.    Donna  Shell  said  she  will  pull  together  a  meeting  with  stakeholders  for  this  situation  because  that  should  not  be  happening  so  we  need  to  look  into  it.  

   •  Question:    if  we  have  salary  changes  effective  9/1,  do  we  need  to  do  ePARs  for  those?          •  Donna  Shell  suggested  that  you  go  ahead  and  look  in  Job  Data  to  see  if  there  is  a  future  dated  

row  (that  it  was  part  of  the  roll  over).    If  there  is  not  one,  then  Yes,  you  need  to  do  an  ePAR  to  make  that  salary  change.  

   •  Jennifer  Trevino  addressed  the  Reappointment  process  and  how  it  is  being  rolled  into  ePAR  

in  the  future.    A  message  went  out  yesterday  about  the  budget  packets  and  that  the  date  is  loaded  but  you  should  go  and  double  check  to  make  sure.  

 

Questions and comments •  Donna  Shell  noted  that  if  you  made  a  change  in  July  or  August,  you  should  double  check  that  it  carried  

forward.    There  were  timing  issues  with  some  of  the  changes  being  made  at  the  same  time  that  FY14  was  loaded  and  we  ran  queries  to  catch  those  but  we  do  ask  that  you  double  check.  

•  Question/comment  was  made  about  the  workUlow/approval  process  and  the  fact  that  a  change  to  just  one  funding  source  means  the  ePAR  has  to  go  through  all  of  the  deptid/projid  approvers  when  there  is  nothing  for  them  to  approve.    They’d  like  that  looked  at  to  see  if  we  can  change  that.  

•  Additional  pay  also  has  to  be  approved  by  all  in  the  workUlow  even  if  it  is  only  on  one  of  the  funding  sources.    It  can  really  hold  up  the  approval  of  the  additional  pay  to  have  so  many  approvers  in  the  workUlow  who  don’t  really  have  anything  to  approve.    Donna  Shell  said  that  we  will  look  at  what  can  be  done  to  address  these  two  issues.  

•  Transfers  to  Another  department  are  in  the  works  and  will  be  just  one  transaction  but  both  departmental  approvers  will  be  in  the  workUlow.  

•  Question  re  hourlies  on  stipends  and  transferring  them  to  another  department  –  how  to  handle;  do  they  term  their  old  appointment?    A  department  is  going  away  and  their  positions  are  moving  to  our  department.  

•  Donna  Asher  said  that  HR  has  been  working  on  that  because  it  is  a  reorganization  and  the  funded  positions  have  to  be  moved  from  one  department  to  another.    Work  with  your  HR  and  Budget  department  and  yes,  you  will  have  to  do  HRMs  for  these.    It  is  still  a  manual  process.  

•  For  regular  hourlies  who  are  leaving  your  department  and  going  to  work  for  another  department,  you  just  terminate  them  in  your  department  and  the  other  department  does  an  ePAR  to  Hire  them.    It  is  not  like  the  transfer  of  a  staff  person,  in  other  words.  

   

Questions and comments •  Question  re  an  adjunct  hourly  job  –  person  transferring  from  a  

department  to  their  department.    They  were  told  to  terminate  them  in  the  other  department,  post  the  job,  have  them  apply,  and  then  hire  them.    It  turned  out  they  just  had  to  do  a  paper  HRM  to  change  the  “H”  department.    Donna  Shell  noted  that  ePAR  does  not  handle  that  type  of  transaction  and  would  not  have  advised  to  take  that  action  and  the  staff  person  indicated  the  information  did  not  come  from  BSC.  

   •  Request  to  make  supervisor  Uield  mandatory  due  to  routing  issues  

with,  for  example,  students  on  multiple  jobs  or  going  to  another  job.      •  Donna  Asher  said  they  will  work  with  the  programmers  to  make  sure  

that  on  Hires  for  Hourly  that  it  will  no  longer  pre-­‐populate  with  a  supervisor.    It  was  not  the  intent  for  that  to  be  Uilled,  but  it  is  currently  so  they  will  work  with  the  programming  team  to  change  that.  

   •  Donna  Shell  noted  there  are  more  resources  available  on  our  ePAR  

page  now  –  we  have  added  some  more  help  documents.      

Inbound Freight Savings with

How  you  save  on  your  inbound  shipping  costs  

 Presented  by:  

   Debbie Reynolds

Exec. Director of Procurement Services

•  Vantage  Point  Logis2cs  (VPL)  is  helping  UNTS  save  money  on  shipments  received  everyday  from  suppliers  

•  Suppliers  significantly  mark-­‐up  charges  to  UNTS  when  they  bill  for  shipping    

•  VPL  works  directly  with  your  suppliers  to  u2lize  UNTS’  strong  discounted  rates  with  FedEx  

Procurement Services

•  How  you  place  orders  or  receive  shipments  does  not  change  

•  Shipping  charges  will  now  come  from  VPL,  at  an  average  savings  of  35%  

•  VPL  will  match  shipping  charges  back  to  the  appropriate  GL,  department,  grant,  etc.  associated  with  the  PO  

Procurement Services

Will we really save money on shipping? Let’s look at an example…

Procurement Services

Will we really save money on shipping?

Shipping comparison

Supplier shipping rate: $41.00 VPL Shipping rate: $22.16 Savings: $18.84 (over 45%!)

Procurement Services

What  other  benefits  do  you  get  with  VPL?  Ø Vendor  Management  Ø Carrier  Invoice  and  Alloca2on  •  VPL  audits  your  shipments  for  correct  

pricing  Ø Proac2ve  Account  Management  Ø Repor2ng  and  Analy2cs,  as  needed  

Procurement Services

Two Financial Transactions

•  One  for  your  original  requisi2on/purchase  order  paid  to  vendor  furnishing  the  product.  

 •  A  second  for  your  shipping  costs  paid  to  VPL.  

Save with vendors like these

And many more!

Procurement Services

Many other institutions are already fighting back to save significantly on freight!

Procurement Services

Procurement Services

Questions  on  Vantage  Point  Logistics:  

•  Question    -­‐  this  is  just  for  ePRO  requisitions,  not  PCard  transactions?      •  Yes,  but  if  you  do  buy  something  on  your  PCard  from  a  vendor  that  VPL  has  contracted  with  

it  is  possible  that  VPL  is  actually  handling  the  shipping  piece.  

•  VPL  will  not  handle  the  shipping  on  controlled  assets  (those  particular  assets  that  are  tagged  for  inventory).  

Questions  on  Corporate  Travel  Planner:  

•  Debbie  noted  that  when  approving  in  CTP,  that  approval  MUST  start  with  the  word  “Approve”  and  no  space  before  that  word.    They  can  add  as  many  words  after  that  as  they  want,  but  the  Uirst  word  must  be  “Approve”  or  it  will  not  be  conUirmed  (ex:    “I  Approve”  caused  a  reservation  to  be  cancelled  and  a  cancellation  fee  to  be  charged).  

   •  Question  –  most  of  our  travel  is  on  a  grant.    Does  Grants  receive  that  to  approve  in  addition  

to  the  deptid  holder?      •  Yes  –  that  is  a  manual  process  we  have  added  behind  the  scenes.  

Corporate Travel Planners (CTP)

The  BSC  has  contracted  with  Corporate  Travel  Planners  (CTP)  to  serve  as  the  preferred  vendor  for  advance  travel  planning.    In  addi2on  to  the  convenience  CTP  provides,  using  the  preferred  vendor  alleviates  paperwork  submission  required  to  pay  for  advance  travel,  and  increases  the  level  of  customer  service  offered  to  travelers.      

Corporate Travel Planners Login Go  to  www.concursolu2ons.com    

In  the  User  Name  field,  type  (your  EUID)@unt.edu    

Password  is:  welcome  (no  caps)  

Corporate Travel Planners Reminders

First  Dme  users  –  be  sure  the  appropriate  approver  is  listed  under  your  profile.  If  you  travel  using  different  depDd/projid’s  you  must  do  this  each  Dme.  

   

Corporate Travel Planners Homepage

Once  you  are  logged  in  you  may  begin  to  search  flights,  car  rentals  and  hotels.  From  this  page  you  make  your  reserva2ons  and  also  see  your  upcoming  trips.    Please  call  the  Travel  Department  if  you  need  to  book  for  guest  travelers  or  need  any  further  assistance.  

Reminders    

Fiscal Year End •  Remember  to  review  your  outstanding  requisi2ons…  

Remember to Budget Check to Release Funds                      You  do  not  want  to  see  this:    

•  We  suggest  no  Pcard  transac2ons  acer  today,  August  23rd.  

•  Travel  Vouchers  to  be  paid  from  FY13  funds  are  due  to  BSC  by  5:00pm,  Tuesday,  September  3rd.  

•  Payments  from  FY14  funds  will  begin  Monday,  August  26th.  

•  Pcard  data  entry  in  GCMS  for  FY13  must  be  completed  by  5:00pm,  Wednesday,  September  4th  

PAYROLL  UPDATES  

Payroll Update – End of Year Deadlines •  Hourly  Time  &  Labor  Deadline  –  Tuesday,  September  3,  

2013  Ø All  hourly  2me  through  Saturday,  August  31,  2013  must  be  entered  and  approved.  

Ø Any  2me  entered/approved  acer  this  deadline  will  be  paid  with  fiscal  year  2014  funds.  

•  Salaried  Time  Deadline  –  Friday,  September  13,  2013  Ø All  salaried  2me  through  Saturday,  August  31,  2013  must  be  entered  and  approved.  

Ø Time  must  be  entered  and  approved  so  lapsing  of  vaca2on  leave  will  be  processed  correctly.  

Payroll Update – Payroll Processing Changes •  Changes  Beginning  with  FY  ‘14  Processing  

Ø Slight  enhancements  to  increase  efficiency  and  provide  greater  flexibility  in  2ming  of  supplemental  paycheck  processing.      

Ø Hourly  deadline  for  approvals  will  be  a  few  days  sooner.  Ø Hourly  supplemental  to  be  paid  on  regular  pay  date  will  be  added.    

Ø Informa2on  will  be  distributed  to  2mekeepers  and  posted  on  website  soon.    We  will  no  longer  u2lize  the  MS  Outlook  calendars  for  deadline  informa2on.  

Payroll Deadlines for ePAR TransacDon  Type    Pay  Period  Final  Approval  Deadline  Pay  Date  Semi-­‐Monthly  Salaried  9/1  -­‐  9/15  Thursday,  9/5/13    9/16/13    Monthly  Salaried    9/1  –  9/30  Monday,  9/16/13  10/1/13  Task  Payments    9/1  –  9/30  Monday,  9/16/13  10/1/13  S2pend  Payments  9/1  –  9/30  Monday,  9/16/13  10/1/13  Semi-­‐Monthly  Salaried  9/16  –  9/30  Monday,  9/16/13  10/1/13  Hourly  (ePAR)    9/1  –  9/15  Monday,  9/16/13  10/1/13  

   

Hourly Payroll Deadlines for Time & Labor Payroll      Pay  Period  Final  Approval  Deadline  Pay  Date  Regular  Hourly    8/16  –  8/31  Tuesday,  9/3/13    9/16/13  *Supplemental    8/16  –  8/31  Tuesday,  9/10/13  

 9/16/13  Regular  Hourly    9/1  –  9/15  Thursday,  9/19/13  10/1/13  *Supplemental    9/1  –  9/15  Tuesday,  9/24/13  

 10/1/13      *Supplemental  payroll  will  be  processed  for  late  approvals.    No  addi2onal  hourly  payrolls  will  be  processed  un2l  the  next  regular  payroll  date.    

Salaried Payroll Deadlines for Time & Labor Payroll        Pay  Period    Final  Approval  Deadline  Monthly  &  Semi-­‐Monthly    8/1  –  8/31    Friday,  9/13/13  Monthly  &  Semi-­‐Monthly    9/1  –  9/30    Monday,  10/14/13    *Deadline  is  for  all  leave  2me  to  be  entered  for  salaried  employees.  

QUESTIONS?  

Questions and Answers