FIS BULLETIN Number 21

Special Fiscal Close Edition

Announcements | Calendar | Status | T&T-Q&A | Training | Inside Peek | Odds & Ends

June 10, 1998

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS

GENERAL: SCHEDULED FIS BANNER DOWNTIMES

Banner FIS will be unavailable to users due to fiscal close processing on the following dates:

7/11/98 (Saturday) General Ledger Roll Forward
7/18/98 (Saturday) Open Encumbrance Roll Forward
8/01/98 (Saturday) Budgetary Roll Forward (part 1)
8/02/98 (Sunday) Budgetary Roll Forward (part 2)

Please see Calendar of FIS/Banner Events for more Fiscal Close related dates.

ACQUISITIONS:

Period 01 of Fiscal Year 99 (otherwise known as July 1998) is OPEN and available for use on documents.

Remember that any documents entered for fiscal year 99 that attempt to adjust encumbrances created in fiscal year 98 will NOT post until after the Encumbrance Roll process on July 18. FIS will allow you to complete and approve these documents, but posting will reset their status to INCOMPLETE when it fails to find the encumbrance. Once the roll happens, the encumbrances will exist in fiscal year 99, and your documents will be able to adjust them.

BANNER REPORTS: None.

OTHER FIS / BANNER ITEMS: None.

CALENDAR OF FIS / BANNER EVENTS

MONTHLY INTERFACE SCHEDULE (Financial data from other admin systems)
All interfaces begin running at 5:00pm; dates subject to change

FISCAL YEAR-END FINANCIAL LEDGERS SCHEDULE: The planned schedule for production of June and July 1998 ledgers is as follows:

FISCAL YEAR-END CLOSING DEADLINES: Here’s a brief synopsis of important Fiscal Close deadlines for ON-LINE FIS processes. The entire schedule of fiscal closing deadlines (including deadlines for PAPER transactions) can be found on the web at:
http://www.ucsc.edu/ucsc/banner-manual/FISQA/yearendclose.htm

FIS STATUS

FISCAL CLOSE: Banner FIS fiscal close processing is now underway, with many "clean-up" type reports being run throughout the month of June. The carry-forward processes will begin in July. (See Section F Insider’s Peek for illuminating info on these processes.) Due to heavy batch transaction processing and the need to validate that these processes ran correctly, access to Banner FIS will be restricted on several weekends throughout July and August. (See the schedule in Section A Importan Announcements.) We will publish reminders as these dates get closer, and inform you promptly if there are any changes.

Please note that in addition to the fiscal close processes themselves, a large number of year-end reports will be produced for the next day or two after each process. This may have an adverse impact on system response time. We appreciate your patience and cooperation as we move through these critical processes. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Monique Leduc at mleduc@cats.

FIS USERS MAY 29, 1998 MEETING HIGHLIGHTS: About 30 users attended the May 29, 1998 FIS Users Meeting. Among the information discussed was the following:

1. CURRENT WORK: Work on Banner Finance version 2.0.7-related modifications is coming to an end. Maintenance will continue, but no further enhancements will be made to the current FIS Banner version so that work may focus on the upgrade. Among the work recently completed or in progress:

1. PROCARD PARTNERSHIP: FIS Acquisitions team is working with Central Purchasing and the Procard vendor on designing and implementing the process which will interface Procard purchases into FIS.
2. ACCOUNT CODE IMPLEMENTATION PARTNERSHIP: The new Account Code structure (effective July 1, 1998) has been implemented into FIS. Many reports needed to be modified in order to support the future effective dates on these account code records.
3. REPORT FIXES AND ENHANCEMENTS: Continuing work on fine-tuning existing reports and development of several new reports (including Contract and Grant Inception-to-Date reporting.)
4. FISCAL CLOSING: Preparing for the onslaught…see Insider’s Peek for details.
5. BANNER UPGRADE: Three major step upgrades to Banner are in the process of being methodically installed. Analysis is beginning.

2. BEHIND THE SCENES WORK 1997-98: Some of the lesser-heralded FIS work that went on over the past year.

1. FIS Banner/DINKY system upgrades improved performance
2. Coordination of efforts with Alumni System which also runs on DINKY with FIS
3. Work on coordinating Facilities System Interface (FAMIS) to FIS
4. Productionalization of many FIS Banner processes.
5. Numerous financial control and accountability reports developed for central campus offices and campuswide projects like DOOR
6. Alternative FIS training development, including assessing the feasibility of developing web-based training

3. UPGRADE TO BANNER 3.1: This is a three major step upgrade from version 2.0.7 to version 3.1. Like other contemporary automated financial systems, it uses client server technology. Implementation is still planned for April 1999. Among the benefits (per SCT) of upgrading are the Graphical User Interface (GUI), full Year 2000 compliance, ability to copy forward PO and Reqs, a working available balance process, improved contracts and grants accounting functionality, and improved fixed asset functionality. Among the scarier aspects of the upgrade are implementation of a new computing technology on the campus (client-server), new security based on roles rather than on FIS Banner forms, and slowness of GUI found with some workstations. All in all, much analysis needs to be done as part of the upgrade work.

4. DEMONSTRATIONS: The new Draft Purchase Order was unveiled. Draft PO’s can now be printed. It was implemented into production later in the day. The new Financial Affairs website was demonstrated; see Tips & Tricks for details.

TIPS & TRICKS/QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

TIPS & TRICKS:

NEW FINANCIAL AFFAIRS WEBSITE DEBUTS!

Bulletins are now available online at http://www.ucsc.edu/ucsc/finaff/fis/bulletin.htm.

Also check out http://www.ucsc.edu/ucsc/finaff/index.htm. From this location you can go to pages for the Accounting Offices, the Campus Controller's Office and the Financial Information System. When you click on their respective button, you'll be able to quickly access information to help you.

The Accounting Offices' page contains data on disbursements, travel, plant accounting, extramural funds accounting, general accounting and payroll. It contains links to UC's / UCSC's policies, accounting manuals and procedures. Look under services if you have a question and you'll find the person who can help you.

The Campus Controller's Office has information on the Campus Financial Management Program, including the surveys and results.

The Financial Information System's (FIS) page links to the Training Summary where you'll find a brief description of FIS classes and additional links to a detailed class description, agenda and class dates. This summary page explains how to register for a class. It also includes the forms necessary to setup or modify a user's account. Additional FIS links go to previous versions of the Bulletin and to the FIS online documentation. The FIS Upgrade Strategy is currently posted there for your review.

As new information is added to these sites, we will inform you via fis_user. And we ask that you consider this your site - please tell us what information you find helpful and what data you would like added online to make your job easier. If you go to additional sites or reference material that others would find of interest or benefit, let us know and we'll add links to them. Send your comments to FIStraining@cats.

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:

A cancelled check for one of my FOAPALs did not appear on my last FWRDOLD report. Why not?

A. The way in which Banner handles check cancellation and related invoice reprocessing creates this anomaly. The process goes like this:

When a check is cancelled, the cancellation transaction posted to the ledger is dated as of the cancellation date. To reissue the check, Banner reopens the originating invoice and goes through the standard process of generating a check. Since the process is the same, the transaction date posted to the ledger for the reissued check will be the same as what was posted for the original check, i.e. the invoice date. Consider this example: an invoice payment is posted with a transaction date of May 27. On June 5, the check is cancelled and reissued. The original payment transaction will be dated May 27, as will the reissued check transaction. The cancellation will be dated June 5. If it just so happens that the May month-end ledgers are processed on June 10, the original check issuance and the reissue will both appear on the May ledger because both are dated May 27. Since the cancellation has a transaction date of June 5, it will not appear on the May ledger, but will appear on the June ledger. However, in querying the system, on June 10, for all transactions to date, the cancellation will appear.

To assess impact of check cancellations on the ledger, we compiled statistics on the number of checks cancelled in each of the last three fiscal years. To date in FY98 - 216 checks have been cancelled. Of that number 78 cancellations occurred within the first 10 days of a month. In FY97, only 134 checks were cancelled. Of those, only 35 occurred in the first 10 days of any month. For fiscal year ’96, 167 checks were canceled with 51 cancellations occurring in the first 10 days of a month. The statistics seem to indicate that this situation occurs infrequently and that as long as the ledger reviewer is aware of the way in which FIS Banner handles check cancellations, it should not pose a serious problem. We will be carefully examining the upgraded version of Banner to determine if the check cancellation process has been improved.

FIS TRAINING SCHEDULE

To enroll, email controller@ucsc.edu and include your name, your service center/unit, phone number, email address, the Class Name and Class Date. A registration confirmation will be returned to you. If you are unable to attend a class, please email or call 459-3274 to cancel your registration. Classes with four or less students may be cancelled.

________________________
Questions or problems regarding Banner FIS can be directed to:
Acquisitions, Accounts Payable - Karsen Jones (kjones@cats)
Ledger Reports, Fiscal Closing - Vicki Gutzwiller (vickig@cats)
Banner Security, Access, Other - Monique Leduc (mleduc@cats)
FIS Training Content, Schedule - Nancy Miller (njmiller@cats)

INSIDER'S PEEK AT FIS

Merrily We Roll Along…

A behind-the-scenes look at Fiscal Close, FIS-style

It’s once again the (supposedly!) sunny month of June, and once again we have been inexorably drawn into the Fiscal Close Zone. All across campus, Service Center and Central Office staff are diligently (frantically?) working on final fiscal year 98 transactions and transfers. (And dreaming of that July or August vacation…hopefully WITH sunshine!)

In Bannerland, our Fiscal Close Zone began in April when we conducted our Annual Fiscal Close System Test. This being our third year-end go-round, we were very pleased to be able to complete the test in record time with relatively few problems or surprises. June, while being the month of greatest year-end activity for users, is actually the "calm before the storm" for us…our heavy activity doesn’t gear up until the month is almost over. Here’s a glimpse of how the summer will unfold for BannerSlug:

Last week of June: FIS Clean-up Week - Many data clean-up reports are run for Central Accounting units. These include reports of inactive and/or terminated FOAPALs which contain budgetary or encumbrance balances, which would cause problems during the year-end carryforward processes. Appropriate accounting staff will prepare journals to transfer these balances as necessary. Balances in activity codes will be referred to Service Centers for review (watch your e-mail!)

July 1 – 10 Last Chance Sale Days: Last weeks of fiscal year 98 processing. All June interfaces will be posted, and all June 98 documents must be completed and approved by 12noon on July 10. In the afternoon on July 10, a flurry of activity including last chance clean-up reports and on-line settings occurs to prep for the General Ledger Roll.

July 11 The Lightweight Roll: On Saturday, July 11 the General Ledger Balance Forward Process (or GL-Roll, for short) will occur. This process will close all FY98 general ledger control account balances into the appropriate fund balance accounts in FY99, and create opening balances for all general ledger (eg, balance sheet) accounts. Accomplishing this takes approximately 15,500 transactions. The process also closes Period 12 FY98 (June 1998) and opens the "Accrual Period" (Period 14 FY98). Period 14 is used by the Central Offices to make many special closing-related budgetary and financial entries. Because most of these period 14 entries rely on there being final, unchanging balances in the ledger, no ledger adjustments by Service Centers and units are allowed during period 14.

July 12 – 17 Reports Roulette, Round 1: June ledgers (considered "Preliminary" because they will not contain period 14 activity) are produced and distributed, along with heaps of reports for Central Accounting and the monthly financial submission to Office of the President (OP). During this week a handful of exception reports in preparation for next weekend’s Encumbrance Roll process also run; the FIS Acquisitions team will handle any anomalies there.

July 18 The Middleweight Roll: On Saturday, July 18 the Encumbrance Carryforward Process (or Encumbrance Roll) will occur. This process will create FY99 records for all open encumbrance balances as of 6/30/98. This process requires approximately 12,000 transactions to be posted. Remember that the FY98 open encumbrance balances are NOT closed; they are simply copied forward into FY99.

July 19 – 31 Reports Roulette, Round 2: At this point, Central Accounting units need to begin reviewing final FY98 reports to determine what final period 14 adjustments need to be made before FY98 is officially history. In addition to these reports, a number of Plant Accounting reports are produced in preparation for the annual Plant Asset Submission to OP. And speaking of OP, this is also when the annual Equipment Inventory File gets sent, the result of much hard work by the FIS Fixed Assets team.

July 31 – Aug 2 The Heavyweight Roll: The final and most complex year-end process, the Budgetary Carry Forward (or Budget Roll) consumes three days of detailed and rather stressful processing for the FIS Financial team, and results in more than 70,000 posted transactions. This process carries forward unexpended balances from FY98 into FY99 (into the Pool Budget accounts) with or without Activity Codes, as selected in previous years by each Service Center. Exception: FOAPALs associated with Contract and Grant funds roll at the full FOAPAL level. (If you have any questions about these options, please contact Monique Leduc at mleduc@cats.)

Aug 2 Fiscal Year 98 Has Left The Building: After all Budget Roll processing is complete and verified, FY98 Period 14 is closed, and fiscal year 98 is consigned to the realm of been there, done that.

Aug 3 – Aug 14 Reports Roulette, Round 3: Something for everyone here, as final FY98 reports are run for Service Center, Central Offices and OP…more than 30,000 pages worth. Also during this period, the OP Plant Asset and Balance Forward submissions will be run, and the annual BSL interface into FIS will be processed. Of course, simultaneous with all this FY98 close activity, FY99 new activity was also happening, and the July (period 01) will close on Aug 11, and another few thousand pages of reports will be produced for July activity.

Aug 17 – Aug 31 Wrap Up: During the final weeks of August, the FIS team spends some time documenting any problems, anomalies or procedural changes that came up during fiscal close, and compiles "Lessons Learned" and "Unresolved Issues" lists, ready to be taken up again next year. Also, all raw output from the various system processes is compressed and archived in case something pops up later in the year that requires research. Then it’s time to gear up for August month-end…and some well-deserved time off!

ODDS AND ENDS

None this month!

Contributors: Vicki Gutzwiller, Kirk Lew, Monique Leduc, Nancy Miller
Your comments and suggestions are always welcome. Please direct them to the Editors, Monique Leduc (mleduc@cats) or Kirk Lew (kllew@cats).

Financial Affairs | Accounting Offices | Campus Controller | FIS

Comments to: controller@ucsc.edu - Maintained by FIS, Updated