Going Live – Timeline and Events
Chart of Accounts, Object Codes and Department Defined Fields
- What is the chart of accounts?
- How many charts will the U of A have? And why?
- Will we have to learn new object codes?
- Can I further sub-divide my accounts so I can allocate transactions to various professors or projects?
Transaction Processing, General Ledger, Workflow and Balances
- What's the General Ledger? Is it the same as the FRS General Ledger?
- Can you have multiple accounting lines on a financial document? Is there a limit to how many accounting lines you can have?
- Does routing to multiple Fiscal Officers happen in parallel?
- If a document has been disapproved can I edit it and send it back through the system for approval?
- Can we view pending items?
- Can we add attachments to eDocs?
Requisitions, Purchase Orders, PCard and Arizona Buyways
- Will I still use PaymentNet to approve and reconcile PCards?
- What about Arizona Buyways? Is it part of UAccess Financials?
Labor Ledger and Salary Expense Transfer
Going Live – Timeline and Events
FRS will be replaced with UAccess Financials starting October 1, 2011. FRS will close normally on September 30. And after the month end processes complete in FRS, we will start converting the month of September’s accounts and transactions into UAccess Financials. FRS will be available for inquiry. We will have converted FY 2009, 2010, 2011 and the first three months of FY 2012 detailed transactions and those transactions will be available in FS and in BI in their UAccess Financials version.
Chart of Accounts, Object Codes and Department Defined Fields
The chart of account supports and validates entries in to the general ledger. Primarily, it includes charts, accounts, object codes, organizations (aka departments, colleges, units), sub-accounts, sub-object codes and project codes.
The Subsidiary Ledger object codes - (revenues and expenses) will not change.
The General Ledger object codes (assets, liabilities and fund balances) are changing. We'll be adding 7000 to them for the most part. So Cash was 1100 it will now be 8100 and Accounts Payable - 2100 will become 9100. We did this because we had some overlap between our SL and GL object codes. With the Financial System we will have one account that will contain the assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses. And we will continue to use 4 digit object codes.
We will also be providing a crosswalk from FRS object codes to FS object codes some time shortly before go live.
Chart codes group other charts, organizations and accounts together. A chart will always have its own set of object codes and it may also have its own set of organizations and/or accounts. The top level chart is used for external financial reporting and groups revenues and expenses together at the highest level. We will have 2 charts at the UA:
- AZ -Top Level Chart - object codes only - no accounts. There will be fewer object codes at this level and the UA object codes will roll up to the AZ chart. This chart will be used primarily to prepare the University’s Financial Statement.
- UA - Rolls up to the top level AZ chart and has its own set of organizations, accounts and object codes. There will be more object codes at this level to provide finer detail for management reporting.
Can I further sub-divide my accounts so I can allocate transactions to various professors or projects?
Yes. UAccess Financials comes with a couple of department defined fields that will allow you to divide accounts to track transactions at a finer level, such as sub-accounts. Sub-accounts have the same attributes as accounts and can be used to for budget and track expenditures at a finer grained level. Additionally, the Project Code allows you to group transactions across accounts.
Other department defined fields include sub-object code to further divide object codes and a free form 7 character field at the document header called Organization Document ID and another free form field on each line called Organization Ref ID.
Requisitions, Purchase Orders, PCard and Arizona Buyways
UAccess Financials will be used to reconcile and approve PCard Transactions. PCard transactions will be sent to UAccess Financials and eDocs will be created. The eDocs will contain pending ledger entries and account balances can reflect these transactions even before they are approved.
Identified PCard reports that were previously available in PaymentNet will be available in UAccess Analytics.
Yes, you will start all "purchasing experiences" in UAccess Financials. Arizona Buyways will be accessed using the "Shop Catalogs" link on the UAccess Financials Main Menu. This link will take you to the catalog and once you have completed your shopping, you will be returned to the UAccess Financials Requisition. The Requisition is routed through UAccess Financials workflow and after final approval is sent to Arizona Buyways for completing the order.
Transaction Processing, General Ledger, Workflow and Balances
Is it the same as the FRS General Ledger? The UAccess Financials General Ledger is the database where the transactions and the chart of account information are stored. In FRS, the General Ledger was an account type that kept track of assets, liabilities and fund balances. The Subsidiary Ledger (SL) keeps track of revenues, expenses, budgets and encumbrances. In UAccess Financials there is an account, that is self balancing, the assets and liabilities and revenues and expenses are all in one account.
Can you have multiple accounting lines on a financial document? Is there a limit to how many accounting lines you can have?
You can have multiple accounting lines on any financial document. There is no system-imposed limit on how many lines you can add on a document.
Yes. If a document involves accounts belonging to more than one Fiscal Officer it will route to all of the Fiscal Officers or their primary delegates at the same time
The original disapproved document cannot be edited. However, it can be copied. Disapproved documents are returned to the initiator and anyone who had approved the document will be notified that the transaction was disapproved. The initiator can copy the disapproved document which will reference the original document number from which it was copied. Then you can make your changes on the copy and re-submit it for approval.
The balance inquiry screens provide an "include pending" option. This will allow users to pull in pending transactions and view them along with posted transactions to gain a more complete view of the financial well being of an account. Many of the balance inquiry screens also allow the user to drill down on the balances and pull up e-docs that support the balances.
Yes, you can add notes and attachments to any eDoc at any time, even after it has been fully approved.
Labor Ledger and Salary Expense Transfer
The primary purpose of the Labor Distribution module is to link the General Ledger with the Payroll system. Detail payroll transactions will feed the Labor Ledger and are then summarized and fed into the General Ledger.
Additionally, the Labor Distribution :
- Includes Salary Expense Transfer (aka Payroll Expense Transfer/Labor Distribution Expense Transfers (LDETs)).
- Is used by the Effort Certification module to create Effort Reports.