Thank you for all of your continued patience, partnership and feedback on the general ledger-UCPath related systems and processes. The information provided below contains important information in preparation for UCD’s transition to UCPath as well as other general ledger and pay related updates.

UCD and DANR Transition to UCPath

As you are aware, UC Davis and DANR conversion to UCPath is in progress and the UCPath system was/will be unavailable during two timeframes: 1) Friday, August 30 at 5 pm until Wednesday, September 4 at 6 am, and 2) Thursday, September 12 at 5 pm until Tuesday, September 17 at 6 am.

During this time, UCR’s Shared Service Centers (SSCs) will be unable to transact within the system, and some campus processing dates and/or functionality will be impacted as follows:

FAU Change Request Tool

• The FAU Change Request Tool will still be accessible, however, transactions cannot be processed in UCPath while the system down. Therefore, transactions requested during the timeframes listed above will be held and submitted once UCPath system is available.

Salary Cost Transfer (SCT) Request Tool

• The SCT Request Tool will still be accessible, but SSCs will not be able to transact in UCPath during the timeframes listed above. Due to this system downtime, it may take longer for requests to be marked as complete and posted to the ledger.
• Note: The 120 and 90 Day rules will still be in effect during this period, so please ensure requests that are nearing those deadlines are submitted in the SCT Tool with sufficient time to allow for the SSC to process prior to the shutdown. Please contact your SSC for additional information on their lead times.

Time and Attendance Reporting System (TARS)

• TARS timelines for the biweekly time reporting period of 8/25/2019 – 9/7/2019 has been adjusted as follows to allow for the prompt payment of biweekly employees.
  • Bi-weekly paid employees are asked to project their time worked (and/or leave taken) from Thursday, 9/5/2019 to Saturday, 9/7/2019 (if applicable), and submit timesheets by 11:00 PM on Wednesday, 9/4/2019.
  • Supervisors are asked to approve these timesheets by 11:00 PM on Thursday, 9/5/2019.
  • Although information will be provided to biweekly paid employees and supervisors within the TARS system and through the TARs reminders, departments are asked to ensure their biweekly paid employees and supervisors are aware of the adjusted due dates.
  • If adjustments to the time projected are necessary, supervisors should coordinate with their Shared Services Center or initiate a correction using the TARS “prior pay period adjustment” functionality.
  • Notes: Time clock users do not have the ability to project hours worked. Employees can continue to clock in/out up until the end of this pay period (9/7/2019). Supervisors will be required to approve these timesheets by Monday, 9/9/2019 at 11:00 AM.

iTravel/Connexxus

• It is anticipated the transition period will have a minimal impact on existing travelers and travel coordinators. However, there will be some intermittent disruption in sending information on new employee travelers and modifications to existing employee travelers (such as name changes) to Connexxus system during the time frames referenced above.
• If there is a need to book business travel for new employees and/or employees with recent name changes not reflected in Connexxus, please contact travelfeedback@ucr.edu for other available options to book travel.

GL Related

Vacation Leave Assessments

Vacation leave has been erroneously assessed to department FAUs for a limited number of employee groups that do not accrue vacation leave. A permanent solution is in progress in the UCPath system. FY19 assessments on “Rehired – Retiree” employees was reversed in June. FY19 assessments for “Staff – Limited” are being reviewed, and the appropriate journal corrections are planned for no later than September month end. Employees are not impacted by this defect.

Duplicate SCTs

A defect in the UCPath salary cost transfer (SCT) process resulted in previously processed SCTs to post in UCPath and the UCR general ledger more than once; this situation was most common for employees with multiple jobs and multiple salary cost transfers related to the same pay period. UCPath implemented a permanent resolution for this issue in July 2019 to prevent this situation from reoccurring. As of the 06/30/2019 ledgers, all duplicate cost transfers were corrected via manual journal.

Dropped SCT

An issue was identified where certain Salary Cost Transfer transactions appear to be processed in the UCPath, but the transactions were not reflected in the general ledger feed. The cause of this issue varies and further analysis is still being conducted. FY2019 dropped SCTs were identified by the Accounting Office through a query, validated and submitted to CFAOs for review. Based on responses, requests were either reprocessed in UCPath when available or corrected via a manual journal entry. The situation will continue to be monitored by the Accounting Office and corrections coordinated through Org CFAOs periodically.

UCRP Supplemental Interest Assessment

The UCRP Supplemental Interest assessment was implemented in UCPath last fiscal year (August 2018). The assessment has been working correctly for regular payroll processing. However, when a salary cost transfer is processed, the assessment job is only initiated during certain pay cycle processes. This means, if a SCT transaction involves costs being moved between Federal and Non-Federal funds, the assessment correction may cross accounting periods and will not be reflected in SuperDOPE. The UCPath Center (UCPC) is working on a fix to be able to run the assessment corrections more frequently.

Incorrect Benefit Assessments Applied

During a salary cost transfer, the process has been looking current employee job records to determine assessments group and rates. This is an incorrect step in the process. The correct step is to apply the same assessment rates at the time of payroll earnings. This was a defect in the UCPath process and a fix was deployed in late July. A full analysis is underway of the FY19 data is underway to reverse erroneous assessments. Once analysis are finalized, a journal entry will be processed accordingly.

High Risk SCT Requests

With UCPath deployment, SCTs transactions have been a challenge. Due to the various issues encountered with SCT transactions, exceptional allowances were made for High Risk SCT requests. As discussed in various user group meetings in June 2019, now that UCPath and UCR’s local tools are more stabilized, requests for exceptions to university policy and federal funding guidelines should be rare. To limit the need for cost transfers, pre-awards should be requested.

Grad Student Settlement Payments

A number of graduate students received settlement payments relating to pay issues caused by the UCPath process and system. The agreement requires UCPC to pay impacted employees a set amount as a settlement. The settlement pay was charged to the employee’s current position at time of payout. A credit to the FAU charged was processed for the July ledgers via a journal entry.

ServiceLink FAU Change Request

Complex FAU Change Requests (i.e. health science compensation and salaries subject to a cap) programming is being finalized with goal to deploy in September

ServiceLink Salary Cost Transfer (SCT) Request Tool

For transfers approaching the 120 rule and/or within 90 days of a funds expiration, please ensure requests are submitted with sufficient time for the SSCs to process in UCPath. Please contact your SSC to understanding processing timelines.

UCRFS/SuperDOPE

• The synchronization of SuperDOPE data and journals has been in production since March 2019. SuperDOPE is updated only when a new journal has been created and posted to the general ledger successfully. Previously posted data into both, UCRFS and SuperDOPE, is being reconciled. This reconciliation will take some time to complete but with a target date by the end of September.
• Timing of PLD and SCT journals
  • Goal is to post at least weekly, July was a challenge and campus conversions will impact.
  • Posting can be delayed if data errors (e.g. incorrect codes, out of balances)
• Beginning with March 2019, the GL and SuperDOPE are in sync with the following exceptions:
  • UCRP Supplemental Interest (issues mentioned above)

Workstudy

The permanent fix to redirect of benefit charges in workstudy fund 23499 to the primary fund source is still in progress. For FY2019 erroneous benefit expenses were corrected via a manual journal.

Please note salary cost transfers removing or adding workstudy balances from a prior academic years (e.g. AY2018-2019) should not be initiated without UCR’s Financial Aid Office’s explicit approval.

Other

Off-Cycle Checks

The Instant Pay Card is now the only payment option for urgent, same day payments for missed, late pay and can be issued for a fixed percent of anticipated pay. The best option for employees is still direct deposit or Permanent Pay Cards to receive regular pay, and when pay is missed, to receive timely payments.

Overpayments

• When overpayments are experienced, it is critical that employees review and return their overpayment agreement to the UCPath Center within the timeline outlined in the letter (normally 10 days after receipt).
• Once an overpayment is identified and processed in UCPath, the receivable is established and the department FAU is credited for the over payment amount. It may take up to 14 additional days for the employee to be issues an overpayment agreement.
• Failure to return the letter will result in automatic referral to the UCLA billing process versus the employee selecting their preferred repayment method. Inactive employees are automatically referred to UCLA billing.
• Failure to adhere to the repayment terms (e.g. missed payments) will result in a chargeback to the department FAU.
• Questions regarding the overpayment amounts and process must be immediately reported to your unit’s Shared Services Center (SSC) and/or UCPath for action.

Missing Data fields

All data in SuperDOPE now contains employee name. A very small percentage (less than 0.03%) of data is missing job number from the UCPath data feeds. The missing data impacts our campus’ ability to properly map the CBR and vacation taken to staff versus academic account codes and populate Payroll Certifications. Efforts continue to resolve and manually populate this information.

TARS Vacant Supervisor Position Handling

An updated to the functionality of vacant supervisor position rollup has been applied to the system early August 2019. This functionality allows timesheets of employees with vacant supervisor position to roll up to the supervisor’s manager queue for approval.

New Business Rules

• When a timesheet is missing hours for a full time/career employee, supervisors will see a “Warning Message” upon approval of the timesheet. They will also be required to enter a comment to confirm they understand they are approving a timesheet with missing hours.

Questions about this announcement should be directed to ucrfsfeedback@ucr.edu

 

From: Bobbi A McCracken bobbi.mccracken@ucr.edu)
Sent: Wednesday, September 4, 2019 5:23 PM
To: msoadm@scotmail.ucr.edu; 'ucrfs_users@lists.ucr.edu' ucrfs_users@lists.ucr.edu)
Cc: ucrfsfeedback@ucr.edu
Subject: UCPath-GL Update September 2019