Date: May 11, 2017
To: Financial Managers Council Members
From: Sharrie Hauge (Elections), Co-Chairperson
Jim Behrend (SCO), Co-Chairperson
RE: May 9, 2017 FMC Meeting
The next Financial Managers Council meeting is scheduled for 8:00 AM in room 751 at 1. W. Wilson St.
The agenda is as follows:
I. Approval of minutes from the April 11, 2017 meeting.
There were no comments and the minutes were approved.
II. Announcements: State Controller’s Office
A. March Quarterly Reconciliation
Jeff Anderson, State Controller
The due dates for the first 4 tasks on the March 31 Preliminary Closing and Reconciliation Check List have passed. Agencies should be identifying balances that need to be corrected. SCO will be tracking agency progress to see how everyone did. Goal of March reconciliation is to make year-end close easier by resolving issues now.
There are 4 more reconciliation labs: 2 labs the week of 5/8, 2 labs the week of 5/15. Labs meet on Thursdays and Fridays
Send issues to SCO Year End mailbox:
SCO will be doing system reconciliations, ex: HCM to GL
B. FMC Subcommittees
· Benefits Reconciliation
Life & Health Reconciliation – Two meetings have been held for this subcommittee. A reconciliation procedure that will make the reconciliation process more efficient has been developed and is currently in testing. Once the procedure is finalized a webinar and job aid will be released. SCO expects this to be ready in the next few weeks. Rita Hubanks at DOA is working agency by agency to fix variances.
· Payroll Reconciliation
There has been one meeting for this subcommittee, which is made up of about 5 agencies, both large and small. Barbara Perez at DOA is working on a new set of tools for the retirement reconciliation. There will be a retirement reconciliation meeting on 5/11.
· Recruitment and Retention
A subcommittee will be created for the recruitment and retention of accountants. There is a low number of applicants to position postings and inefficiencies in the recruiting process.5 agencies will be asked to participate in the subcommittee (a mix of large and small). E-mail Jeff Anderson if your agency would like to be a part of this committee.
New recruitment strategies include a statewide recruiter going to campus’ and recruiting new graduates, standardizing PDs, and a central recruitment process for the whole state.
A question was asked about employee transfers. Raises haven’t been sufficient and employees look to lateral transfers for pay increases. In the future lateral transfers will be allowed so that employees can leave jobs they don’t like, but the pay increase will be going away. Pay increases for promotional transfers will be allowed.
C. Training
60 accountants attended cost principle training, another session will be held in the fall. SCO is looking for other types of training to offer. E-mail Jim Behrend if you think of any other training topics that would benefit your agency and others.
D. Pension Obligation Bonds
Pay periods 6-9 should be out this week (5/8). In the future will move to a monthly schedule. A communication will be coming out about this.
E. Compliance Calendar
Reminder to check the calendar for closing date information.
III. Other Business
None
IV. ERP
A. STAR Updates
Scott Thornton presented an update via PowerPoint presentation. (Please see link.)
May 9, 2017 Financial Managers Council meeting are posted on SharePoint.
a. AP Payment Request Workflow
Was put into production on May 1st
A question was asked: If the AP_PROCESSOR makes a change can they still approve the payment? The answer is yes, because there is another approval flow during the voucher process.
b. Project Costing Configurations
Project status configurations and analysis type controls have gone into production. Can no longer use a GLE analysis type on an AR transaction. This change helps to align the process with the state accounting manual and will prevent things from being billed incorrectly in project costing.
A question was asked: What analysis types can be used on AR transactions? GLR will be the most common type used.
c. Project Reconciliation Template
The template has been approved by the Project Costing User Group. An Excel version is currently available. A new nVision version will be available in June or July.
d. On-Base
Document Management System – attachments added in PeopleSoft will be stored in On-Base. STAR is currently testing with DET and Naviant (the vendor implementing On-Base). A launch date will be communicated via STAR. Additional guidance and policies (i.e., paper records retention) will also be coming.
e. General Ledger WorkCenter
The WorkCenter is now enabled in Production. Users must configure pagelets by clicking the “Edit Filters” link to have the pagelets display what the user would like to see. After updating click refresh to see changes. Red links indicate that the user has not configured these pagelets yet. Clicking “Settings > Personalize” gives users more options to make the WorkCenter as useful as possible.
A question was asked about security. Users will only see what their roles allow them to have access to, actions outside of their roles will not be available.
AP WorkCenter is also out in production.
For access to the Public Sector WorkCenter contact Scott Thornton.
f. Budget Reporting for Supervisors and Managers
Training is May 18th from 9:00 – 11:00am at the WI Historical Society.
Working pagelets for the General Ledger WorkCenter will be covered.
A question was asked about registering for the training. Supervisors and Managers should register on ELM. The Training is not a lab, so users do not need to bring laptops. When registering on ELM users can choose to attend in person or watch via webinar. Scott would like to know who is attending so he can properly prepare for the training.
V. Future Meeting Dates (all meetings scheduled for 8:00 AM).
June 13, 2017 - 1 W. Wilson RM 751
July 11, 2017- 1 W. Wilson RM 751
August 8, 2017 - 1 W. Wilson RM 751
Sept. 12, 2017- 1 W. Wilson RM 751
October 10, 2017 - 1 W. Wilson RM 751
November 14, 2017 - 1 W. Wilson RM 751
December 12, 2017 - 1 W. Wilson RM 751