Reporting, Reconciliation, & Corrections Part 1

Reporting, Reconciliation, & Corrections Introduction Reporting and reconciling our accounts on a monthly basis is one of the easiest ways to create a solid foundation for evaluating our School’s performance and financial health. At SPH, we have developed the Reporting, Reconciliation and Corrections section to provide our Faculty and Staff with the necessary tools to perform efficient, accurate and timely financial reconciliations. The topics covered in this section include 1. Monthly reports a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. Business Warehouse (BW) reporting Report types Monthly reports Variable screen Transaction detail Unrestricted budget to actual by FC- GL/CI detail Designated/restricted budget to actual by FC- GL/CI detail Creating a saved workbook Recall and execute a saved view 2. Reconciling monthly expenses a. Clean data set b. Pivot tables c. Reconciling 3. Journals and corrections a. Creating a journal entry b. Display a parked document c. Attaching supporting documentation d. Tracking a journal entry e. Journal entry preferences f. Changing a journal entry g. Deleting a journal entry Reporting, Reconciliation, & Corrections 1a. Business Warehouse (BW) reporting Boston University provides Schools and Administrative Departments with BUWorks, an enterprise-wide system that facilitates financial management, human capital management, and procurement capabilities. The BUWorks Finance component provides an integrated infrastructure that supports budget, finance, procurement, and research administration and is designed to improve the University’s ability to plan, manage, and transact financial data. The many tabs you will find when logging into BUWorks represent the functions that can be performed within the system and will vary depending on each user’s role and responsibilities at the School of Public Health. In this section of the Best Practices Handbook we will focus on the Reporting tab to describe the most frequently used reports, as well as introduce very useful tools for analyzing and portraying your financial data. Reporting, Reconciliation, & Corrections 1b. Report types Before we examine the different reports available within Business Warehouse, we first need to navigate the BUWorks Reporting functionality. Selecting the Reporting tab will open a new window in your browser where you will find many sub tabs containing a list of folders. All reports available to users are stored within these folders and provide a wide range of information necessary to perform your financial reconciliations. When running Business Warehouse reports, you will first need to determine the funding source of the account you are looking to reconcile. Reports for non-sponsored activities are located in the Funds Management (FM) folder, and reports for sponsored activities (grants) are located in the Grants Management (GM) folder, as illustrated below. Reporting, Reconciliation, & Corrections 1b. Report types (continued) As previously described in the Funds Management section of this Handbook, many types of account exist at the School of Public Health and are categorized based on its use and spending restrictions. The following schedule shows the BW folder where you will find the different financial reports based on the account type classification. Fund Center/Internal Order – Account Hierarchy Funds Management (FM) Module Grants Management (GM) Module Reporting, Reconciliation, & Corrections 1c. Monthly reports Business Warehouse (BW) reports provide access to a tremendous amount of data at both the summary and detail level. Reports are flexible, customizable and easy to use once you become familiar with the basics of BW reporting. The following pages provide detailed information on how to run and analyze financial reports found in the Funds Management (FM) folder although the same steps can be followed when looking to reconcile Grant Funded activity. In this section we will analyze the most commonly used reports    Transaction detail Unrestricted budget to actual by FC – GL/CI detail Designated/restricted balance & activity – GL/CI detail Reporting, Reconciliation, & Corrections 1d. Variable entry screen For any BUWorks Report, once clicked a Variable Entry Screen will pop up. This screen allows you to input constraints (filters) to your report. Below are descriptions for each variable you can select. A B C D E F G H I J K L Variable A Posting Date B Funds Center Description The only required field. Note that it is initially populated with a date range from the start of the current Fiscal Year through today. Allows you to view items within your organizational unit. C D Revenue/Expense GL/Commitment item Allows you to limit the report data to populate expense or revenue. Allows you to hone in on a specific General Ledger line. E Actual/Commitment Allows you to view only actuals or commitments within the report. F Business Area 1CRC (Charles River Campus), 2MED (Medical Campus), and 3NBL (NEIDL). The first digit in the Funds Center matches the first digit of the Business Area. G Unit Number A carryover term from the University’s Legacy Financial System H Funded Program Type 09 = Designated Accounts, 25 = Spendable Endowment Accounts, 30 = Gift Accounts, 50 = Federal Grants, 55 = Non-Federal Grants. J Funded Program (Internal Order) Grant K Fund Allows you to view revenue and expenses related to a specific fund(s) L FM Statistical Indicator Prepopulated with “#” to show income/expense activities that generate/consume funding I Allows you to view revenue and expenses related to specific funded programs/internal orders Allows you to review revenue and expenses related to a specific grant(s) Reporting, Reconciliation, & Corrections 1e. Transaction detail The Transaction Detail report provides detailed information of each individual transaction and allows the user to view Actual postings as well as Committed Funds for the account. Once clicked, a Variable Entry Screen will open. Enter the posting date for transactions you want to see. In this example the auto populated dates are being used. To get more specific, filter on the Fund Center. In this example we will filter on SPH Finance & Administration Funds Center (2440450000). To ensure you entered the items correctly, click the check button. Once this is selected, the description on the side will populate. If there are errors, there will be a box at the top signaling an error. Once all errors have been corrected, in this case updating the Fund Center with the correct number, click OK. Reporting, Reconciliation, & Corrections 1e. Transaction detail (continued) The below image show the default columns that are in the Transaction Detail Report. As there are more characteristics on the left hand side of the report (labeled free characteristics), you can decide if you would like to add, remove, or even move these characteristics. (See Helpful Links) To view the description for each of these free characteristics, please see Appendix A- Characteristics and Descriptions (end of this document). Reporting, Reconciliation, & Corrections 1e. Transaction detail (continued) Once you entered the constraints/filters in the Variable Screen and updated the columns with the free characteristics wanted, it is time to export the data. Click on Export to Microsoft Excel. Once selected, a pop up message (below) will come up. Select the Open button. This will provide a warning message like the below to be displayed. Click the Yes button. Your data will be displayed in Excel as it appeared in the BW report, and the data can be manipulated as necessary. TIP - Some cells may be merged. This will prevent you from filtering or sorting the data as you might like. To alleviate that problem, you should unmerge the data in the entire spreadsheet. Reporting, Reconciliation, & Corrections 1f. Unrestricted budget to actual by FC - GL/CI detail The Unrestricted Budget to Actual report displays a summary view of unrestricted accounts for one or more Fund Centers. It provides a snapshot of budget (can be broken out by recurring and non-recurring), income/expense actuals, payroll actuals, and commitments and includes unexpended budget and percent of budget expended. Similar to the Transaction Detail Report, enter the constraints that you would like to see details on in the Variable Entry Screen. Please note that the period you are currently in will auto populate. Click the OK button once ready. TIP - The required field is Period/Fiscal Year. BU’s Fiscal Year runs from July 1 through June 30. Thus, July is the first fiscal period and is represented as period 001 in SAP. August is period 002, and so forth. Reporting, Reconciliation, & Corrections 1f. Unrestricted budget to actual by FC - GL/CI detail (continued) The below screen shot show the default columns that are in the Unrestricted Budget to Actual by FC- GL/CI Detail. As there are more characteristics on the left hand side of the report (labeled free characteristics), you can decide if you would like to add, remove, or even move these characteristics. (See Appendix B at end of this document.) To view the description for each of these key figures, please see Appendix C at the end of this document. Reporting, Reconciliation, & Corrections 1f. Unrestricted budget to actual by FC - GL/CI detail (continued) The following report will populate once you have entered the criteria in the Variable Screen and clicked ok. As this report provides a snapshot/summary of your fund center, there is a tool that allows you to dive deeper into the specific line item you are interested in. Hover over one of the GL/Commitment items and right click. The below menu will be brought up. Go to the “Goto” option in the menu. This will provide you with additional options of how to view the detail within the Transaction Detail. Selecting either of the options will cause another window to open, which contains the transaction details for the specific GL/Commitment item you selected. TIP - Please note that you can see how the item was purchased via document type (P.Card, Invoice [shopping cart]). If it is an invoice/shopping cart, you can see the Vendor Invoice, PO Number, Shopping Cart Number, etc. Reporting, Reconciliation, & Corrections 1g. Designated/restricted budget to actual by FC - GL/CI detail The Designated/Restricted Budget to Actual report displays a summary view of designated and non-grant restricted accounts for one or more Fund Centers. The report provides a snapshot of balance carry-forward from prior year, income/expense actuals, payroll actuals and commitments. In addition, it includes unspent budget and percent of budget already spent. Data is displayed for fiscal year-to-date through the period specified. Similar to the Transaction Detail Report, enter the constraints that you would like to see details on in the Variable Entry Screen. Please note that the period you are currently in will auto populate, as well as the Funded Program Type and Grant. Click the OK button once ready. TIP - You can remove the auto-populated details. For example, you can change the period and the funded program type. Reporting, Reconciliation, & Corrections 1g. Designated/restricted budget to actual by FC - GL/CI detail (continued) The below screen shot show the default columns that are in the Designated/Restricted Budget to Actual by FC- GL/CI Detail. As there are more characteristics on the left hand side of the report (labeled free characteristics), you can decide if you would like to add, remove, or even move these characteristics. (See Appendix D at the end of this document.) To view the description for each of these key figures, please see Appendix E at the end of this document.