1. Research Financial Administration Use of FRS – November 16, 2011

2. Purpose of today’s session Interactive and share ideas Opportunity to demonstrate some abilities of FRS and discuss how FRS can assist with the issues that you face at your desk Learn from each other

3. Agenda My Grants Tracker (20 mins) Follow up on comments on FRS (55 mins) FRS reports – Further investigation (10 mins) Review of Journal entries (5 mins) Next session (5 mins) –Account set up process, date?

4. My Grants Tracker – 20 mins Report navigation Transaction listing –Filter options Budget information On-line Training Module –http://www.uoguelph.ca/frstraining/learning-modules.cfm

5. My Grants Tracker Will there be an ability to PDF from My Grants Tracker? –Dave will follow up on this … suggestion was made to use SNAG IT software to capture screen prints You are able to look at open accounts or closed accounts by switching the Status button from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’ Can OMAFRA reports have the same amount of detail as My Grants Tracker? –A tab will be available for users through My Grants Tracker to access their Projects that they have access to (OMAFRA projects, PDR (if the college/department has allowed the faculty access). You can view the remaining funding instalments by looking to the bottom right hand corner for a specific grant and clicking on ‘Budget’. A new screen will pop up which will show the Project to Date budget as well as the remaining years of budget When looking at the revenue received in the Project to date actuals, it is based on a risk assessment of the sponsor: –Business and Industry award – only record revenue when cash has been received –Ontario Centres of Excellence – only record revenue when cash has been received –Government Agency (contract) e.g. Environment Canada – revenue will appear as we are invoicing for the award but may not have received the cash –Government Agency (grant) e.g. Tri-Council – revenue for the year will appear at the beginning of the year but we may not receive the cash until later in the year

6. Follow up comments on FRS Do you keep a separate worksheet for awards in your department – 5 mins –Why is this done? Not all students are in the same Trust Fund CFI grants – the in-kind is not shown in FRS Faculty want to see entire awards together (multiple accounts) … it is possible to do this in FRS by listing your grant numbers and using a colon ‘:’ between them Commitment values are not accurate –Hourly appointments are not shown –Low Value Purchase Orders –Can a PI have access to a collaborators account, or vice versa? Although we can only set up one Grant Leader in Oracle/FRS for a specific grant. You can provide access to any accounts in your department to any FRS user you feel should have access by contacting the Controller’s office and asking for this account to be added to the individuals security profile –Do you download data from FRS? –Do you reconcile your worksheet to FRS?

7. Follow up comments on FRS Naming consistency (Last name, First Initial) – 5 mins –What reports are you using Notice this on any report which is providing a list of grants (e.g. Research Tab-Summary) OMAFRA reports … the naming structure is inconsistent and each variation creates a separate sub-total so a differentiation of a space between last name and first name (e.g. Reinhart Dave) and a comma between last name and first name (e.g. Reinhart, Dave) will create separate sub totals Dave to follow up on this –Oracle view for Fund 300 and Fund 301 The last name is stored in one field and the first initial is stored in a second field. The purpose of the two fields was to meet the needs of the upload of data from our financial system to the Tri-Council database for submitting Form 300 statements each year. Because the grant listing reports only look at the surname field than the report pulls more grants than you desire. For example: –Hall will return grants for Hall, Hallet, Marshall –Johnson will return grants for Craig Johnson and Christine Johnson Dave to follow up on this.

8. Follow up comments on FRS

9. Follow up on comments on FRS Fund options in FRS – 5 mins –Research Tab - R10 – Fund 300 and 301 The purpose for the Research Tab is to put all financial reports relating to Research in one area. Because of this focused Tab on Research, the default is for Fund R10 which will pick the research accounts in Fund 300 and 301 –Selecting Grant from the Actual Tab is meant to be used for the Specific Purpose grants (Fund 310). The default is now R15

10. Follow up on comments on FRS See all open accounts in grant summary listings (including those without transactions) - 5 mins –Which reports are being used? Notice this with any report which is providing a list of grants (e.g. Research Tab- Summary) Dave to follow up

11. Follow up on comments on FRS Not processing a transaction if the grant and unit do not match – 5 mins –Speed/efficiency of system will be reduced when adding more rules – balance number of rules with frequency of errors and all users of the financial system –How many journal entries are done because you are correcting errors from other units? From discussion it is apparent that it happens frequently and takes time to track down appropriate person to correct entry and the grant balance will be misleading until the correcting entry is made. Nora was able to offer a suggestion if you ever need to find out which clerks visa made the error; In FRS select Actual, Transaction, Search (Detail) and fill out date range, your unit and fund or grant# and the invoice in question in this case visa invoice

12. Follow up on comments on FRS Commitments – displaying hourly appointments - 5 mins -Not something that will be pursued at this time. -When necessary to move personnel from one trust account then a suggestion would be to look at your recent pay period for actual expenditures -Commitment values do not accurately reflect the hours/salary cost for a part time individual -Salary summary report does not capture the salary costs for an individual when journal entries are done. This is misleading when reviewing the total salary costs for a person charged to a particular grant. Dave to research if anything can be done.

13. Follow up on comments on FRS Classifying sub-grants (99999) funding agency - 5 mins Going forward, a collaborator at the University of Guelph will have his/her account set up with the Funding Agency of the main sponsor –For example, a researcher in Plant Ag receives a CFI award and has a collaborator in Food Science. The Plant Ag and the Food Science account will be set up with the same Funding Agency code identifying CFI

14. Follow up on comments on FRS Multi-year Account set up and Renewals - 5 mins –AAFC – no carryforward –Researcher and admin receive email at the start of the award –Inconsistent when notifying departments of assignment of an account for each year of the project –Going forward – an email with set ups for all years to be sent from ORES and RFS will ACTIVATE the subsequent year account approximately 1 month prior to the end of the current year (for example, a multi year project with a March 31st fiscal year, the Year 2 account will be activated in Feb/March Sometimes receive an email with set ups for all years Sometimes receive an email with only 1 st year set up

15. Follow up on comments on FRS Renewals (e.g. Discovery grants / Canada Research Chairs) - 5 mins –existing accounts or new accounts –updating of award amount vs. revenue received –May have to move to separate accounts in the future but will continue as is with one account until further notice

16. Follow up on comments on FRS Object codes flagged so transaction are not processed - 5 mins –E.g. Insurance on Tri-Council (Fund 301) but some Tri-council still exists in Fund 300

17. Follow up on comments on FRS End dates - 5 mins –Automatic closing Discovery grants, RTI awards –automatic 1 yr extension –Clarified that accounts to be closed are ones that have a $0.00 balance AND $0.00 commitments AND past the end date AND not a general purpose account (07xxxx) – all 4 criteria must be met –Although an account may receive an automatic extension we will continue to enter the initial award end date to minimize confusion for researchers

18. Review of Journal Entries – 5 mins Transfer of expenses by object code –Trust account to Trust account –Trust account to Other Fund –Trust account to GPR Transfer of expenses by Transfer code –Trust account to GPR

19. FRS Reports – Further investigation – 10 mins Month end reports (delete all/select all button) – This report continues to be worked on New attributes in FRS – continuing to review files and populate data for upload into FRS –Documentation –Latest Report date –Latest Reporting period –Next Report date –Next Reporting date New report – accounts closed/opened in last month – put on hold to see if the automated closing and email to admins will help address this need PDF scheduled reports – how many are scanning and forwarding (grant summary/transaction summary/payroll summary) to researchers? - will discuss at the next session

20. Next session – 5 mins Topics for Next session –Follow up from November 16 th session – update on progress of research/reports etc. –Account set up process –ORES/RFS –Invoicing guidelines (Dept vs. RFS) –PDF scheduled reports – how many are scanning and forwarding (grant summary/transaction summary/payroll summary) to researchers and how are you doing this? Scheduling upcoming sessions –Next session to be held in January and following sessions to be discussed at that time –Upcoming sessions will be booked in Zimbra