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Past Announcements: August 1999 |
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This Announcement comes from a memo to SAP users at MIT from Gillian Emmons in the Controller's Accounting Office: This is to let SAP users know that several modifications to the Summary Statement and DTR were transported into production Monday night, August 2, 1999. Most are corrections to reported problems, and a few are enhancements requested by users. Please write with any questions or reporting problems to <reporting@mit.edu>. Details are as follows: |
Current
Announcements!
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In the Classic system, the calc code field contained key information about whether an agreement was on or off campus, and about the kinds of F&A charges that would be made to the WBS. In SAP, this information is determined by the costing sheet assignment. Beginning with the July statements, we are no longer showing calc code, but instead, the name of the costing sheet assigned to the cost object. The costing sheet name describes the base used for the calculation of F&A charges (MTDC, for example), whether the F&A calculation is for a general cost object (cost center), a fund (orders and wbs between 2000000 and 4999999) or a research project (wbs between 5000000 and 9999999), and whether the project is on or off campus. For all sponsored cost objects (wbs elements) the header shows whether the cost object uses standard billing rates, or if some other rate is used. If a different rate is being used, that rate is displayed. If an agreement is "fixed for the life of the award", the rates at which it is fixed are shown, even if they are the same as the current year's standard billing rates. |
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A number of small changes were made to improve the on-line display and to fix problems encountered by users when running the statement on-line. For the locally printed statement, shading was darkened, and underlines removed in an effort to make the report easier to work with. Problems with the display of data on the DTR when a single cost element group was selected were corrected. Problems with printing when a departmental budget is selected were corrected. |
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With this version of the statement we have moved into the production environment a PROTOTYPE version of these reports that allows for portrait printing of the Summary Statement and DTR. This is still in PROTOTYPE. Comments and suggestions are welcome and should be sent to reporting@mit.edu. For reconciliation purposes, the Landscape version should still be used when printing locally. |
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In this new statement version, when a user requests that a summary statement or DTR be printed locally, the screen that pops up asks whether the user would like "Portrait" or "Landscape". If "Landscape" is selected, the user will get the same result as previously -- there is no change to this version. The Portrait option has been designed so that if the user has requested 5 columns of financial data, all 5 will fit on a single page. For example, a user could request the budget column, the current month, the cumulative, the commitment column, and the uncommitted column, and all five would fit on a single page. If 6 or 7 columns are selected, 4 will appear on the first page, and 2 or 3 will appear on the second page. Two problems with the Portrait version have been identified. First, when the additional columns appear on a second page, the way the pages are numbered could be improved. We are looking into a clearer way to identify the page with the additional columns, but are aware that most users requesting the "Portrait" option are interested in 5 or fewer columns. For these users, page numbering will not be an issue. The second problem is that when calculated columns are selected (that is, "Unexpended" or "Uncommitted"), if the columns on which the calculation is being done are not also selected to print, the result may be incorrect. For example, if budget, current month, and unexpended are selected, the unexpended column will only show the difference between the budget and cumulative, for the cost element "rows" where there is a value in the budget or current month column. If there is a value in the cumulative column (not displayed) but no value in the budget or current month column, the row will not display. Since the entire row does not display, the net unexpended amount will not be correct. We will be working to correct this problem during August, but wanted users to have a wide opportunity to view this prototype and give us feedback, while we complete these further corrections and modifications. |
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We hope that users will find the portrait version of the DTR easier to work with when reviewing detailed transactions. In most cases, the information displayed is the same as in the "landscape" version, and only the white space on the page has been reduced. In this presentation, it is easier to see the relationship between the line item text, and the dollar amounts. In a few cases, fields displayed in the "description" area are shortened, in the landscape version. For example, Vendor name has been reduced from 40 characters to 20 characters. We would particularly like feedback from users on the useability of these statements from this point of view. If truncated field displays have eliminated valuable information, please let us know. |
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We continue to have questions about differences in commitment amounts between SAP Web and the DTRs. The reasons for these differences are complex. We are working to clarify the source of the differences, and to make our reports as accurate and consistent as possible. |
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We have identified a problem with the calculation of F&A charges on commitments, done in the SAP Summary Statement. While the calculated amounts on actuals appear correct, in some cases the calculated F&A charges on commitments are overstated. We are also working to correct this problem, and will keep users informed of our progress. Please write with any questions or reporting problems to <reporting@mit.edu>. |
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