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In
This Issue:
New
Financial Review and Control Guidelines
PO "Blue Copy" Distribution Ends on March 31
New Institute Auditor Appointed
Blanket Purchase Orders Now Included
in SAP Monthly Statements
Using SAP Mail to Send SAP Documents
How to Resolve Industrial Research Billing
Issues
Labor Distribution System Updates
New Fund Analysis Report
Research Volume Report Enhanced
Deciphering an Odd SAPweb Requisition
Error Message
Office Depot Ordering Error: Certificate
Authority Expired
SAP Requisition Error Message for
Terminated Cost Objects
Update from Department of Facilities
_______________________________
New
Financial Review and Control Guidelines
The
Financial Review and Control Team began working in the
summer of 1999 to recommend new guidelines for after-the-fact
review of charges to cost objects. At the March 2000 SAP
user group, the team reported that their preliminary guidelines
are close to complete. Two departments (the Administrative
Services Organization and the Center for Environmental
Health Sciences) have been piloting these guidelines since
November; a second round of pilots is planned for early
April. The team hopes to have an "open" pilot
phase for early May or June with a full rollout planned
for July 1, 2000. The team has begun work on a plan for
community training and a communication plan for the new
process.
While
there will be no dramatic changes in MIT's overall system
of financial controls, the emphasis now be on the substance
of the review, with less documentation (no check marks)
and paper retention required. The underlying principle
of the new review system is risk based--to apply closer
review where the risk of error is high and review on a
test basis where the risk of error is low. New
tools (such as Data Warehouse queries focused on risk
areas) will help users with the new procedures.
More
information will be available as the work of the team
progresses. In the meantime, please send questions or
comments to Gillian Emmons at gemmons@mit.edu.
_______________________________
PO
"Blue Copy" Distribution Ends on March 31
After
March 31, 2000, Procurement will no longer distribute
paper copies of purchase orders (the "blue copy")
to the requisitioner. At the same time, a revision to
the current monthly statement reconciliation process removes
the requirement for a "four way match" (invoices, packing
slips, requisitions, and PO's). For more information,
see the
memo from Jim Morgan posted on the CAO web pages.
_______________________________
New
Institute Auditor Appointed
Deborah
L. Fisher, senior vice president and chief auditor at
UST Corp., has been appointed Institute auditor, effective
February 7.
A
certified public accountant, Ms. Fisher led all audit
and loan review activities at UST Corp., a $6 billion
commercial bank. She also served on its executive management,
risk management, and asset and liability committees.
At
MIT, Ms. Fisher will direct the Audit Division and be
responsible for planning, implementing and administering
a comprehensive internal audit program. She will report
jointly to the executive vice president and to the Auditing
Committee of the MIT Corporation. For additional information,
see the related Tech
Talk article.
_______________________________
Blanket
Purchase Orders Now Included in SAP Monthly Statements
The
default setting in the centrally printed monthly accounting
statements for blanket purchase order commitments has
been changed so that blanket orders will now be included.
For locally printed statements, users can exclude blanket
purchase order commitments by checking the appropriate
box on the selection screen before running the Summary
Statement or DTR.
_______________________________
Using
SAP Mail to Send SAP Documents
SAP
Mail is a way to send SAP reports (e.g., Summary Statements,
Detail Transaction Reports) or documents (e.g., purchase
orders) to other SAP users. This is useful when someone
needs information on a cost object for which he or she
is not authorized. If a statement or report is mailed
via SAP mail, it will print just like a regular statement.
One limitation is that there is no drill down capability
in reports mailed by SAP Mail. For information on how
to use SAP Mail, see the related SAP@MIT
Documentation on the Web topic.
_______________________________
How
to Resolve Industrial Research Billing Issues
The
Sponsored Research Accounting section of the Controller's
Accounting Office (CAO) has created a new e-mail address
to help resolve issues relating to the billing of industrial
research sponsors. These issues can be sent to billing-issues@mit.edu.
Users may also use this address for other questions on
the SAP billing system. The questions/issues will be dealt
with promptly, and users will be informed of the outcome.
_______________________________
Labor
Distribution System Updates
Closing
Date Question
Carol Chen, the Labor Distribution
System (LDS) project leader has asked if it would pose
any problem to LDS users if the LDS (and E-SANDI) records
were closed one day prior to the last business day of
each month. This change would require LDS users to complete
variance reconciliation by that deadline. The goal of
this change is to allow MIT to close each month on the
last day of the month rather than early in the following
month. If you have comments on this proposal, please contact
Carol at lichu@mit.edu.
New LDS Feature
LDS has recently been enhanced to allow LDS home departments
the option of allowing Payroll data to override LDS records
each month. This enhancement greatly reduces the number
of monthly variances to be reconciled by the LDS home
departments. If you want this feature turned "on" for
your department or need more information, contact
Carol
Chen at lichu@mit.edu.
LDS
Documentation Available Online
Documentation
for LDS is available in the SAP@MIT Documentation
on the Web. To become an LDS user or to learn more about
MIT's Labor Distribution System, contact your school or
area coordinator or
Carol
Chen lichu@mit.edu.
X-Schedule
Available in LDS
The
Labor Distribution System includes a report that is the
equivalent of the "X Schedule," a breakdown of faculty
salaries by cost object. LDS users will find this report
useful for managing faculty appointments if they run it
as a departmental report omitting "transfers in." If you
run this report for a lab or center, you need to include
your "transfers in." LDS users in academic departments
can use the LDS X-schedule when their Deans request this
report.
_______________________________
New
Fund Analysis Report
The
Fund Analysis report (formerly GL53 in the legacy system)
shows cost object activity for SAP internal orders and
WBS elements in the range between 2000000 and 4999999.
The report shows principal and expendable funds separately,
and includes beginning and ending balances, pool units,
and other gifts and receipts. Like all SAP reports, drill-down
capability provides additional detail to the user. Recent
enhancements to the report allow greater user flexibility
in creating a customized layout and in sorting the report
fields. See also the documentation
for the new Fund Analysis Report in the SAP@MIT Documentation
on the Web.
_______________________________
Research
Volume Report Enhanced
The
SAP Research Volume Report has been enhanced recently
to give users the ability to change the layout and the
sort order to produce the report most useful to your department.
The Research Volume Report can be found in the "Research
Reports" section of the Reports menu on the SAP ZMIT screen.
The report shows expenses incurred by sponsored research
projects as well as the authorized total, expenses, and
balances for WBS element. See the
documentation for the Research Volume Report in the
SAP@MIT Documentation on the Web.
_______________________________
Deciphering
an Odd SAPweb Requisition Error Message
Question:
I got this error when using SAPweb: SAP detected the
following error: "Please enter in the format ___,___,__~.__."
What does this mean?
Answer:
The error means that in one of the line items you
have a dollar amount that is not formatted well. It could
be odd characters but it is more likely that the amount
has fractional cents in it.
For
example, if items come in a box of 10 for $12.08 per box,
and you enter it as 10 pens @ 1.208 each, the tenths-of-a-cent
column is unacceptable to SAP. The solution is to round
off your pricing (i.e., $1.21 each) or order in larger
unit quantities (e.g., 1 box of 10 pens at $12.08).
(From
Information Systems' Stock
Answers, question #232.)
_______________________________
Office
Depot Ordering Error: Certificate Authority Expired
Question:
When
I try to order from Office Depot, I get the message "Certificate
Authority is Expired." What should I do?
Answer:
Upgrade
Netscape to version 4.6.
The certificate authority used for Site Certificates in
older versions of Netscape expired on 12/31/99 and was
not renewed.
(From
Information Systems' Stock
Answers, question #707.)
_______________________________
SAP
Requisition Error Message for Terminated Cost
Objects
While
creating a requisition, you might see the following error
message:
"E: Val.CO_ITEM (itm001): Rcpt date 06/04/1998 outside
cost obj. start-end."
For
more information, expand the text of the error message
by double clicking on the error message. You will see
something like:
"Val.CO_ITEM(itm 001: Rcpt date 06/08/1998 outside
cost obj.start-end: 05/01/1997-04/30/1998."
This
means that the date of the document you are creating is
falling outside the defined start and end dates of the
Cost Object and you cannot create a requisition on that
Cost Object. To double-check the start and end dates of
your cost object, use the Roles
database.
If
your cost object is listed as closed, you will need to
select another cost object to use for this requisition.
(From
Information Systems' Stock
Answers, question #232.)
_______________________________
Update
from Department of Facilities
The
SAP internal orders (work orders) used to accumulate charges
on Facilities projects are now accessible to the entire
SAP community.
To
view a Summary Statement or DTR for a Facilities internal
order follow these steps:
- Locate
the SAP internal order number that is collecting costs
for the project you want to view. For Facilities projects
being charged to a DLC cost object, the internal order
number can be found in the description field on your
cost object's DTR (cost element 600601, or 02, or 03).
For now, these internal orders will follow the pattern
19XXXXX.
-
In the ZMIT Menu - Reports, run either the Summary Statement
or DTR by entering the SAP internal order number as
the cost object key.
In addition, users can see the requisition number associated
with the work project. This number is located in the top
right corner of the Internal Order Summary Statement screen
- External order #. (In most cases, you will need to move
your scroll bar all the way to the right to view the number.)
If there are two sets of numbers, the longer one is the
customer requisition number, and the five-digit one is
from the Maximo system of Facilities. When you print the
Internal Order Summary Statement or DTR, these external
order numbers will display in the header of the sheet.
If
you have any questions about SAP internal orders for Facilities
projects, please contact:
Shirley DaSilva (3-6318, sdewolfe@plant.mit.edu)
Bob Long (3-1647, long@mit.edu)
Anne Whealan (3-1427, whealan@mit.edu)
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