PDF version of this newsletter

Expanded FMS Training

FMS Training has a link on the FMS home page which lists all FMS training and detailed explanations of each training session. Topics cover training in FIS, Payroll, TIME, and special financial topics.

Any monthly paid employees who did not sign up for direct deposit by 5pm on Wednesday, March 24 will receive a paycard. That card will need to be picked up in Poplars 527 by either the employee or the departmental Fiscal Officer. An email reminder was sent out March 19th to those monthly paid employees who had not signed up since their February pay date.

Work Study Exception: if we start direct deposit for work study students in mid-April it would only apply to a few payments, therefore, we are going to delay the requirement for work study students to enroll in direct deposit until the first summer work study period. That period begins on May 9, 2010 and its first payment will be paid on May 28, 2010. Therefore, you will need to ensure that your students receiving work study enroll in direct deposit by May 20, 2010 or they will be issued a paycard and their pay will be loaded on that.

You can learn more about the paycard at http://www.rapid-paycard.com/cardholders.asp.

Click on either link below to see more details, including banking fees and procedures:

Paycard fact sheet
Paycard issuance process

There are two processing systems which Financial Management Services Accounts Payable uses for payment processing.

1. In the FIS system, the Disbursement Voucher (DV) is a mechanism for processing payment. This is the document that employees are reimbursed for out of pocket expenses when appropriate.
2. In the EPIC system, Accounts Payable processes invoice payments in connection with Purchase Orders.

Accounts Payable has recently developed three distinct version of the AP ACH Authorization form since unique data is expected in each case.

All three forms are linked with instructions on this webpage:
http://www.fms.indiana.edu/ap/home_ACH.asp .

Employees should complete the authorization form linked via “Employee ACH Sign-up Form” on this page.

EPIC PO Vendors and EPIC DV Vendors should complete the authorization form linked via “Vendor ACH Sign-up Form” on the same page.

There is an entity designation called “payee” that can be used in limited situations in FIS. These entities should also be able to benefit from ACH / Direct Deposit when appropriate. This type of authorization is linked through “Payee ACH Sign-up Form” on the same page. Clues are provided that the payee id in FIS begins with the letter ‘P’. Please call Accounts Payable at 855-4004 if you have questions about who uses this authorization form.

Questions can be directed to Charlie Sinex, FMS Accounts Payable, at csinex@indiana.edu.

Effective February 1 Indiana University implemented a new financial policy that provides guidance to the institution on the purchase of gifts. The policy applies to all university and foundation funds.

The only gifts allowed using university funds are years of service recognition items purchased by the campus Human Resource Department or the University Academic Affairs office. No other gifts can be purchased using university funds.

Foundation funds can be used to buy retirement gifts to employees not to exceed $400. Gifts to non-employees contributing to the academic mission can be purchased with Foundation funds not to exceed $600. The gifts must be tangible property and cannot be items that are cash or easily convertible to cash, such as gift cards.

The one area of concern FMS has seen in the past several weeks relates to awards and/or recognitions using university funds. Please be aware that if you are providing a plaque to someone as recognition or award this is not considered a gift. However, this type of recognition that takes the form of a personal item such as a clock, rocking chair, etc. go beyond recognition and is a gift and is not allowed with university funds.

Please take the time to read the full policy since not all conditions are covered in this article. The policy can be found at http://www.indiana.edu/~vpcfo/policies/accounting/home.html , Policy I-590, Gifts to Employees or Non-Employees.

Auxiliary Accounting

We would like to invite you to the Auxiliary Accounting Forums that we are having on the Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses in late May and early June.

These forums allow for open discussion between you and the Auxiliary Accounting group on a variety of topics and upcoming deadlines.  Below you will see the dates/locations of the meetings. We are very excited about having the opportunity to meet you and hope you will be able to attend. 

Please feel free to contact us at fmsaux@indiana.edu with any questions.

Locations (Please feel free to attend at the location that is most convenient to you)

Bloomington: State Room East at the IMU on May 26th at 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.
IUPUI: Campus Center Room 309 on June 3rd at 10:00 a.m. to noon

CAMS: Important Changes to Inventory Process

Each year, State Board of Accounts selects a random sample of capital assets and then visits the campuses to verify that the asset’s location, status and tag number match what is reported in the Capital Asset System. During the fiscal 2009 year-end audit, errors were found in four percent of the selected sample, which is higher than the tolerated error rate. The noted errors fell into the following three categories: assets could not be found for observation, assets were retired without notification, and items were tagged incorrectly.

Due to the high percent of errors found during last year’s audit of Capital Assets, State Board of Accounts has indicated they will perform 100% testing of at least one department during the fiscal 2010 year-end audit. To the best of my knowledge, departments chosen for audit will not be notified in advance, so it is very important that each department’s asset records are accurate and up-to-date at year-end.

To strengthen IU’s internal controls, the Capital Assets Office is implementing the following changes. Starting July 1, 2010, FMS will begin working with campus and departmental offices to require scanning of all moveable equipment except for those assets that cannot be tagged or located off-site. Over a two-year period all departments will be converted to the electronic scanning process and beginning July 1, 2012, FMS will no longer allow organizations to perform inventories by hand or on paper. This change should mitigate those situations where an asset marked as inventoried is subsequently determined to have been retired prior to the actual inventory. While this may seem like a significant change, a number of departments are already scanning their inventories. In addition, FMS has found that inventories conducted with scanners have fewer inventory errors.

To help departments prepare for this new requirement, scheduling of inventories for the upcoming fiscal year will begin in March. If needed, each department will be given more time to use the scanners.

Historically, the person performing the scanning has not been given enough time away from their other job duties to complete the inventory process. These individuals have also reported difficulty gaining access to the assets during their scheduled inventory time. While FMS is willing to do whatever we can to help coordinate the inventory process, we need assistance from departments to communicate to all faculty and staff when the inventories are taking place and the importance of granting access to areas where assets are located. Departments also need to make sure employee(s) have adequate time to complete the inventories in a thorough manner.

As inventories are completed, the Capital Assets Office will monitor which assets were scanned and which assets were inventoried manually. FMS staff will also be conducting random spot audits to assess the effectiveness of the new procedures and the accuracy of the completed inventories.

We appreciate your cooperation as we implement changes to improve the accuracy and completeness of the asset inventories. If you have questions or comments, please send an email to fmscams@indiana.edu. We are interested in your input and will respond as quickly as we can.