Ohio University             Division of Finance
BU$INE$$ MATTER$

February, 2004
Colleagues:

 

The February 2004 Financial Management System (FMS) reports are now available to you.  Be sure to read BU$INE$$ MATTER$ below for important information related to your reports and other Finance Division services.

If you need assistance accessing your reports or FMS in general, please contact:

Frontline at 7-8000 or frontline@ohio.edu

If you have further questions or comments, please contact:

Tanya Bibler at 7-1417 or biblert@ohio.edu

Diane Lucas at 7-1380 or lucasd1@ohio.edu

April Henderson at 3-1864 or hendersa@ohio.edu


BU$INE$$ MATTER$

  • P-CARD: P-card transactions posted through February 6, 2004 are in your February reports. 
  • OUF ACCOUNTS : Please remember that the OUF account balances are unaudited at this time and audit adjustments may be necessary to some accounts once the audit is complete.  The last of the beginning balance corrections have been posted and are reflected in your February reports.  If you have any questions regarding these accounts, please contact Cindy Strausbaugh via email at strausba@ohio.edu or Tanya Bibler at biblert@ohio.edu . 
  • MEETING: The spring quarter schedule for Campus Financial Meetings is as follows:

Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

All meetings will be held from 3:30 - 5 in the Human Resources and Training Center room 141/145.

  •  FEBRUARY "TIDBIT":   Remember to go to the Division of Finance web site at: www.finance.ohiou.edu for the latest forms, manuals, and information.  We have recently added two Equipment Inventory forms – the EI-8 Inventory Change Worksheet and the EI-9 Request to Take Equipment Off-Campus to our Forms & Manuals page.
  • ISSUES: Please be sure to communicate with one of the three contacts above about any issues you may have regarding FEBRUARY reports ONLY.  We are working very hard to resolve any outstanding issues and need to focus on the latest version of the reports to do so.
  • M910: The FMS-M910 is included in your February reports.  This report will be redesigned in the future to portray a much clearer picture of open encumbrances for each cost center.  Please remember that the M910 includes purchase order encumbrances only.  If you have any questions or issues with this report, please be sure to contact one of the individuals above.  We appreciate your patience.
  • NEW VIEW: We're very pleased to announce a very powerful, new tool to help manage your financial accounts.  As you will see when you next log on to see your monthly reports (OU FMS Reporting), we have added a new feature for you to use, called the O U Funds Available View.  It can also be accessed in the Oracle FMS Menu, under the General Ledger.  OU Funds Available allows you to:
    • Find all cost center summaries for a planning unit
    • Check account balances for one cost center or a range of cost centers
    • Compare budget to actual expenditures and encumbrances
    • Create your own queries using one or more account code segments
    • Download queries to Excel for further analysis and manipulation
    • Create an uptodate income statement and e-mail it to others

There are many more features available, and instructions are available to assist you in using them. You can get a copy of the procedure by clicking on the link below:

http://www.finance.ohiou.edu/fms/manual/2GL622FAVETRN.doc

We also have computer lab training sessions available to help you get the most use of all the features.  To sign up for training, go to the Finance Division training web page and follow the instructions:

http://www.finance.ohiou.edu/financials/training.htm

This new tool represents the collective work of financial managers, the Finance Division and the technical staff of the Enterprise Project.  Budget managers gave us feedback as to what type of information they needed, the Finance staff listened, and worked with the technical staff of The Enterprise Project to design this new view. 

Future enhancements to this view will be to add multi-year accounts, for grant, plant and contract funds, and, discussion has begun to include a budget forecasting tool.  We feel sure you will like this new view, and look forward to working with you to develop more features for the new Financial Management System.

Questions on how to use this new feature can be directed to Frontline at 597-8000.