Dartmouth Finance Collaborative

June 2024

Project Updates

Finance Navigator (Finance AI Chatbot)

• Simon Stone presented an exceptional overview of our proof of concept AI Chatbot and took us through a behind the scenes look of how AI and large language models (LLM) actually work. Check out the first 30 minutes of this meeting to get this great overview! His presentation is available at dartgo.org/ai-finance-nav. 
• Call to action: Try out the Finance Navigator and provide your feedback on the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

Agiloft IRA Reports Demo

• Coming in early July! 
• Contract Details that allow you to drill to related child agreements and see your contract remaining balances and payment history. 

Policy Updates

Business Expense Policy effective July 1, 2024

• Full policy release July 1, 2024
• See the Finance & Admin Update for June (released June 10, 2024)
• Clarifying language added for Returning Funds for PCards, Corporate Cards, and Advances
• PCard eForms submitted for purchases within 7 business days
• Corporate Card and Advances submitted 15 following expense date or last date of travel and no later than 90 days of the expense date or return from travel
• Language added regarding Air travel requirements when using grants that are federally funded. 
• Automobile, Parking, and Ground transportation section has been updated
  • Any employee or student driving on Dartmouth business must be an approved driver.
  • The use of personal vehicles is discouraged
  • Employees renting cars should be using their corporate card to maximize insurance coverage when traveling. You may also book through Travel Leaders in order to use a chart string. 
  • Parking in Hanover or on-campus is not a reimbursable expense. If you are a department that is primarily off-site (41 Currier, DHMC, etc) and you have teams that are traveling to campus for currier service, events, etc. contact the Department of Transportation for parking options. 
  • Non-employees/Dartmouth guests that need a car rental, should book and pay for their own car rental and accept the CDW insurance. They will be reimbursed the full amount
• Premium car service (limo, luxury car services and rentals), including door-to-door car service is not allowable. If you have a distinguished guest, advanced approval is required from the Controller. 

Signature Authority Policy effective July 1, 2024 

• Full policy release July 1, 2024
• Signature Authority for Senior Leaders with up to $250,000, will increase to $350,000. 

Other Topics

• Gratuity and Tipping - 20% tipping is considered reasonable.
  • If rounding the tip to the nearest dollar results in a tip slightly over 20%, this is ok as long it is reasonable.
  • Reasonableness should balance both the dollar amount and percentage.
  • Those tipping more than 20% should be reminded of the policy.
  • If you have questions regarding the reasonableness of a tip greater than 20%, please contact your Fiscal Officer, Finance Center, or the Controller. 
  • Delivery fees are not considered a graduity or tip, unless it states gratuity. 
• Hotel Folios - Required, even when booking through a 3rd party (Bookings, Expedia, etc)
  • Employees should obtain a hotel folio upon check-out of the hotel that details room, meals, and incidentials. 
  • Meals charged to the room, should provide the details of the meal or a detailed receipt must be obtained. 

May 2024

Project Updates

• Kronos to the Cloud: Coming after year-end - Date to be determined soon. Looking at pay period beginning October 6th
• OnBase Upgrade: Delayed due to bug. Hyland is attempting to fix the issue.
• Agiloft AWS Service update the Friday evening. Do not anticipate more than a couple hours in the evening.

Process Updates coming soon -

Be on the look out in the next Finance & Admin Update

• Misassigned Pending Submission - Please do not cancel or delete Payment Request eForm. Forward the Pending Submission email to your Finance Center to reassign. If you know who the submitter will be, please provide that information to the Finance Center, otherwise the Finance Center will research who the appropriate submitter should be. 
• Prizes & Awards deadline & processing - The Finance Centers will be investigating if there is an efficient process for withholding prize and award payments prior to commencement, in order to accomodate Recognition and Stewardship deadlines, while also letting the departments determine the date in which to provide the student notification of a prize or award payment being issued. This will assist in minimizing the number of checks needing to be issued and picked up by departments. 

Agiloft IRA Reports coming soon - Demo

• See recording at 11:10 for demonstration

Other Discussions

• Year-end Memo and Calendar coming soon. Try to process any purchases, corrections, or other clean-up items as soon as possible. 
• Year-End clean-up reports will be distributed more frequently in June.
• Closing out PO's and Encumberances
  • Here is the document to figure out what PO Encumbrance Balances in IRA.
  • Contact your Finance Center if you need help.  

April 2024

Register and mark your calendar for the 2024 Spring Finance Information Forum!

Or Go to https://dartgo.org/FinInfoForum to register

Project Updates: 

• Kronos to the Cloud - Demo
  • Know as UKG
  • Coming this May
• OnBase Upgrade
  • Coming this May
  • No substantial change
  • The new Unity Client will be pushed to desktop users and RDS
• Agiloft IRA Reports - Demo
  • Coming this May
  • Contract Details, such as, contract amount, type, effective and end date, etc.
  • See spend down of contracts and institutional agreements

Policy Updates

• PCard Policy has been updated to clarify the need for the PCard eForm and receipt requirement prior to the sweep date. PCards that sweep unapproved with be tagged as noncompliant. 
• Reminder for tipping. The Business Expense Policy states that tips should not exceed 20% for meals, lodging, etc. 

Other Topics

• Searching for Vendors in OnBase
  • Use the % before and after the vendor name.
  • Use the drop down list which is generated from Oracle
• Question about selecting the correct vendor
  • Vendors need to make sure the remittance (Pay to) clearly states who should be paid, particularly if there multiple pay sites for a vendor
  • If there are vendor pay sites that should be removed, reach out to the FInance Center. 
  • Payment Works FAQ for both Vendors and Department

March 2024

Register and mark your calendar for the 2024 Spring Finance Information Forum!

* Go to https://dartgo.org/FinInfoForum to register! 

Project Updates:

• Kronos to the Cloud
  
  • Coming in April 2024
  • New look and feel for non-exempt biweekly paid employers
  • New dashboard, notifications, timecard review and other features
  • Training and guidance will be forthcoming
• OnBase Upgrade
  • Coming in May 2024
  • No substantial change
  • The new Unity Client will be pushed to users and RDS will be updated

Inside Dartmouth's Budget Course

• Registation ends March 15, 2024
• Session dates and times are as follows:
  
  • Tuesday, April 30, 2024, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
  • Tuesday, May 7, 2024, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
  • Tuesday, May 14, 2024, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
• More information on the F&A Inside Dartmouth's Budget site

Policy Updates

• Code of Ethical Conduct
  • Name updated from Code of Ethical Business Conduct
• Print Policy being updated (already updated in P2P Guide)
  • PCard/Corporate cards allowable for print purchases <$4999
  • Trademark Policy must be adhered to when using Dartmouth word marks and logo 
    (this includes clothing and other Dartmouth merchandise)
• How we Pay Students Stipend Guidance
  
  • Undergraduate Internships and Fellowships paid through AP (7002/7005)
  • All Graduate Student Stipends paid through Payroll (7005)
  • Non-student Post-doc Fellowships paid through Payroll (7006) - not in guidance
• Mobile Communication Stipend and Device Forms are being updated
  
  • Employee attests to understanding the policy on the form
  • Submits through General Request eForm
  • Approval processed on the General Request eForm
  • Working to merge Dartmouth and Geisel forms. 

Reminder for Vendor Invoices

• Vendor Invoices should clearly identify:
  • Business Name or D.B.A remittance must match the registered name within PaymentWorks
  • Bill To: Dartmouth College (or Trustees of Dartmouth College)
  • Invoice Number (each invoice should have a unique invoice number)
  • Invoice Date
  • Contract Number* (if available)
  • PO Number* (if available)
  • WO Number (if working with Campus Services or FO&M)
  • Date or dates of when the goods and/or services were provided
  • Description of goods and/or services provided
  • Invoice Amount Due
  • Department
  • Department Contact

Other Updates

• COVID-Mitigations expenses has been discontinued
  • All hand-sanitizer and other previous “COVID-mitigation” expenses should be coded as normal operational supplies
• Agiloft IRA Reports coming soon - reports are in development
• New project just started!! Finance Website Chatbot leveraging Dartmouth's LLM, to provide natural language to assist in searching for guidance on the Finance site
  • In collaboration with Research Computing, Library, Web Services, and others Finance is working on a proof of concept to build a chatbot using website information. The hope is that we will be leverage this new tool across the institution. 

February 2024

Reminder: Check out BigThink+ 

From last month, check out new resources: 

• Reporting Credit Card Fraud
• Finance Reports for Clean-up and outstanding Corporate and Procurement Card transactions

Policy and Process Updates

• Honorarium Payments (and all forms) the amount field is the US dollar value - what is going to post in the GL regardless of if the payment is will be issued in foreign currency
• Mobile Communication Stipends - Any monthly stipend >$50 requires additional justification
  
  • New form has been updated and approval and routing will be done through the General Request eForm, using the Request Type "Communication Stipend"
• Sole Source Justification Form, new selection for "lowest price not chosen".
  • Must attach bids, quotes, pricing information and explain rationale for not selecting lowest bidder below
• Car Rental Clarification coming soon
  
  • Dartmouth Employees and Students
    • All Dartmouth employees and students are required to become Approved Drivers if they are driving on behalf of Dartmouth
    • Enterprise/National Car rental service recommended in lieu of driving personal vehicles (significant cost savings to rent vs mileage)
    • Employees should use their Corporate Card when booking car rentals
    • Employees and students should not purchase CDW insurance, since this is included in the rental costs
  • Non-Dartmouth Employees and Students (Dartmouth Guests) Car Rentals should:
    • use the Dartmouth-Other code
    • book and pay for their own rental
    • purchase the Collision/Damage waiver insurance
    • submitting for reimbursement. 

Coming Soon: 

• Agiloft Contract Number on the Payment Request to be relocated and provide a list of contracts that may have invoice payments applied against them. Not MSA's and amendments. This will allow us to provide accurate contract spend down reports within IRA. 
• Kronos is moving to the Cloud with a planned April release. 
• OnBase is being upgrade with a planned May release. 

January 2024

Happy New Year! 

Oops! We forgot to record this session. Sorry. 

Public Announcements: 

• Reminder: Monday, January 1 should be listed as HOL for biweekly paid employees
• Standard Mileage Rate for 2024 increased from .655 to .67
• New Duo coming, but has been delayed
• News from IDE: MLK events coming!  Check out BigThink+

New Resources now available:

• How to Pay Research Participants
• IRA GL Transaction Reports now offers details on AP payments by clicking on the invoice number within IRA

Discussion: 

Corporate Card and PCard Processing

• Submission of receipts and expenses as soon as possible is always encouraged
• For PCards, you do not need to wait to receive notification from the Finance Center that the transaction has posted
• To clear them in the system, they do have to be posted, so if you are allocating your own expenses within iExpense or in A&S within PCard Maintenance system the transaction does require the transaction has posted when doing the reallocation
• Dartmouth Credit Card Fraud Reporting
• Corporate Card & PCard Notifications & Reports

December 2023

Agiloft Navigation, Dashboard and Table Searching, Views, and Reports

Video Contents:

• 4:00 - Agiloft Navigation for Power Users (Department Admin/Approvers)
• 5:30 - Department Admin Dashboard
• 7:00 - Searching Agiloft vs. Searching a specific table
• 8:00 - Sorting multiple columns and readjusting the column display
• 10:30 - End-User visibility to see their own contracts/PIA
• 11:00 - Power-User Dept Admin
• 19:00 - Creating a Custom Search
• 24:40 - Creating Custom Views
• 28:00 - Exporting Tables
• 30:00 - Automating Reports to send to email
• 39:22 - Switching dashboards from Dept Admin to Approver, Independent Contractors, Signature Authority
• 40:00 - Searching Independent Contractor
• 41:45 - Navigating to other Tables through the Pendo Box
• 43:00 - Viewing Employee System Access from the Employee record
• 45:00 - PO vs. Contracts

November 2023

OnBase Troubleshooting and Agiloft Contract discussion

Video Contents:

• 10:00 - OnBase Connectivity Issues
• 14:00 - Rehires and Org Permissions
• 17:00 - Payment Request eForm Contract Number
• 20:00 - Future OnBase Projects
• 22:00 - Vendors and PaymentWorks
• 28:00 - Agiloft Contract Amendments - updating the original contracts
• 29:00 - Agiloft Contract Types for Master Agreements vs standard Purchase agreement
• 44:00 - Agiloft System Access
• 45:00 - Finance Best Practices

October 2023

OnBase Unity Client through RDS

Video Contents:

• 7:30 - Department Admin vs. Department without Payroll
• 9:00 - Uploading documents within RDS
• 13:20 - Adding Additional Admin Access
• 15:00 - Resetting Approval in Additional Information Queue
• 20:30 - Adding Items to the Favorites on the Ribbon
• 24:00 - Adding Queries to your Personal page
• 26:00 - Document Retrieval searching for specific keyword searching
• 29:00 - Generating CVS reports from OnBase Unity Client
• 33:00 - Customizing and Changing views within the Workflow queue
• 41:00 - AP Payment Request eForm Pending Submission
• 43:00 - Finance Center process for AP Payment Request Indexing
• 47:00 - AP Payment Request eForm Pending Submission
• 49:00 - PaymentWorks - Vendor Maintenance
• 55:00 - Querying a vendor payment or Anticipated Payment Date

September 2023

OnBase Navigation and Custom Queries

Video Contents

• 18:22 - OnBase Personal Page
• 18:50 - Custom Queries
• 20:15 - Visibility based upon Department Admin vs Department Admin without Payroll
• 23:30 - Updating the eForm as approver
• 26:00 - Adding an Org in the Department Administrator Access
• 27:30 - Payment Request Queries
• 30:00 - Using "*" as a while card vs. on the Payment Request Vendor field you may use "%" (for vendor only)
• 31:30 - Searching Department
• 33:30 - Duplicating fields
• 38:30 - New Vendors on the Payment Request eForm
• 46:30 - Adding documents to an already submitted eForm