Executive Summary

The Research Administration and Compliance Systems team delivered a series of GMAS releases between March and June of 2018 in support of the ITCRB Financial Invoicing and Reporting Strategic Transition (FIRST) project. These releases represent the initial phase of the project and are focused on building features to support sponsor billing, invoicing, and reporting. The second phase of the project was focused on financial transaction monitoring. The September 28, 2018 release included numerous features relating to transaction monitoring. See details below for more information.See the Transaction Monitoring job aid for full details. 

Transaction Monitoring

GMAS is now running all general ledger (GL) expenses through a set of business rules to help proactively identify potential financial compliance issues.

Monitoring rules

• Monitored object codes
  • Unallowable object codes on Federal awards: Some object codes (like alcohol) are never allowed on Federal awards.
  • Questionable object codes on Federal awards: Some object codes (like telephone) are generally not allowed on Federal awards without specific sponsor permission.
  • User added object codes: Users can add any specific object code to be monitored by GMAS.
• Other rules
  • Incorrect subagreement object code usage: Object codes 8190, 8191, and 8192 should only be used on subagreement accounts. Other object codes should not be used on subagreement accounts.
  • Subs over $25,000: Object code 8190 should never exceed $25,000 for a subagreement. 8191 and 8192 should not be used unless $25k has already been charged to 8190.
  • Pre-award expenses: Unapproved charges before the start of the award.
  • Late charges to awards: Charges after the end date of an account.
  • Unapproved animal charges: Charges to animal specific object codes without a corresponding IACUC approval captured in GMAS.
  • Unapproved human subject charges: Charges to human subject specific object codes without a corresponding IRB approval captured in GMAS.
  • Late equipment charges: Equipment purchases within the last 90 days of an account.
  • Sales transactions: Charges to "Cost of goods sold" or Intertub/Intratub sales object codes

Key features

• The transaction monitoring dashboard is a new screen available from the GMAS homepage. It allows users to see all segments that have transactions flagged for review.
• Each segment also has a new transaction monitoring detail screen:
  • Lists all transactions to be reviewed for the segment.
  • Allows a user to approve transactions or mark them to be corrected, either one at a time or in bulk.
  • Approved transactions show the user, date, and comment associated with the approval.
  • Object codes that are monitored by default can be pre-approved for one or more accounts.
  • Specific object codes can be added for monitoring on one or more accounts.
  • Late charges can be approved for 30 days (to allow for extensions to be processed).
  • All segment monitored transaction can be downloaded to Excel.
  • Supporting documents can be uploaded to a document repository.
  • Part-of account security is applied - Interfaculty department administrators will only be able to edit accounts within their org.

 

Financial deliverable changes

Scheduler

• Financial deliverables can now be created on both pending and closed projects.
• Schedule preview section has been reformatted for improved readability.
• When scheduling fixed price, the invoice amount can optionally be set in the schedule preview.
• Auto-process is no longer tied to GMAS email. So now manual email and portal submissions can be set up for bulk approve.
• HUFI can now be set to Auto-process.
• When scheduling bill by subactivities, the invoice comments can be set for each subactivity. This will be available both in the top section and in the schedule preview.

Deliverable details

• Updated the totals section in financial details to add allocated amounts and pending sub money – also reformatted this section for improved readability.
• Submission details panel no longer shows for “Review” types (since they don’t get submitted).
• When editing an invoice type, invoice number is now required (so it doesn’t get accidentally deleted).
• <Approve> button is now disabled for finals if there are missing final figures (previously this was only checked on <Submit for review>).
• When starting a deliverable with reportable interest, the interest amount from the GL will automatically populate.
• Deliverable period dates can no longer be edited after a report has been started – this is to prevent errors due to missing object codes.
• GL data “freeze” when approving now uses posted date instead of transaction date.
• <Submit for review> will be disabled for fixed price deliverables if the invoice amount is missing.
• Added a new download for the OSP compliance checklist.
• Added the ability to reset a deliverable to "Scheduled" status.
• Added the ability to override the system generated invoice amount after submission (available to final approvers only).
• When completing an invoice, receivables are now created using the segment payment method instead of the sponsor's.
• Added a new document category type for reviews - this document is required before submitting a review for approval.

Dashboard

• When reassigning, person has been changed to a dropdown with all possible preparers (instead of an open lookup).
• Dashboard now remembers any filters and sorting when navigating back (this includes switching between dashboard tabs).

Dashboard processor

• Fixed an issue where year/quarter closes were not working correctly. Going forward prior month deliverables will always become available after the 5^thbusiness day of the next month (including weekends and holidays).
• Added a new error for fixed price deliverables if set to auto-process and the invoice amount is missing.
• Added a new error to check for missing sponsor payment methods (this will replace the need for the current exception report).

Other

• Retired legacy todos for scheduled reports (most financial analysts should now have no todos).
• Added PI name and project title as available variables to include in emails to sponsors.
• Updated the segment home to show status for deliverables due in the next 30 days – also corrected security for departments so they can click the link.

Other Improvements

• On the organization home page, associated audit organizations are now links.
• Assessment date and next assessment date are now required when entering organization risk assessments.
• Locks on GL budgets and segment revisions now expire at the end of each day.
• Added project id to the signature required emails.
• Updated the project title in the segment snapshot to be blue, so it is more discoverable as a link back to the segment home.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed and issue removing a document category after downloading documents on the page.
• Improved performance on pages that need to check for all segments a user has access to.

Interfaces

• Accounts in "validated" status are no longer sent in the NE interest feed to the GL.
• Updated the SFE interface to pull the complete line description for GL transactions (was previously truncated at 20 characters).
• Updated the TOOR interface to import user friendly descriptions for GL journal sources.
• Updated the CSMA interface to add object codes for monitoring to newly activated accounts.

Technical

• Upgraded Weblogic to version 12.2.1.3
• Upgraded PrimeFaces to version 6.2