June, 1998 News Flash Entries


Fixed Asset Policy Changes (6/29/98)
The changes to the fixed asset policy amount to fine-tuning based on questions put to the OSC and the State Auditor.  Instead of useful life being defined as more than one year, useful life is now defined as two or more years.  In the area of capitaliztion of costs, in addition to extending the useful life of an asset, costs related to fixed assets that increase the service potential of the asset should be capitalized.  The fixed asset policy will now reflect this consideration.

Examples of construction costs to be capitalized are meant to be examples.  These examples are not intended as an exclusive list.  Interest cost incurred during construction of the related asset has been added as an example of cost incurred to place an asset in its intended location and condition for use.

The following Fixed Asset Policies have been updated:


!!! System Downtime (6/24/98)!!!

The system will be down all day on July 1, 1998, but will be available during normal operating hours on July 2.

CBT Information (6/22/98)

The Basic, Receiving, and Requisitioning and Approval CBTs have been updated to reflect the 96.01 Updgrade.  Users will need to set up each of the CBTs again on their desktop in order to use these new versions.  If you have any questions, please call Shannon McGurrin at (919)981-5415.


!!!Memorandum NCAS-98-0031 (6/15/98)!!!

See this memo for information about Cancel User Procedures for the NCAS. Please note that procedures are listed below the memo.

General Ledger Transaction Purge (6/12/98)

On Saturday, June 20, OSC will purge June 30, 1996 through June 29, 1997 transactions from the general ledger detail
files.  Transactions matching these dates will no longer be available online through Posted Entry Query (GL220) or
Financial Controller Summary Detail Listing (FC131).   For detail transaction information, run the
C-U-GL-DTL-LEDGER-DAPG67-EOY report from the GLPUBLIC library in IE.


 

PO Encumbrance Fix (6/12/98)

Many agencies are currently closing their outstanding purchase orders as part of their year end close procedures and discovering inappropriate remaining balances in their encumbrance accounts (83 type accounts).  Due to rounding problems related to the way sales tax was encumbered in the Purchasing Module and unencumbered by the Accounts Payable Module, very small balances in the 83 type accounts may result from these transactions. If you determine you have incorrect purchase order encumbrance balances, you need to process an encumbrance adjustment through the Budgetary Control module to rectify this problem.  Encumbrance adjustments should be keyed into the Encumbrance Adjustment screen and document id’s should include a 38 in the third and fourth positions of the document id number.  The effective date should be the current date and the entry a data type 1 transaction.  The screen will automatically default accounting rule 37 to each line of the document, which is appropriate for this adjustment.


 

CAFR Reports (6/12/98)

Starting in the new fiscal year, OSC will be distributing the CAFR57, CAFR30, and CAFR11A reports in a new format.  Reports will be viewed using Adobe Acrobat Reader instead of Replica.  Because OSC does not have access to users’ computers, each agency will be responsible for installing the Reader on each computer that has a SmartStream desktop.  Adobe Acrobat Reader is available free of charge on the Adobe website at http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html.  Follow the instructions on this page to download the installation file.
The recommended method of installation would be to have the LAN Administrator download the installation file to the network.  The Reader can then be installed on each PC from the network file, without having to download a file for each user.  Users may download the installation file to their hard drive, then install the Reader from there, if they wish.
Please note that the CAFR reports will be accessed through the SmartStream desktop in the same manner as before, only Adobe Acrobat Reader will be launched instead of Replica.  Desktop changes will be transparent to the user, with no further assistance required from the LAN Administrator.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the OSC Help Desk at 875-HELP.


 

Fiscal Year 1997 Data

Beginning Wednesday, June 10, OSC will re-create each agency-specific GL detail transaction file (OSC.OP*.CxxGL.GLDETAIL.EOY) to contain fiscal year 1997 data.  This file is used when running the C-U-GL-DTL-LEDGER-DAPG67-EOY report from the GLPUBLIC library in IE. OSC expects to complete this process for all agencies by Saturday, June 13.  All previous fiscal years’ data will be removed from the file.  If you would like to retain a previous years’ data in this file, please notify the OSC HelpDesk.


 

Year-End Activities

The Agency End of Year Check List for this year has been added to the Year-End Activities section.

Please review this checklist since it includes activities that are critical for year-end processing. Some of the activities included are completed during regular month-end processing but are vital to the year-end close. The regular month-end procedures should be followed along with the year-end activities checklist

OSC Operating Calendar

The Fiscal Year Close Calendar has been added for Year-End Activities. Please note any year-end processes that OSC will perform that will affect your accounting functions.

GAAP Conversion Packages

The GAAP Conversion Packages for this year have been added to the Year-End Activities section.

RMDS Reports Available

The AP-BCC and AP-PCC reportsin RMDS Report Group MM122-4 are now available to all agencies.   Frequently the Help Desk gets calls from users when their checks don't print. One of the main reasons is that input for one or both of these screens was not entered the night of your check run.  Looking at these two reports either in RMDS or on your printed copy will enable you to discover if you failed to enter information on one of these screens.

Click here to see documentation and sample report for AP-BCC and AP-PCC on the SIG.


 

BD701 Certified and Authorized Report Changes

Several agencies have requestedthat OSC eliminate the "headings only" pages from the BD701 Certified and Authorized reports.   Often these "headings only" pages are for funds which are closed and have had no activity this fiscal year. OSC is placing a new version of the BD701 Certified and Authorized reports into production on Monday, March 30, to help eliminate as many of the "headings only" pages as possible.  The reports in GLPUBLIC that will be affected are:

On Tuesday, March 31, the RMDS versions of the month-end reports will reflect the new code. Please carefully review your reports and notify OSC if you find any problem that you believe may be related to this code change.

 

This is not an April Fool's Day joke!!!!
Effective April 1, 1998, the OSC NCAS Help Desk number will change from 715-HELP to 875-HELP. Please make a note of this change!

We have been informed of a simple way to recover from 'user already logged on at terminal ZDA00000."  When you receive this message on the CICS screen:

 1.  Key in your password again
 2.  Press F12 or PF12

This action will cancel all your CICS session(s) and will continue your current sign-in.  You will not have to call the SIPS Help Desk to cancel your ZDA session as you have been required to in the past.

The message normally occurs when you have an abrupt SIPS disconnect.

NCAS users will have to continue to call the OSC Help Desk when receiving the message "Operator 000000 already signed on" at the NCAS sign-in screen.

If you are in IEOL, you can get back into CICS using the F12 or PF12 key, but you still have to cancelout of IE.


 
 
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