Previous SIG News - 2010

With the end of the year approaching, we would like to remind everyone that they need to review the 1099 information for all of their paying entities.  The 1099 reports can be viewed in XPTR.

Due to the inclement weather, the support services staff will be monitoring the system and calls off-site today.  If you call in, you will be directed to our voice mail box.  Please leave a message and one of the support services members will return your call.   We will also be monitoring and processing requests via email.  Please send any requests that you have to the support services email box at osc.support.services@osc.nc.gov and you will receive a reply and assistance.  Thank you for your patience and understanding during this time.

The system close of fiscal year 2010 will begin on Tuesday evening, December 7th. Agencies may see BC journal voucher transactions posted to their companies with an effective date of 07/01/2010 and YEAR END CLOSING ENTRY in the Description 1 field of the documents on Wednesday morning, December 8th.  They may also observe balances on their Wednesday morning reports for account/center 390000-9998.  These balances will be eliminated when the final stage of the prior year close is completed on Wednesday evening, December 8th.  Any agencies that run custom IE reports that use a "prior year closed or open" variable, will need to update their reports or run statements to reflect the closed status of the previous year beginning on Thursday morning, December 9th

Several agencies have reported Purchasing encumbrance entries hitting SBM today due to a Project Company validation error.  OSC has identified the issue and will be correcting these entries today and agencies will see them post correctly tomorrow.  For any questions regarding this issue, please call OSC Support Services at (919) 707-0795.

The modifications to support the Executive Order 4 – NC OpenBook were successfully implemented into the NCAS as of November 1, 2010. 
Please see the communication posted October 26, 2010 for detailed instructions regarding these modifications.  For any questions regarding these modifications, please call OSC Support Services at (919) 707-0795.

This is a follow-up reminder for the upcoming NCAS changes detailed in the below communication from October 14, 2010.  Click the following link to see detailed user procedures that include screenshots of impacted NCAS transaction processing screens. 

NCAS ARRA OpenBoook User Instructions

Click the link to see the full communication that was distributed to agency CFOs and Fiscal contacts.
Upcoming NCAS System Changes

Beginning Thursday October 30th, 2010, the following XPTR reports IN260-5 CYCLE COUNT and IN260-6 CYCLE COUNT AUDIT will be updated with two new lines for each. The two new lines are for Signature 1 / Date and Signature 2 / Date and will show at the end of each cycle count.

Operating Calendars for October – December 2010 have been posted.

Reminder – Vendor Attachment Program Goes Live This Week

In addition to the program details provided in the September 21 update, please note that as part of this implementation Zero Check Printing has been permanently set to ‘Y’ for all agencies.  In the past this has only been turned on at calendar and fiscal year end.  Also, there is now a daily report available in XPTR named MM122-V AP VENDOR ATTACH to help agencies identify these payments.   

MESSAGE FOR NCAS AGENCIES ONLY

Vendor Attachment Program Goes Live This Week

The first businesses impacted by the Vendor Attachment program will receive attachment notices this week. That means businesses that provide services to your agency may have a payment diverted to pay an outstanding tax bill as early as this Thursday, Sept. 23.   

Vendor Attachment is a joint project developed by the Office of the State Controller and the N.C. Department of Revenue in which payments to vendors of state agencies that use the N.C. Accounting System (NCAS) are reviewed against outstanding tax obligations.  When matches are found, payments to the vendors are redirected to pay the tax debts. 

Click here to review the presentation about Vendor Attachment that we used during the information sessions for impacted agencies on Aug. 18-19. 

Attached to this e-mail is a checklist you can use as a reminder about the program (including a phone number for vendors who call with questions about it).  You and your coworkers may choose to print copies of the checklist to keep by your computers or phones. 

Remember these tips and highlights about the program (this information is taken from the checklist):

• Vendor Attachment allows the state to deduct back taxes owed by vendors from state payments to those vendors. 
• The funds are deducted from payments before the payments are sent to the vendors.
• You should refer calls from impacted vendors to NCDOR’s Central Collections Unit at 1-877-919-1819, extension 10053.  These employees are trained to take calls from taxpayers with outstanding tax debts.    

If you have questions, please contact Beth Collins at NCDOR at beth.collins@dornc.com or Amber Young at OSC at amber.young@osc.nc.gov. 

Payroll staff
CMCS staff
Budget staff
Fiscal Staff

All BEACON bi-weekly pay days that occur on the 1st,2nd, or 3rd of the month will be posted to the prior month.   Pay days falling on the 1st, or 2nd will have both the GL entries and the CMCS requisitions dated in the prior month.  Pay days falling on the 3rd will post to GL with an effective date of the last day of the prior month and CMCS requisitions posted in the current month as a “set back” to the prior month.    Please be aware that even though the pay date is in the current month NCAS postings and CMCS requisitions will be dated in the prior month.   Please make sure all applicable personnel are made aware of this notification to ensure your agency has the funds available in the month prior to the actual payroll date.

This will occur next with the Oct. 1, 2010 bi-weekly payroll.

TO:  All BEACON Payroll agencies who have postings to account 531141/531142-Secretary/Council of State Salaries:

A fix has been put in place in BEACON to post the Secretary/Council of state personnel to the correct G/L account  531141/531142.  Starting with the August monthly payroll postings, and DOT Aug 20th payroll postings, these amounts should post correctly and no further JV entries are needed to reclassify these amounts.

Applicable to the following agencies:

Office of the Governor
Office of the Lieutenant Governor
Secretary of State
State Auditor
State Treasurer
Department of Public Instruction
Justice/Attorney General
Agriculture
Labor
Insurance
Administration
Correction
Crime Control and Public Safety
Cultural Resources
Commerce
Environment & Natural Resources
Health and Human Services
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Revenue
Transportation

General Ledger Detail Purge
On Wednesday, August 11th, the OSC purged the General Ledger detail posting entries for FY 2008/2009 from the online system and the agency specific detail ledger (DAPG67) files. After the purge, only GL entries with an effective date of 6/30/09 to the current date are available online through the Posted Entry Query (GL220) screen.  The agency specific detail ledger files contain postings from 07/01/09 through the current date.  FY2008/2009 details have been relocated to the EOY files.

Vendor Attachment Presentation:
The Vendor Attachment Presentation to agencies has been posted under the Other Links section at the following location:
http://www.osc.nc.gov/programs/accounts_receivable.html

General Ledger Detail Purge:
On Wednesday, August 11th, the OSC will purge the General Ledger detail posting entries for FY 2008/2009 from the online system and the agency specific detail ledger (DAPG67) files. After the purge, only GL entries with an effective date of 6/30/09 to the current date will be available online through the Posted Entry Query (GL220) screen. The agency specific detail ledger files will contain postings from 07/01/09 through the current date. FY2008/2009 details will be relocated to the EOY files.

The August 2010 Operating Schedule has been modified.  On Saturday, August 7th there will be an NCAS Cycle at 3:00 pm.  (BC/FC/GL only)

June Month End Certified Report Location:
Fiscal Year 2011 is now open and the NCAS is available for processing transactions.

Reminder: Certified month-end reports for June 29, 2010 will be located in the Systemware report series OSCOP* MOCEY.

Additionally, all the automated cash requisition entries generated from Accounts Payable check payments on June 30 contain an effective date of June 30 in the BC Unfinished Documents List (BC screen 181).  Do not kill and rekey these documents if the totals are correct.  Once the documents are ended, the NCAS will automatically change the effective date from June 30 to June 29 before the transactions process tonight.

All BC journal vouchers that are keyed with a ‘2’ in the third position of the document id with an effective date of June 30 will also have the effective date programmatically changed to June 29.  The only exception to this rule is any document id that contains a ‘23’ in the third and fourth positions. 

Due to system modifications, the Year End Processing schedule has changed.  The OSC will not be processing Saturday August 7, 2010.  Please see Special Hours document under Year End at the following link
http://www.osc.nc.gov/sigdocs/sig_docs/sigDocumentation.html

REMINDER
The NCAS will NOT be available on Thursday, July 1, 2010, for online inquiry or processing. I.E. system availability, NCAS file access, and year-end processing will be restricted to OSC personnel only on that day.
Agencies can print accounts payable checks through TSO on Thursday (July 1). Interface files submitted on Thursday (July 1) will not process until Friday's (July 2) production cycle.

Wednesday, June 30th is the last day to request a check run in fiscal year 2010.  The PCC payment date should be set to June 29.  To process payments for invoices that have a due date of June 30, the NEXT PAY DATE field on the PCC screen should be set to a date later than June 30.

Check payments processed during Wednesday’s production cycle can be printed on Thursday, July 1 and issued after the cash requisitions are approved by Cash Management. NCAS unfinished BC journal vouchers will also be created to record the requisitions, but cannot be posted to NCAS prior to Friday’s production cycle.

All BC documents ended on June 30 with a June effective date should NOT be keyed with a Closed Period Adjustment (CPA indicator) of ‘1’.  The 12th period (June 1 – June 29) is still open and all BC transactions will process correctly without a CPA indicator change.  Any documents keyed June 30 but not ended by 7:00 pm will need a CPA indicator of ‘1’ to post correctly after Wednesday’s production cycle.

Additionally, any transactions that attempt to post on June 30 with a June 30 effective date will have the effective date programmatically changed to June 29. 

Change to the July 2010 Operations Calendar: 
There will be no Special Cycle for DPI on July 5, 2010.

The NCAS will NOT be available on Thursday, July 1, 2010, for online inquiry or processing.  I.E. system availability, NCAS file access, and year-end processing will be restricted to OSC personnel only on that day. 

Agencies can print accounts payable checks through TSO on Thursday (July 1).  Interface files submitted on Thursday (July 1) will not process until Friday’s (July 2) production cycle.

All NCAS functions will resume on Friday, July 2, 2010. Production reports for Wednesday night’s processing will be available through X/PTR.  Printed reports will be distributed on the next business day.  DSS files will be updated and available on Thursday.

The Suspended Batch Validation Errors report will be run on a daily basis for the month of June to provide agencies information about detail line errors in prior year accrual reversal (future dated 06/30) SBM file batches.  The report alerts each agency to corrections or accounting distribution validations/activations that are needed to avoid suspense entries when the batches are posted during the Year Open process.  It is located in Systemware under the report name OSCOP* GL EOY SBM VALIDATE ERROR and will be available beginning May 31.

To:  All BEACON Payroll agencies who have postings to account 531141/531142 - Secretary/Council of State Salaries

Due to the sub group change that was recently implemented the salaries for Secretary/Council of State personnel will post to 531111/531112 instead of 531141/531142 through the payroll interface.  A JV entry will need to be made each month to reclassify this to the correct account, 531141/531142, until further notice.   OSC is working on the correct solution and will notify agencies as soon as possible. 

The following agencies should be making these corrections. 

Office of the Governor
Office of the Lieutenant Governor
Secretary of State
State Auditor
State Treasurer
Department of Public Instruction
Justice/Attorney General
Agriculture
Labor
Insurance
Administration
Correction
Crime Control and Public Safety
Cultural Resources
Commerce
Environment & Natural Resources
Health and Human Services
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Revenue
Transportation

The Operations Calendar for June 2010 has been posted here.

Update of Year End Checklist and Special Processing Hours:
The SIG has been updated with the new "Agency End of Year Calendar & Checklist" for the 2010 fiscal year close.

Also posted on the SIG are the Saturday and other special operating hours for June through October. It is important to note that no client support will be provided on Saturdays and other special processing dates.

The Agency End of Year Calendar & Checklist and the Special Hours sites can be accessed through the SIG or by clicking here:

The Year-End Packages have been updated for 2010.

• April 29, 2010  Memorandum 10-24 
  2010 Year-end Close Package for Primary Government Agencies/Component Units
• April 29, 2010  Memorandum 10-25
  2010 Year-end Close Package for Community Colleges

Fixed Asset (FA) Data Entry Deadline (08/06/2010) and Operations Schedule have been posted under Current Memos

In order to assist agencies with identifying and maintaining all purchase order lines that are either open/partial to either invoicing or receiving. OSC recently added a new report (C-U-PS-OPEN-PO-INV-RECV) to PSPUBLIC in Information Expert (IE). This report displays all PO lines that are not closed to both invoicing and receiving. By identifying any open/partial lines, this report will be a good tool to clean-up any superfluous and outdated PO lines. The report will be especially helpful to those agencies that are currently on NCAS’ Inventory module. By closing to receiving the outdated PO lines, a warehouse will have its On-order quantity in-line with what is expected and needed in the warehouse and allow for proper items planning and forecasting. By closing PO lines that are open/partial to invoicing, the system would unencumber the remaining encumbrance on these lines. This report can be run by the agency/warehouse personnel as frequently as needed. Please let Rokos Isaak or Barbara Perkins know if you have any questions by calling in a ticket to OSC Support Services at 919-707-0795.

Effective immediately for your 2010 reports, the NCAS BD 701, 702, 704, and 725 reports have been modified.  The following revenue accounts have been changed to roll with revenues instead of expenditures.  There will be no need to recertify your reports for previous periods .

434101  Sales & Services – Bad Debt Offset
434102  Sales & Services - Allowance
434201  Hospital and Medical Sales – Bad Debt Offset
435801  Tuition & Fees – Bad Debt Offset
435802  Tuition & Fees – Scholarship Allowance
436202  Noncapital Gifts – Bad Debt Offset
436204  Capital Gifts – Bad Debt Offset

If you are on the NCAS system, these reports have been modified in GLPUBLIC and GLPROD libraries.  If you have customized BD701, 702, 704, and 725 reports in your library, you may need to modify them as well.

The biweekly payroll that is scheduled for April 1, 2010 will be posted to CMCS and NCAS with a March date.  Please be aware that even though the pay date is in April, the requisitions and the NCAS payroll interface entries will be dated in March.   Please make sure all applicable personnel are made aware of this notification to ensure your agency has the funds available in March to cover the April 1, 2010 biweekly payroll.         

Training materials for [SM01] Agency System Management have been revised:

• Complete Book (496 pages)
• Class Materials (206 pages)
• Reference Materials (302 pages)
• Click here for revision information