CALS Business Operations Newsletter |
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Get CBO Help at:
919-515-4226 or cbo_help@ncsu.edu
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COVID-19: CBO Updates Webpage
Keep up-to-date on business operations updates and guidance related to COVID-19 on the CBO Updates – COVID-19 webpage.
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Business Partners Bi-Weekly Meetings
Bi-weekly meetings with primary business partners and HR coordinators are held virtually every other Tuesday to provide the most recent updates regarding Business Operations and Human Resources related topics.
Recordings of each meeting along with the agendas are posted to the CBO Business Partners webpage as they become available. If you have questions regarding these meetings, please contact Molly Bradshaw, Process Efficiency and Training Manager, at mqbradsh@ncsu.edu.
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CBO Knowledge Base Now Accessible Through OIT Knowledge Portal
The CALS Business Operations Knowledge Base has been added to the Office of Information Technology (OIT) Knowledge Portal. This means when you search for something (as a CALS user) you can see CALS-specific content alongside the campus-wide answers to help solve issues. The Knowledge Portal search page also includes filtering options so that users can search and view results specific to a single knowledge base or many. This feature will allow you to view and narrow down results by category or article rating for an improved experience. The knowledge interface also uses predictive intelligence to fill the "Related Articles" in the sidebar of the screen, making it easier to find helpful information.
NOTE: Once on OIT's Service Portal Page, be sure to log in in order to access the CBO's knowledge base. You are logged in if you see your name and picture in the top corner. By not logging in you will be limited to the content you can see.
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Gathering Limits
Effective June 14, gathering limitations have been lifted for all indoor and outdoor settings on campus. We encourage all community members to gather safely, be aware that some individuals may not feel comfortable returning to larger gatherings right away, and be respectful of one another.
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Changes in Travel Restrictions
Effective June 14, there are no restrictions for domestic university-related travel. Anyone traveling out of the state on university business will be required to have a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours prior to leaving for travel, and a separate negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours upon return. However, travelers who were vaccinated on campus or who have voluntarily submitted their vaccination status using the HealthyPack Portal will be exempt from the travel testing requirement. Additional information about how to provide attestation of test results will be forthcoming.
NC State community members planning international university-related travel must continue to submit a travel exception request for review.
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Travel Authorization for Employees
Employees traveling on University business must have written prior approval from the department head or their designee to qualify for reimbursement of overnight travel costs or meal costs when traveling overnight. Travel Authorization can be done through the Travel center, which can be found at MyPack Portal: North Carolina StateUniversity.
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Travel Authorization for Non Employees
Travel by non-employees must be agreed to in advance by the traveler and the department head or designee as to services to be provided by the traveler and the travel expense commitment made by the department. This is accomplished by a personal service contract, e-mail or a letter explaining the service and commitment, or by using the Non-Employee Travel Authorization Form (AP104). Students and non-resident aliens must use the AP104 for travel authorization purposes. When completing form AP104, the payee’s vendor number should be provided. If no vendor number is available, please request a vendor number using the instructions provided in the Vendor Center Training Manual. Non-employees are subject to the same travel policies as are university employees, including statutory subsistence allowances.
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Account Receivables- Drop off
You may resume placing your deposits in the CBO Accounts Receivable deposit box outside of Room G11 (ground floor). The doors are unlocked at 8 a.m. and locked at 5 p.m. For cash deposits, the preference is for them to be hand-delivered. This allows us to count the funds with you and provide you a receipt. If you must drop off the deposit outside of hours of in-person coverage, please ensure you have a second person count and affirm the amount you write on the deposit slip.
Please ensure your deposits include the following:
- Provide the deposit slip and check/cash, and supporting documentation to include when/if you have an excel sheet with multiple checks listed and their amounts (i.e. Supplemental form). Complete all fields on the deposit slip.
- Provide ONE* copy of your deposit of all documentation provided. Remember to redact the checking account number and routing number check on the copy by covering the information with paper/post-it when making your copy.
- Please include a campus box addressed envelope with each deposit to receive your receipt via interoffice mail.
*Only one copy of your deposit documentation is needed
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Accounts Payable Does Not Hold Invoices
When submitting invoices to ServiceNow, the Business Services Accounts Payable team does not hold invoices or approvals. If you submit a voucher/invoice request, once we have everything needed the request will be submitted for approval and payment. For example, if you have a stipend memo that you submit into ServiceNow at the beginning of the month, but do not want the stipend to pay out until the end of the month, then you need to hold onto the completed stipend form and submit it closer to when you would like it paid.
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Conference/Meeting Registration Charge On A PCard
When interested in attending a conference or meeting and a registration fee is being paid on a PCard, the non-NCSU Association may give you the option to attend in-person or virtual. If you are going to attend the meeting virtually, please include that as part of your business purpose. If you are planning to attend and/or considering attending in person and the travel is overnight, please submit a Travel Authorization (for employee(s)) or secure the signed AP104 (non-employee(s)) as supporting documentation with your detailed receipt when uploading the documentation to the PCard Center. Please see the PCard Cardholder Manual (page 24) and the Travel Manual (page 10).
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New Supplier Information Management Platform
Supplier Onboarding and Information Management is moving from Accounts Payable to Procurement & Business Services. While in previous years departments would collect sensitive supplier information, which was used to create and update supplier accounts into the Financial System, this process presented a security risk, both to the supplier and to the university.
The Supplier Onboarding Team will initiate invites to select suppliers during the soft launch of the platform starting July 13. If suppliers contact you to verify the legitimacy of the email invite, please reassure them that this is NC State’s new supplier onboarding process and direct them to the Supplier Information Manual for Vendors.
Once the platform is launched campus-wide in early to mid-August, departments will be able to initiate these invites. Stay tuned for more information.
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Purchase Order (PO) Invoice Process Update
Starting July 1, 2021, the CBO would like to encourage you to submit your PO invoices to the CBO for processing. A new form for PO invoices will be available in ServiceNow to help with ensuring a smooth & consistent process. This form is only to be used for EXISTING PO’s. If you did not get a PO prior to purchasing goods or services over $5,000, that would be a confirming order and needs to be submitted via the Requisition Request form in ServiceNow.
If you have any questions on how to submit your PO invoices into ServiceNow, please contact the CBO helpdesk at 919-515-4226 or email CBO_help@ncsu.edu.
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Updated Forms from University AP
Recently, University AP made modifications to some of their forms. The CALS CBO Documents & Forms page has been updated to reflect the most recent versions.
Direct links to the forms that were updated are listed below:
Please be sure to use the current versions going forward, as using an outdated version may result in push back from University AP.
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Confirming Orders
Confirming Orders are purchase orders that are issued AFTER purchases above $5,000, including shipping charges, and that have been received by employees. These orders are normally unauthorized purchases and are not allowed because all purchase orders should be issued BEFORE goods or services are received.
There are times when Confirming Orders are allowed, but Procurement Services MUST be notified PRIOR to submitting a Confirming Order. An example of when a Confirming Order is allowed is an emergency repair of equipment that causes a research project or departmental process to stop.
Requisitions that are processed as Confirming Orders must include an explanation memo from the Requester explaining why the correct University process was not followed and how their department’s business processes will be changed so this does not happen again.
Requisitions that are submitted without the required documentation will be denied and sent back to the department. Once the proper documentation is attached to the requisition, it can then be re-routed for approval by the department, college, and Procurement Services.
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PCard Deadlines
Please take a moment to review the deadlines and reminders below to help ensure PCard policies and procedures are being followed and transactions are processed in a timely manner.
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July Billing Cycle (Past Billing Cycle)
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The July billing cycle (June 19 - July 20) statement deadline is 5 p.m. on August 20.
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To allow cardholders and supervisors adequate time for approval, reconcilers will approve statements by August 6 unless additional information is required.
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If additional information is required in order to approve a statement, cardholders will receive notification by July 27 from cals_cbo_pcard@ncsu.edu. Please be on the lookout for these communications.
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Additionally, cardholders who did not have their receipts uploaded for this billing cycle into the PCard Center as of 3:30 p.m. on July 21 would be required to submit a JV request via ServiceNow if the transaction was not charged to the appropriate project.
August Billing Cycle (Current Billing Cycle)
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The reconciliation deadline for the August billing cycle (July 21 - August 20) is August 24. However, in order to guarantee reconciliation of transactions, receipts should be uploaded by 3:30 p.m. on August 23.
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Anything uploaded after the August 23 deadline will be reconciled for this billing cycle only if time allows and the cardholder will be responsible for submitting any JV requests via ServiceNow if necessary.
As a reminder, to ensure deadlines are met, cardholders should do the following:
- Upload receipts within 1-3 days of the transaction date and avoid uploading all receipts the day before or on the day of the reconciliation deadline.
- Be sure receipts have written on them the project phase to be charged, a detailed business purpose, and the travel authorization number (if applicable).
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Grant Close-out Emails to Include Deadlines
As we continue to prepare for the go live date of the new process which will set ledger 5 projects, whose final financial reports have been provided to Sponsors, to “pending” we are continuing to revisit our current close-out processes. Last month we discussed the Grant Tracking Quarterly Financial Summaries. This month PIs will start to see dates included in their close-out notification emails related to Salary Distribution Change deadlines, PCard deadlines, JV deadlines, etc. The purpose of these dates is to provide the information needed to request/process any reconciling items prior to or as part of the close-out process. Please ensure you are continuing to work with your Post Award Consultants and Departmental Contacts to provide all necessary reconciling items and successfully close-out the grants by the University C&G deadlines. Failure to do so may result in expenses the PI will need to cover with non-ledger 5 projects. Please reach out to your Post Award Consultant with any questions. The Who Manages My Grant link will allow you to look up your Post Award Consultant, who is the same individual providing your Quarterly reports. Please feel free to also reach out to Post Award Manager, Shirley Patterson at ssrichp@ncsu.edu.
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Deadline - September 15th to Transition to Login.Gov from eRACommons
Since June of this year, individuals with eRACommons User Accounts have been receiving notifications to set up their “login.gov” credentials. As of September 15, 2021, you will have to utilize this new credential to access eRA Commons, Internet Assisted Review (IAR) and ASSIST. Please see additional information and steps below:
Why the change? Using login.gov will add two-factor authentication, making your eRA account much more secure!
Will this change how I log into eRA systems? Once you associate your eRA account with your login.gov account, the next time you go to the eRA login screen you will simply use the login.gov link and enter your new login.gov account credentials.
Remember, after September 15, 2021, you will be required to only use your login.gov account, and when this happens, you will no longer be able to log in using your eRA account credentials or your InCommon Federated account credentials.
What do I need to do? It’s a simple, one-time, three-step process to associate your eRA account with your login.gov account. Just go to the eRA Commons home screen, click on LOGIN.GOV, and follow the on-screen prompts.
(Our cheat sheet provides detailed steps and screenshots so you can see how easy it really is!).
For those who currently use InCommon Federated account credentials to log in to eRA Commons, please note that you may not be able to continue to use those account credentials unless your institution implements support for two-factor authentication.
NIH is working with the InCommon Federation, the organization that coordinates federated authentication across universities/institutions, to implement support for the two-factor authentication requirement by or before September 15, 2021.
However, it will be dependent upon each institution that participates in the InCommon Federation to implement the necessary support and to express that via its federated login system.
If your institution does not implement the needed two-factor authentication support by the deadline, you will be unable to use your InCommon Federated credentials after September 15, 2021.
Additional Tips
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If you already have an eRA Commons account, make sure your Commons account is active and you know your password before you begin the process to associate your login.gov account with your Commons account.
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If you need to reset your eRA account password, please do this first by using the Forgot Password/Unlock Account? link on the main Commons home screen.
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Select the login.gov login option on the eRA Commons home screen to begin the process. Do not go straight to login.gov to create your account.
Resources
Help
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NSF Publishes Revised Version of the NSF Application Guide
Please see the below communication from NSF Policy Office:
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has published a revised version of the NSF Grants.gov Application Guide (NSF 21-084). Overall, the Guide has been updated to align with the changes to NSF’s Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF 22-1). The Guide will be effective for applications submitted (via Grants.gov) or due, on or after October 4, 2021.
Best,
Samantha
Samantha Brewton Hunter
Acting Head, Policy Office
Division of Institution & Award Support
National Science Foundation
Email: policy@nsf.gov
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New- CALS Librarian Support
Please see below information from the Ag & Life Sciences Librarians:
NC State University Libraries can support your research and teaching. Our names are Tisha Mentnech, Hillary Fox, Kristy Borda, and Danica Lewis and we are your subject librarians for CALS. We are a part of a team that supports research and teaching for all of CALS, and we look forward to working with you.
As you plan your research projects, classes and other fall activities, please don't hesitate to reach out to us for assistance. While not an exhaustive list, some common research and teaching aspects we can help with include:
Some additional information that might be of interest:
We would appreciate the opportunity to learn more about your work and to answer any questions you may have about our collections and services.
Cheers,
Ag & Life Sciences Librarians
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