PeopleSoft for Faculty

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Introduction
PeopleSoft is the new enterprise information system implemented at the University of Calgary to do all kinds of accounting, reimbursement, etc. It has replaced various paper-based procedures for getting reimbursed for various things, such as Travel Advances, Travel Claims, Professional Expense Reimbursement, and also replaces previous systems such as APEX and Catalyst for ordering goods through the University (via POs). It has also replaced the Payroll system and SIS.

Peoplesoft Implementation was done by Project Emerge. The project has ended and has now been replaced by the PeopleSoft Support unit, which maintains a website with information on PeopleSoft. There was a rush of training sessions in Spring of 2005, which was probably attended by only a minority of faculty. There are ongoing training sessions, in a variety of formats, including drop-in sessions, tutorials, and Breeze presentations. Each summer, just prior to the PER deadline cut-off, special PER training and tutorial sessions are held.

Training and Documentation
There are a number of ways to get introduced to PeopleSoft


 * Register for an online course. These courses are mainly PowerPoint presentations delivered through BlackBoard.  A day after you register for the course, you can log in to BlackBoard and a link to the course you registered for will show up.


 * Look at the User Productivity Kits. These are online presentations that walk you through various tasks, such as entering a travel expense claim or a PER. If you don't use Internet Explorer, use the UPK for Mac.  Faculty will want to look at the UPK for Expenses, mainly.


 * Presentations and Job Aids for Expenses. The Job Aids are nothing but PDF walk-throughs for various activities in PeopleSoft; e.g., the Expenses Quick Reference Guide guide tells you step-by-step exactly what the User Productivity Kit Create an Expense does, except without the screen shots. The PeopleSoft Support website is organized by module, faculty members would mostly be interested in Expenses and PERs and the Faculty Centre for grades processing and class lists in the Student Admin module. Once you're on the PeopleSoft Support website, click on the tab for the module you're interested in, and then Support Documents in the menu on the left hand side to find job aids and guides.

Recommendation for the impatient: Print out the job aid that's relevant to what you want to do, log on to PeopleSoft via the myUofC portal, and try it out, leaving out the bits that don't apply to your particular situation. The software is reasonably easy to use if you're not totally computer-phobic, and the more involved online courses won't tell you anything that's not in the job aid.

Actually using PeopleSoft Expenses
The main change from the previous system&mdash;from the view of a lowly faculty user without a clue about the inner workings of University accounting&mdash;is this: We used to just write down what we want to get reimbursed for and how much money we want to get back (and, if it goes to a research grant, also the account number of the grant)&mdash;someone else would fill in the minor and memo fields and enter it into the University's accounting system. Now we have to do it all ourselves, and specify the exact acounting codes for each line item on an expense. PeopleSoft will enter most of the fields for you, based on your user profile and what Expense Type you enter, but it won't always, and if it doesn't, it will cause a headache for you.

Of course, the courses/UPKs/job aids actually only walk you through an example of, say, how to enter a PER claim, and don't tell you everything you need to know. Be prepared to encounter unhelpful error messages and obscure accounting fields which have to be filled in correctly before a claim can be submitted for approval. You may have received a few emails entitled "PeopleSoft Tips for the Week" via the mailing list for all expense module users (if you have the ability to enter an expense report, you are on this list). If you have deleted them already, they are collected on the PeopleSoft website. Click on Expenses and ePro (or the module for which you would like the tips) and then on Updates & Tips from the left menu.

Expense Types
PeopleSoft has a number of pre-defined expense types. Selecting one of these will set up the Account field properly, and also activate a number of other options. Each expense type has a number of required additional information that you must enter, such as:


 * Location. Used for Accommodation and Air Travel.
 * Preferred Merchant. Used for Accommodation and Air Travel. Annoyingly, you now have to explain every time you fly with an airline other than Air Canada or WestJet.
 * Ticket Number. Yes, you have to find the ticket number for your flights and enter them with your expense report. It's probably listed somewhere on your itinerary.

A list of all the Expense Types with corresponding entry requirements is available in the confusingly titled document Requirements Fields for Expense Types, hidden away on the Materials Management website. This seems to be the only document that tells you what you have to enter for the various expenses. It is not, however, exhaustive.

If you forget to enter some required information for an expense, clicking on "Check for Errors" will bring up a little red flag next to the expense. Clicking on that little flag takes you to the detail screen for that expense, where the required field will be displayed in red.


 * More on below.

Accounting Details
Each line item expense has accounting information associated with it. The accounting information identifies what the expense is (e.g., if it's an expense for air fare or for computing equipment) and also where the money for it comes from (e.g., from your PER allowance or your research grant). You get to these fields either using the "Default Acounting for Report" in the top part of the "Expense Report Entry" screen, or using the "Account Detail" link at the right of the expense line (if you're in the "Overview" tab), or using the "Accounting Detail" link at the bottom of the "Expense Detail" screen for a line item (which will come up if you click on the red error flag next to the expense item).

The Basic Chartfields

 * GL Unit : The business unit for this expense. This will almost always be "UCALG".
 * Fund : The fund the money comes from. This is usually either "10" (central operating) if it's charged to the department or your PER allowance, or "60" (Research) if it's charged to your research account.


 * Note, if you leave the Fund code as 10 instead of changing it to 60 for a Research account, you will not get an error message and the approver may actually approve it, but the claim will not be processed until you phone to ask what the hold-up is. Then they send it back for you to change the number and it goes through the entire approval process a second time.


 * Dept : The department the account is associated with. Usually this will be your department (if the expense is paid by your department or from your research grant), or "63040" for regular faculty PER, or "63060" for sessional staff.
 * Account : Codes what kind of expense this is, e.g., "60020" for materials and supplies, "64030" for travel expenses, etc. PopleSoft will set this for you depending on the Expense Type selected. Note that "account" has nothing to do what we've so far been calling an account (e.g., your Research and Trust account), but rather is a designation of the expense type, sort of like the "Minor" field in the previous system.

You probably don't have to worry about Program and Internal fields.

The Project Fields
The really important information is hidden behind the "Project" link in the chartfield line. If you're charging something to a research grant or to your PER, you'll have to enter information here.


 * Project Business Unit : Is either PER01 for PER, or RESRC for research grants.
 * Project : This is where your account number goes. Click on the magnifying glass icon to get a lookup function, select "Description" in the "Search by:" field, enter your last name in the text field, then click the "Lookup" button. You should get a list of your research grants (if the project business unit is RESRC) starting with RT followed by the research grant account number (Major/Interim) of yore, or it should show the account number of your PER (starting with PE). It won't tell you which account is which (e.g., which is your NSERC grant, which your SSHRC grant, and which is your travel grant from URGC) so you better have a list of your research grants handy if you have more than one grant.  In some cases, the "Description" field will not contain your name: for instance, R&T accounting has set up projects for URGC Visiting Scholar Grants under the city (!) of the visiting scholar.
 * Activity : This is like the Memo code of the old system. It should probably be 00000 for research grants, except if your project has separate activity codes set up, and EXPEN for PER.

You probably don't have to worry about Source Type, Category, and Subcategory, and leave those blank.

How to Enter a PER Claim
Here's a link to the PER Quick Reference Guide on the Business Adminstration Systems (BAS)Support website : http://www.ucalgary.ca/bas/files/bas/ex_submit_per_apr10j.pdf

Contains

1. How to Submit a PER Expense Claim 2. How to view your PER Statement 3. How to delegate access


 * Remember that only PER claims for $250 or above will be processed (unless it's the end of the year).

How to Charge Something to Your Research Grant

 * In the Expense Claim, click "Default Accounting for Report"
 * Set "FUND" to "60". This is important; if you forget to do this, you may not get paid.
 * Click "Project"
 * Set "Project Business Purpose" to "RESRC"
 * Set "Project" to your grant account number (see above)
 * Set "Activity" to "00000" -- The exception to this is if the account had a series of "memo" account numbers associated with it -- Then the "Activity" field will show all these "memo" and allow you to make a choice
 * Click "OK", then "OK" again. The ChartFields for your expenses should now all be set up to get charged to your research grant.

Charging to More Than One Account
It is possible to charge expenses to more than one account.


 * In the Expense Claim, click "Default Accounting for Report"
 * Click "Add Chartfield Line"
 * Proceed as above to enter your account information, and enter the respective percentages in the first column.

You can also change the accounting detail per expense by clicking the little rectangular icon with a magnifying glass. However, it is only possible to charge claims and expenses to accounts with the same "Fund" code (10 or 60), in particular, you can't claim something, say, half from your research grant and half from PER. If you are submitting expenses combining Fund 10 and Fund 60, two separate expense claim must be completed. Cross reference report numbers in the details section and send original receipts with the report with the higher dollar amount and a copy of the receipts with the report with lesser dollar amount.

Other Useful Things to Know

 * Entry Method. By default, the entry method for Expenses is set to "Frequent User". In this mode, the many tabs and columns in the Expense Entry module may be a little overwhelming.   In the mode "Occasional User", PeopleSoft only displays the "Overview" tab for each expense line item, plus a "Details" link. The "Details" link will open up a single page where you can enter all the other required information; you may find this easier than clicking on several tabs to display the various other fields that need entering. To change the Entry Method to "Occasional User", follow these easy instructions:
 * Click on Open "Employee Self-Service" in the navigation bar.
 * Select "Travel and Expense Center".
 * In the "Travel and Expense Center", there's a section called "Profiles and Preferences" with a link "Review/Edit Profile". Click that.
 * There are four tabs at the top of that page, just above your name. Click the one labelled "User Defaults".
 * Now change "Entry Method" to "Occasional User". Click the "Save" button.
 * Make Sure to Save Your Work. If you're in the "Expense Report Entry" and click on anything in the navigation bar on the left, any changes you've made to your expense report will be lost. So be sure to save your report first.


 * Don't Like Dates in US Format? In "My Personalizations", under "Regional Settings", you can change the display/entry format of dates and the like&mdash;e.g., if you'd like to be able to enter expense date the Canadian way DD/MM/YYYY instead of MM/DD/YYYY.


 * Ignore the VAT Instructions. Even though it's a prominent part of the Expense job aid, you don't have to worry about the VAT stuff. The PeopleSoft experts will do that for you.

Travel Expenses
When entering a travel claim, make sure the "Default Location" field is set to the destination of your trip before you enter your expenses.

Air Fare
The expense type for this is "Air Travel". There are some obvious and non-obvious required fields for air fare:


 * Amount Spent ("Overview" tab): The amount you paid for the ticket.
 * Description ("Details" tab): The description of your itinerary, say, "Calgary to London, 2/8-15/8/05" or something.
 * Originating Location ("Location" tab): Where you flew from (probably "CALGARY, Canada")
 * Preferred Merchant ("Merchant" tab): "Air Canada", "WestJet", or blank. Why we have to enter this, noone knows.
 * Non-preferred Merchant ("Merchant" tab): If "Preferred Merchant" is blank, you should list the airline you flew here. Why, noone knows.
 * Ticket Number ("Air/Hotel" tab): The number of your airline ticket. If you're going to fudge this, be inventive. "1234" won't cut it.  The examples in the training documents look like record locators, not ticket numbers, though.  Why this has to be entered, noone knows.
 * Non-preferred Merchant Exception Comment: Here you have to explain why you chose a non-preferred airline. Why, noone knows. Presumably, "Cheaper fare", or something works here.  This field only appears in the "Expense Detail" screen, which you get when clicking on the red flag to correct an error (or via the "Detail" link if you're set up as "Occasional User").

Hotel
The expense type for this is "Accommodation".


 * Amount Spent ("Overview" tab): The amount of your hotel bill.
 * Description ("Details" tab): The description of your itinerary, say, "Chelsea Inn, London, 2/8-15/8/05" or something.
 * Preferred Merchant ("Merchant" tab): Options are a bunch of hotel chains, or blank. Why we have to enter this, noone knows.
 * Non-preferred Merchant ("Merchant" tab): If "Preferred Merchant" is blank, you should give the name of the hotel here. Why, noone knows.
 * Non-preferred Merchant Exception Comment: Here you have to explain why you chose a non-preferred hotel. Why, noone knows. Presumably, "Cheaper rate", or something works here.  This field only appears in the "Expense Detail" screen, which you get when clicking on the red flag to correct an error (or via the "Detail" link if you're set up as "Occasional User").

Per Diems
The expense type for this is "Meals Per Diem - Canadian" or "Meals Per Diem - Non-Canadian", depending on if you're claiming per diems in or outside of Canada. The appropriate rates are pre-filled when you choose this expense type. (They will not be pre-filled if you don't chose your "Default Location" in the expense report header! So enter that first.) However, you need a separate line for each day that you're claiming per diems for.


 * You might think you can enter per diem claims for a range of dates by selecting "Multiple Expenses" from the "Add" menu. This doesn't work&mdash;the per diem amount will be set to 0.00.
 * Instead, enter a single per diem expense, select the checkbox to the left of the line, and then use the "Copy Selected Expenses" function. Make sure the expense you copy is dated before the dates you're copying to (i.e., the first day of your trip), and make sure to check "Include Holidays" and "Include Weekends".

If you claim per diems not for an entire day, you can change the amount you're asking for. The rates are:
 * In Canada:
 * Breakfast $10.00
 * Lunch $12.00
 * Dinner $23.00
 * Outside Canada:
 * Breakfast $14.00
 * Lunch $17.00
 * Dinner $32.00

Cash Advances
Requesting a Travel Advance. To receive a Cash Advance (what used to be known as a "Travel Advance"), you have to enter an Expense Report with a single expense of type Cash Advance, and "Cash Advance" as the "Business Purpose" and in the Report Description field. The expense line for the cash advance must include:


 * The amount of the advance (obviously)
 * Today's date as the date of the expense
 * In the "Description" field the destination, dates of travel (first and last day), as well as the purpose of the trip.

Note that you must type "Cash Advance" in the Report Description field&mdash;only this will trigger payment of an advance. Merely selecting "Cash Advance" from both the "Business Purpose" and the "Expense Type" menus does nothing; the approved advance will be in limbo until you call Accounts Payable to find out what the problem is (they were waiting for expense receipts even though receipts are not required for advances). If you need a description to tell several different cash advances apart, put it in the "Comments" field.

Applying a Travel Advance in an Expense Claim. To apply a Cash Advance you have already received to your travel expense claim, you also use the Cash Advance expense type.


 * You should first find the date and Report ID number of the cash advance that was paid to you. You can do this by selecting "View Reports" in the "Travel and Expense Center", and clicking the "Search" button.  An advance paid before August 2 will show up as an "opening balance".  (Be sure to save your report if you've already started working on it before you navigate to the "View Report" function, or your work will be lost.)
 * Now go back to your expense claim, enter a new expense with type "Cash Advance", enter the date of the advance and the amount paid as a negative number (i.e., if your advance was for $1,000.00, enter "-1000").
 * If you're in "Occasional User" mode, click the "Details" link on that line.  Otherwise, click the "Check for Errors" button at the bottom and then on the little red flag.  You will see a screen asking you to enter a "credit reference"&mdash;enter the Report ID number of the cash advance and click OK.  Click "Return" on the further screen displayed which in all likelihood won't make sense to you and hopefully won't apply.
 * If you've gotten to the credit reference screen by clicking the red flag, you'll notice that it's still there. Click it again, and enter the Report ID of the cash advance again in the "Description" field, e.g., "Cash Advance #2345". If you've gotten to the credit reference screen by clicking the "Detail" link (in "Occasional User" mode, you'll continue on to the Details screen right away).

If your cash advance was less than your travel claim, the amount of the advance will show up as "Employee Credits" and simply reduce the amount due to you. If your cash advance was more than the total amount of your expenses, there's an additional wrinkle. Suppose you have received a cash advance of $2,000 but have only spent $1,200, meaning you owe the University $800. Instead of entering "-2000" and getting a report with a negative balance, you should enter the negative amount of your total expenses (i.e., in our case, "-1200"), to get a $0 balance. In the "Comment" field of the report and, for good measure, in the "Description" field of the cash advance line, say that you are attaching a cheque payable to the University for the difference (i.e., $800). Attach the check to your reciept form.

You might wonder: "Wait. As far as PeopleSoft is concerned, it'll now look as if I got paid an advance of $2,000 for a $1,200 travel claim and pocketed the difference.   Is someone going to record my payment to the University somewhere?" We can only hope&hellip;

Sabbatical Travel
If you are on sabbatical leave and away from Alberta for at least four months, you are eligible for a $2,000 travel allowance. To obtain this allowance, you submit a Cash Advance in PeopleSoft, and then submit an expense claim for the expenses incurred as you would for any other trip. However, you have to change the default accounting information for your advance/expense claim as follows:


 * Set "Fund" to 10
 * Set "Dept" to 63045
 * If you're submitting a claim for an advance, set "Account" to 12230.
 * If you're submitting an expense report after your travel is completed, set "Account" to 55140

Equipment and Supplies
Equipment and supplies, such as: can be claimed as "Materials and Supplies", if you're charging a trust account.
 * computers and computer peripherals, PDAs, printer, etc.,
 * office machines and supplies (copiers, faxes, etc.),
 * lab equipment

If you're charging PER, the expense categories to use are "PER Equipment (<$1,000)", "PER Equipment ($1,000-$4,999)" or "PER Equipment > (+$5,000)", whichever is appropriate.

PER Expenses
There are a few things which you can claim against your Professional Expense Allowance, but ordinarily not against trust accounts (at least not against NSERC and SSHRC grants). Below is a list of some of these, and how to enter them in your PER claim in PeopleSoft:

Furniture
Office furniture can be claimed on PER. Report the purchase amount as "PER Equipment (<$1,000)", "PER Equipment ($1,000-$4,999)" or "PER Equipment > (+$5,000)", whichever is appropriate. You have to enter the merchant in the "Non-preferred" field (get to it via the "Details" link, or by checking for errors and then clicking on the red flag), and describe what you bought in the "Description" field (both fields are mandatory). You can also claim delivery costs this way.

Memberships and Subscriptions
Report membership fees for professional or academic societies and subscriptions to journals as "Prof Dues and Manberships" and report what it's for in the "Description" field.

Meals with Visiting Speakers
If you're having dinner with a visiting speaker, you can claim the cost of your meal on PER. Use the "Travel-Visiting Scientist/Researcher" expense category and, again, explain what it's for in the "Description" field.

Getting other People Paid
NOTE: You cannot use your PER to get other people paid.

Students
To pay Research Assistants, you need to turn in a TP 1 form (under Trust).

If a student has to get reimbursed for expenses such as travel to a conference, however, they have to submit their claim through PeopleSoft as well. To do this, they have to first be granted access. Call the PeopleSoft Support Centre at 220 - 5555 ext 2 and they will ask you a lot of questions and complete the form for you over the phone.

Visitors and other Non-employees
Thankfully, the University does not yet require eminent visiting scholars to register for PeopleSoft and submit their travel expense claims there. Instead, you have to do it for them. Except that you don't do it in PeopleSoft proper, but instead you use a web-based application to print a form that someone else will enter into PeopleSoft for you. Here's how:
 * Go to the Non-employee Reimbursement Form.
 * There should be "Overview", "Detail" and "Merchant" tabs. On some browsers, they won't show up.  However, you'll have to click on those tabs to make a few of the required fields appear.  So if you don't see those tabs, find a computer/browser where they do show up.
 * Fill in the form as you would a PeopleSoft expense claim. Note that this form will not pre-fill exchange rates, per diem rates, various chartfield information such as "Dept ID" and "Account" and "Project," and it does not have any lookup functions. So probably you'll need to open PeopleSoft in a separate window, and pretend to fill in an expense claim for yourself there, just so you can tell what the right account numbers etc. are.
 * Be careful with the "+" and "&times;" buttons. The "+" button adds a new line, but the "&times;" deletes a line without warning.
 * Don't forget to enter the total amount to be charged in the "Amount" field in the "Expense Report Summary and Distribution" field (Click "Recalculate" first to make sure it shows the correct total.)
 * Click the "Print" button at the bottom of the page.
 * If you've made a mistake or left out a required field, you'll get some warning messages. Note that there won't be any red flags that give you a clue as to what you've missed.  Click on the "Detail" tab to make the required fields "Description" appear.
 * If everything is complete, a new window appears. Conveniently (at least in FireFox), the new window does not have any toolbars or a menu, so there's no print button or File > Print menu entry.  Hold down the control key and press "P" to print the page.

Submitting your receipts

 * When you've filled out the online form, print it, sign it, attach receipts (keep copies!), have it signed by your approver (if necessary), then send it to Accounts Payable, or for PER claims, to Rebecca van Ginkel in HR (Admin 202).
 * Wait. If it seems to take an inordinately long time for a cheque to arrive, call  Accounts Payable at (403) 220-5611, or for PER claims, call Rebecca van Ginkel at (403) 220-5887.

Links

 * PeopleSoft Support website


 * myUofC portal


 * Business Operations (formerly Materials Management)


 * PeopleSoft Expense Types


 * Expense Reimbursement Handbook


 * PER Regulations


 * Detailed instructions for submitting PER claims in Faculty of Nursing