Action Required – Review and Cleanup of Selected Programs

January 8, 2020

The Controller’s Office requests that department business offices review for and discontinue the use of certain programs. The programs in question include: (a) programs that are being closed from the Oracle conversion and (b) university administrative programs that are incorrectly used on endowment distributions.

For programs incorrectly used on endowment distributions, department business office action is required in January and February so that the Budget Office and Controller’s Office can update YBT and Workday to replace the program for the FY2021 budget and actual distribution.

Programs being closed from the Oracle conversion:

The Chart of Accounts (COA) team has been working with individual departments to clean up and close certain programs that were included in the conversion from Oracle, but do not have an ongoing business use case (or do not meet the definition of program). There are six remaining programs to close, which are scheduled to close no later than the January 2020 month-end. The program names now include the prefix “DNU,” which stands for “do not use:”

  • PG00400 DNU_Program TBD [P1Placeholder] (51)
  • PG00490 DNU_Clinical - YNHH Clinical Program Support (31)
  • PG00707 DNU_Yale Corporation Activities (51)
  • PG00171 DNU_Board of Directors / Governors / Trustees (51)
  • PG01292 DNU_Yale Alumni Magazine (51)
  • PJ006725 DNU_Conversion of Historical Data - bounce/suspense accounts

Actions – to be completed by unit business offices by January 30, 2020:

  1. Discontinue use of programs to enable closure with the January month-end close – for guidance see the COA Change Checklist.
  2. Identify and move any remaining assets, commitments, or actuals balances (at the detailed-COA level). Key reports are linked below.

Administrative programs incorrectly used on endowment distributions:

The Chart of Accounts (COA) team has identified two programs that were improperly applied to endowment distributions during conversion. The Budget Office and Controller’s Office must update YBT and Workday to replace the program for the FY2021 budget and actual distribution. However, unit business offices must provide an appropriate replacement program. Where YBT has identified Yale Designated (YD) accounts using these programs in error, unit business offices should also plan to budget differently for FY2021. The programs in question are:

  • PG00272 Endowment Investment Management (Central) (51) – for use only for endowment principal and other activity managed by the Controller’s Office.
  • PG00363 General University Administration (51) – for use in limited planning units only (i.e., Finance and Business Operations, University General, President, Secretary); no usage by Facilities, Public Safety, and mission-based units such as schools, collections, or Athletics.

Actions:

  1. No later than January 10, 2020, COA will send a list to each impacted Planning Unit detailing the Gifts requiring endowment distribution modification (and any YD accounts also using these programs in error according to YBT). Note that there are 127 gifts across nine planning units.
  2. Unit Business Offices
    1. For Gifts, populate the “New Program” column with the desired program number for FY2021 and return to Bill Craven in the Budget Office at william.craven@yale.edu by February 18, 2020.
    2. For YD, please budget a different program usage in YBT for FY2021.
  3. Bill will work with the YBT team will replace the programs in YBT for the FY2021 budget. He will also share the information with the Gift Accounting Team in the Controller’s Office who will update the Workday Gift record to properly direct future endowment distributions.
  4. Unit Business Offices - Discontinue use of programs no later than July 1, 2020 to ensure proper program usage and alignment of budget/actuals for full FY2021 – for guidance see the COA Change Checklist.

What program to use instead:

Units should select a program that properly reflects the activity being performed. A full list of programs with definitions is posted on the COA website. Program usage must be accurate at the Program Summary level in order to preserve mission-based and functional reporting. In addition, the Business Use Case guide includes a section discussing program usage and specifically addresses program usage for gift income. The following is an excerpt providing suggestions where use of a general program is desired:

… income can be received into general programs that match the high-level programmatic mission:

  • Education - PG00003 Teaching & Instruction (10)
  • Research and Scholarship - PG00032 Research (21)
  • Patient Care - PG00035 Clinical – Patient Care (31)
  • Broad Mission Activities:
    • Collections - PG00007 Collection Management (41)
    • Exhibitions and Performances - PG01659 Exhibitions and Performance – General (42)
    • Community-Focused and Public Service Activities - PG00261 Public Service – General (43)
    • Community-Focused and Public Service Activities - PG01660 Community Focused – General (43)
  • Institutional Administration and Other Support - PG00401 School and Unit Administration – Local (52)

Questions and Report Links:

Please review the following reports to ensure account balances in total, by affected Program / Project, equals zero and no longer appear on in-process transactions, expense reports, journals, spend authorizations, business asset records, or costing and position restriction allocation schedules.

For questions about COA usage, please contact COA@yale.edu. For questions about budget preparation, please contact your Budget Analyst directly. For YBT technical questions, please contact askfinance@yale.edu.