Minutes from the Fiscal Year 1996 Post-Closeout meeting To: "AO - All Administrative Officers" cc: "Michele L O'Meara, Financial Specialist, Reston, VA" Subject: Minutes from the Fiscal Year 1996 Post-Closeout meeting Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" From: "Michele L O'Meara, Financial Specialist, Reston, VA" Date: Thu, 01 May 1997 13:47:11 -0400 Sender: "Michele L O'Meara, Financial Specialist, Reston, VA" The Fiscal Year 1996 Post-Closeout meeting was held Friday, January 31, 1997. Participants included a representative from each Division and OFM Branch Chiefs. The purpose of the Post-Closeout meeting is to discuss what worked well during closeout, what didn't work well, and future enhancements. The action items mentioned during the meeting are listed below: TRAVEL -- The Closeout memo from OFM needs more clarity on split Fiscal Year travel. WRD mentioned the problem WRD had where Travel vouchers were entered under accounting period 97 01 (budget year FY 1996) and then proceeded to liquidate the 4U accrual. All of the accruals were reentered to correct this error. Pat Bushrod mentioned this was due to a date table problem. Unused airline tickets were not sent in for cancellation for a credit to cost centers in time for closeout. OFM is now going to do this on weekly basis. If the GTA airline tape is received from Carlson Travel early enough, the Travel Section usually contacts the Division AO's to notify them not to accrue. Susan Sheely inquired whether this was a problem this year. This remains unchanged. SV's/AUTOMATED STANDARD VOUCHERS -- Kelly mentioned the extra efforts the cost centers have for 4S documents, by entering a 4A (because of the credits) and also a 4S which is put on hold. A hard copy of the 4S documents are given to Mary Robic to approve. 4S documents were deleted in the Suspense table in FFS in November, which meant some of the 4S documents had to be reentered. It was mentioned that the Inter-division SV policy memo needs to be written for the Automation of the 4S/S3 process in FFS. Connie Magaha, WRD will be working on this. PAYROLL -- There were not many comments in this area. There was mention of the FPPS conversion which will be taking place with the 5.1.4 enhancement of FFS installation which is to take place May 17th. There is concern that this date may start slipping and OFM needs to see how the FPPS conversion works. NMD worked with OFM to correct the defaults for map charges. ACCRUED EXPENDITURES -- 4C accruals do not allow credit entries. WRD is having to use 4A as a temporary measure for all credit accruals. The ASC has the request for 4C accruals to allow credits, however, it was mentioned that ASC did not see this as a priority over other changes that need to be made. OFM will contact ASC for an estimate of how much this change will cost. OFM will also look at credit's applied to an RC to coordinate how the transactions will tie together. ON-LINE FFS ACCESS -- OFM to use Web page more for communication of FFS sytem access (for up and down times). Positive comments were made regarding the on-line access schedule and how it was followed without many changes for this closeout. BSS mentioned it was partly due to the new Operating System helped the speed of nightly upload efforts since last closeout. REPORT AVAILABILITY -- It was mentioned that reports are coming out later and later. This was not only directed to the Final 268 and 271's. OFM/BSS will look into what is causing the delay. There are many possibilities that could have caused this. This will be further researched within OFM. It was brought to everyone's attention that if reports are ready on Friday, BSS waits until Monday to send them to the printer because of the reports sitting at the printer over the weekend. This is not a new rule of thumb per BSS. Therefore, this does not affect the overall delay of the reports, but It was mentioned by the Program Offices that this rule shouldn't necessarily apply to closeout because of those who work on the weekend during Closeout. Action will be taken on this issue. It was mentioned there will be a refresher course given for CA Dispatch in the near future. It is mentioned on the "Status Recording" that JCL or batch reports will no longer be used as of next month or possibly before. This is due to the application to System Management Services (SMS). If cost centers are not on CA Dispatch, they will no longer get reports. If you need to get set up on CA Dispatch, contact Ron O'Neill at (703) 648-7255. The Program Offices requested BSS/OPS also send an email or memo informing everyone of this change for those who don't use the "Status Recording" on a normal basis. CLOSEOUT ADJUSTMENTS -- Karen Baker, OFM inquired whether the Program Offices are interested in the PSDX table. OFM is to address the deficiency. When the PSDX table is loaded in September, it affects the PSDP table and Division's are having to use the GLDB table which consumes time. OFM will ask ASC for a fix to this table. If the fixes cannot be made or if the estimate is high, and both tables cannot be used with valid information, the Program Offices requested the PSDX be deleted since it affects the PSDP table. The PSDX is by project, the PSDP is by accounting period. OFM will schedule definite dates for the RDE security profiles and accounting periods change-over for WRD. It was mentioned that there was confusion on the definite scheduling for these change-overs which affected accounting period entries made by the cost centers and by HQ. It was mentioned that RDE documents reviewed by WRD/HQ staff need to be processed as "H" versus "Q". "Q" puts the accruals on-line and would not allow HQ staff to make changes to documents entered by the cost centers, therefore, HQ had to modify the document. OFM stressed for the Program Offices to think about eliminating one of the PCAS distributions. The Bureau will look better and the analysis of the balances will not take as long. This may be dictated externally and the FY 1997 closeout deadlines may come earlier than last year.