In this May 2019 issue:
Departments who handle customer credit card information must comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCIDSS). PCI compliance mitigates risk, protects the University from the costs of a breach, and strengthens overall security. When the University complies with the PCIDSS, it not only protects itself, but also its students, employees, alumni and customers.
The requirements for departments include:
Contact Chris Moran at #8785 with any questions.
Starting next month, Facilities Planning and Construction Update meetings will be held every third Thursday of the month. This meeting will be a way for you to keep in touch with any projects happening on campus or space alteration requests you submit. Brooke Hay, Director of Capital Construction, will be leading the meeting along with staff from Facilities.
If you are interested in attending any of the meeting in future, please contact the Facilities office at 865-1700.
With the fiscal year coming to an end in June, please be mindful of the bid requirements listed below:
$10,000 to $150,000 Requires Quotations: Purchases equal to or more than $10,000 and less than $150,000 will be processed on a competitive basis, although in an informal manner – by written quotations from an adequate number of sources, preferably three suppliers.
$150,000 or more Requires Formal Bids: Except as otherwise provided in the purchasing policy, any purchase committing the University to an expenditure of $150,000 or more shall be made to the lowest responsible bidder, taking into consideration the best interests of the University. Contact Scott Benson in Procurement Services for assistance.
Over $400,000 Requires BOR Approval: Formal Board of Regents action for purchases of personal property and/or services is not required except in those cases when the purchase price exceeds $400,000.
Due to the policies listed above, purchases over $5,000 should be processed on a purchase order through eSHOP for review by Procurement Services and Asset Accounting.
If you have any questions or need any assistance, please contact Procurement Services at 308-865-8525.
Loper Dollars make a great gift for a high school graduate who will be attending UNK next fall. Loper Dollars can be used at all campus dining locations, the Nebraskan Welcome Desk, and select copiers and printers. Remember, purchases at campus dining locations using Loper Dollars are discounted 20% automatically! Contact the Finance Office for more information at 8012.
Since February 23, 2015, UNK researchers have been able to provide gift cards as a means of incentive or compensation for research subject’s time and inconvenience as related to IRB approved research. If you are planning a research project and want to compensate/incentivize your participants, there are procedures in place that must be followed to comply with various University and Federal (IRS) laws. Please contact Kim Christensen (8525) or Carrie Stithem (8865) in Procurement and Payment Services for more information.
Request forms, policy and a workflow chart are found in SAPPHIRE in the Business Forms area for UNK in the Accounts Payable Folder>Gift Cards for Research Subjects. The policy is also included here: http://www.unk.edu/about/files/gift-cards-for-research.pdf
All travel expenses, including “Paid by University” expenses, must be entered on the Concur Travel Expense Report. However, if you have NO expenses to be reimbursed to you, a Concur expense report is not to be submitted.
Documentation used for “Paid by University” expenses could be an email confirmation, a screen shot of the registration website payment confirmation, a hotel folio provided at check-out, etc.
When listing airline costs, please remember to include the Travel & Transport (T&T) booking fees that can be found in the cost center that was used to pay for the ticket. Currently, online (Concur tool) booking fees are $5 and if you call a live agent, the fee will be $22. Foreign bookings will require a call with a live agent (800-228-4395) due to the complexity of those reservations, most other reservations can be handled quite efficiently with the Concur booking tool as long as your search parameters are set to search all possible dates/times the traveler is considering.
Essentially all full-time employees and graduate assistants should have access to Concur and the online booking tool through Firefly. If you don’t have access or have other questions on how to complete your travel plans and expenses, please call Payment Services at -8419 or Kim Christensen at -8525
Per the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 signed into federal law on December 22, 2017, employers can no longer exclude from reportable income any moving expenses reimbursed to or paid on behalf of an employee. Also, as of January 1, 2019, the State has removed all meals from the list of eligible expenses. UNK’s revised policy for handling moving expenses will be posted at this link.
Beginning January 19, 2018, the process for department users to ask that a new Vendor be created in the Accounts Payable master vendor file was moved to the new “Vendor Request” form in eSHOP (found in the Special Forms section). This form is also used to request changes to an existing vendor such as address or name change. If any users have not been introduced to the new process or have any questions about the process, please contact Procurement & Payment Services at 8419 or 8525 for assistance.
A reminder that reserving rental cars with Enterprise is fully functional within the booking tool of the Concur Request, Booking & Expense tile in Firefly. A step-by-step instructional document, including information on how to handle fuel for the rental cars and local store contact information, can be found in SAPPHIRE in the Reference Guides section and within the UNK Travel folder or on our University Travel webpage. Reserving cars with this tool creates a weekly invoice to UNK that Payment Services uses to create an internal charge to the department, much like how UNK Motor Pool did in the past. Questions can be directed to Procurement and Payment Services at 8419 or 8525.
Programming is underway so that employee travel that ends by June 30th AND for which expenses are submitted and approved by the Financial Approver through Concur by July 15th will be posted against the FYE 2019 budget, as long as major changes are not needed. This shortened time frame reduces the 60 day deadline for submission of expenses to just 15 days, so please communicate this to your travelers now. If major changes to an expense report are needed requiring our processor to return the trip to the employee and it does not get fixed and returned in a timely manner, expenses may get pushed to Fiscal 2020, therefore submitting expense reports earlier will be better!
In a similar manner, all NON-TRAVEL reimbursement expense reports that have receipts dated June 30th or before must be submitted through Concur by July 15th for them to be considered a FYE 2019 expense. If a report includes receipts dated in June and July, the report will be returned to the employee to separate the July receipts into a new expense report so that those July expenses will post to FYE 2020. The report containing only June expenses will then need to be re-submitted by July 15th in order for our processors to get the report audited and finalized in time for it to automatically be posted to FYE 2019.
This update is good news as it now means that Concur will handle transactions in the same way that SAP TRIP did prior to July, 2018. As always, if there are any questions on how travel or non-travel employee expense reimbursements are going to be handled during our year-end processes, please call Payment Services at -8419
A reminder to fill out a PCard/TCard application form, found in eSHOP’s Special Forms section, when a designated reconciler has left the University or for other reasons is not the primary person responsible for reconciling charges on these cards. The same form is used for new cards and changes to an existing card. Questions can be directed to Kim Christensen in Procurement at -8525
Several reference guides are available in Sapphire to assist you in understanding what happens to surplus budgets at the end of the fiscal year as well as fiscal year closing policies, procedures, dates and deadlines. See Sapphire > Reference Guides > UNK > Finance Office > Fiscal Year End. Please contact Chris Moran at 8785 with any questions.
Employees and Departments/Groups of Employees can be nominated for different awards. The awards are presented monthly during the Staff Senate meetings.
Please consider nominating a staff member or group who has demonstrated excellence. It’s time to show our colleagues how much we appreciate what they do and why we’re so very proud to be Lopers!!
Employee Achievement Awards