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Tidemark Frequently Asked Questions

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Pooled Mapping


Frequently Asked Questions

What is EIFP and How Do I Forecast It?

What it is:

The Endowment Income Funds Pool (EIFP) holds prior year accumulated fund balances from income generated by pure (from donors, not funds functioning as endowment) endowments. Current year payout is excluded from the EIFP payout calculation.  EIFP income posts on object code 45605 (45610 prior to FY21), which rolls up under Investment Income, not Endowment Income.  Therefore, EIFP is not forecast in the Tidemark Endowment Planning process. 

The EIFP policy states that any prior year unspent balances in pure endowment income funds are invested by the university in short-term investments called money market funds.  The resulting earnings from those investments are distributed to the endowments that have balances.

How to Forecast:

A way to forecast this activity is to estimate what your unspent pure endowment balances will be throughout the year.  This will of course depend on your expenses and/or transfers to Operating Budget.  Also, you would need to estimate what the money market rates will be in the upcoming year.  It is quite challenging to guess the direction of interest rates.  That said, they have ranged from over 2% in recent years to almost zero when interest rates are very low. 

Given that both the volume (unspent balances in endowment awards) and the rate (money market rates earned by the university) are constantly changing, there is no systematic way to forecast this revenue. 

One suggestion is to assume that unspent endowment balances will be the same as the prior fiscal year and then compare money market rates now versus over the prior twelve months.  You can review historical money fund rates on Fingate. If the current rates are lower than over the past 12 months, then we suggest reducing the EIFP payout estimate by the same percentage. 

With all this said, EIFP is usually not a large revenue source for budget units.  The policy on EIFP is describedin the Admin Guide 3.3.2.

Why don’t I see my new Endowed Awards in the Endowment Planning application?

The Tidemark Endowment Planning application only includes awards that own shares in the university’s Merged Pool and endowed Pool PTAs.  Furthermore, the Endowment Planning application is only updated monthly, on or about the 15th, with data from the prior month.  As a result, there may be a delay in seeing very new endowed awards that have been set up in Oracle, either because they do not yet own Merged Pool shares or because the monthly Tidemark update has not yet happened.  

Users can confirm whether their award has Merged Pool shares by using the OBI Revenue and Fund Management Reporting dashboard.  On the Home tab, choose Endowment and Donor and run the report for your award and fiscal-year-to date equal to the current month.  The Historical View of Investment Activities section shows if/when shares have been added to the award.  If shares were added more than one month prior to the award, please contact the UBO to troubleshoot why the award is not appearing in Tidemark.

How do Expenditure Types and Object Codes Roll up?

Tidemark uses a single hierarchy for expenditure types and object codes, referred to simply as the object code hierarchy. This hierarchy includes all expenditure and object codes from Oracle, as well as “B” codes used specifically for budgeting. “B” codes are setup as parent codes with groups of oracle codes for a category rolling up to each “B” code.  This allows actuals to be “pooled” to the “B” code level and used for seeding budgets at that level.

The Tidemark hierarchy has many levels of aggregation, which roll up to categories meaningful for budget review.

To see the full hierarchy, go to the 03.Reporting process, and open 201. Con Bud report.

There is a filter to change your object code view from Summary to Detail or All.

You can also open or download the Tidemark Object Code Hierarchy Excel Format to view the full hierarchy.

Which object codes are calculated

Tidemark calculates several object codes used for budgeting. To run this calculation, look for the action called "Calculate All Indirect Costs." This action is available on multiple panels.

Running this action will calculate indirect costs for all PAs and PTAs in your organization (based on the slice on your page). This will apply to your entire budget, not just the data visible on the panel you are on. Once the calculation is complete, you will be able to refresh your page and immediately see the calculated values.

The UBO will run this calculation for the entire university every 2 hours during the day to ensure that data is updated frequently.

The full list of calculated codes is:

CalculationObject CodeDescription
Fringe for Contingent Employees51760FRINGE BENEFITS CONTNGT
Fringe for Overseas Employees51815TAXES BNFTS OVERSEAS ONLY
Fringe for PostDocs51755FRINGE BENEFITS POST DOC
Fringe for RBE51750FRINGE BENEFITS RBE
Fringe for Students51765FRINGE BENEFITS ZERO
Fringe for TAs and RAs51775FRINGE BENEFITS GRAD
Grad Stipend Health Surcharge57640GS HEALTH INS RECOVERY
Tuition Grant Program (TGP)51770FRINGE BENEFITS TGP
ISC for Expenses58915INTERDEPT ISC CHG EXPENDITURES
ISC for Revenue48990INTERDEPT INFRAS-REV CHRG
ISC for Transfers49710ISC ON TRANSFERS
IDC (Indirect Cost for Sponsored Research)56910FACILITIES AND ADMIN CHARGE
ITCC (Converged Communications)58290INTERDEPT CONV COMM/TECHNOLOGY
Sponsored Revenue4100BBDGT SPONSORED REV

You will not be able to manually budget to these codes. They will always be calculated by the system.

The rate for these calculations is available in the “02. Setup and Fund Management” process in the Departmental Assumptions page. Unlike other types of assumptions, the rates for these calculations are set by the UBO, and may not be edited.

In general, the amount budgeted for related expenses is multiplied by the rate to determine the calculated cost. For example:

$ budgeted for RBE salaries * RBE Fringe Rate = 51750

Some calculated codes have additional restrictions based on specific PTAs or Award types. See the Indirect Costs Calculation Matrix for more detailed information. If you have questions, contact the UBO for assistance.

Which PA/PTAs can I see?

Tidemark brings in all PTAs and PAs (Project-Award) from Oracle every night. This includes both active and inactive accounts. If one or more of the segments are closed, “INACTIVE” will appear in the description of the PTA. All PTAs and PAs are available to see prior history, and for current budgeting. PAs and PTAs that are inactive should be reactivated in oracle if they are to be used for budgeting, otherwise, the budget data will be rejected when it is loaded to oracle.

All expenses in Tidemark are planned based on PTAs, and roll up based on the Task Owning Org (TOO). You will be able to see a PTA if you have access to the Task Owning Org (TOO).

All revenue is planned on PAs, and roll up based on the Award Owning Org (AOO). You will be able to see a PA if you have access to the Award Owning Org (AOO).

Transfers are planned as going from a PA to a PTA. These roll up by AOO and TOO respectively.

How can I find my PTAs or PAs?

If you are looking for a specific PAs or PTAs in an entry panel, check to see if the PA/PTA shows up in the Organization page edge filter.  If it does, then set the filter to that PA/PTA and click “Apply”.  The grid should be filtered to display that PA /PTA.  If no data is displayed, then the rows are likely being suppressed because there is no current data or history on the PA/PTA.  This is typical for new PA/PTAs.

To unhide the empty grid rows, click the  “Gear” icon in the lower left gray area of the panel.  This will open the “Customize View” screen.  Set the “Hide Empty Grid Rows” option to “Off” and close the “Customize View” screen.  The missing PTA/PA rows should now be displayed.

If the PA/PTA is not searchable/filterable in the Organization filter page edge, check to make sure the slice and organization filter are set to an org to which the PTA TOO or PA AOO belongs and unhide empty grid rows.  Also check that the other page edge filters such as “Award Type” are not set to filter it out.

If the above remedies do not help contact the UBO for assistance.  If the PTA is recently setup in Oracle it should load to Tidemark by the next day.

 How and Why Would I Unhide Empty Grid Rows in Entry Panels?

Most Tidemark Entry Panels in the Booked Budget Expense and Revenue process (but also in other processes) are designed to suppress rows where no data exists for the PTA and Expenditure Type across multiple scenarios such as Prior Year Actuals, Budgets, Plans, Projections and Forecasts.  The reason for this design is to prevent the user from having to scroll through numerous blank rows when building their current Budget or Forecast.

There are situations, however, when data may need to be entered on blank rows.  The most common situation we see is for new PTAs.  A new PTA, by default, will have no data on any scenario when first added to Tidemark precisely because it is new.  So the Budget will need to be entered from scratch, with no guidance from earlier scenarios.

In this case, the suppressed, blank rows can be unhidden so that data can be entered for the new PTA and Expenditure Types in the current Budget or Forecast scenario using the instructions below.

  1. Begin by using the Organization page edge filter to select the new PTA from the list.  Use the "type ahead" feature to enter the Project or Award number to easily find and select the new PTA in the list. Remove the default value from the Organization page edge once the new PTA is selected then click "APPLY" to filter the results in the grid.  If the new PTA exists in Tidemark it will be selectable in the filter drop-down menu but when the filter is applied, the grid will become blank and display the message, "No Data To Display".
  2. Click the SETTINGS icon on the left, gray toolbar.  The Settings Menu will open.
  1. Under Customize View, change the setting for Hide Empty Grid Rows from On to OFF.
  1. Close the Settings Menu by clicking the X in the top-right corner of the dialog box.
Close Settings Menu

At this point, blank rows for each PTA and Expenditure Type combination along with yellow entry cells should be displayed.  Clicking REFRESH will set the panel back to the default state with empty rows suppressed.  However, once any data is entered and saved for any of these rows, they will no longer be empty or suppressed.

How are my PTAs/PAs sorted?

Anywhere PTAs or PAs are displayed, they are sorted by Org, then by Award, then by Project, then by Task. You may want to use the Organization page edge to limit your list to the lowest level Org which owns the PTA, and then scroll to find it.

How can I budget the salary of someone if I don't own the position, but I pay part of their salary?

Most panels in the Position Planning path are organized based on the org that owns the position in Peoplesoft. If you don't have access to the position that owns the person you would like to budget, you have two options:

  1. Communicate with the department that owns the position you'd like to budget. Ask if they are planning to budget this position in Tidemark. If they are, they will be able to allocate the employee's salary to any PTA in the university, including yours. Once they budget the salary and assign the Labor Distribution for the position you're working on, you will be able to see the LD allocation on the "Approve charges for Positions in another department" panel. Here you can put a "1" in the "Labor Distribution PTA Approved Indicator" column. This will approve the salary to be added to your PTA. If you do not want to coordinate with the position-owning department, or that department is not doing position planning in Tidemark, use the second option.
  2. Budget your expenses as a salary reserve. Go to the "Monthly Reserve Adjustment" panel in Compensation Planning. Click on the itemization icon on the left side of the screen then click on the   "New" button in the lower left corner to create a new itemization. Double-click in each itemization field to select values. In the description or notes field, enter information about the position you are budgeting.   You can enter separate itemizations for each position you would like to budget. These will be aggregated and included in your budget as soon as you click Apply.

How do I clean up the Vacant Positions Picklist?

In Tidemark process 01. Booked Budget - Expense & Revenue, the Plan Vacant Positions panel (on the top row of the process map) may accumulate a long list of vacant positions as employees leave, particularly when Human Resources creates new position numbers rather than using existing position numbers for new hires.

Vacant Positions panel

 

Some Tidemark users have asked if there is a way to clean up the list of Vacant Positions.

Vacant Positions Picklist

These Vacant Positions are populated in Tidemark from a nightly data feed from Peoplesoft.

To remove Vacant Positions from the list, the user will need to provide a list of Vacant Positions and Position Numbers to Human Resources to have them “inactivated”.

Once the positions are inactivated in Peoplesoft, they will no longer appear in the pick list after the next nightly data feed to Tidemark.

Why do my salaries look so low in reports?

Budgeting Salaries using Position Based Budgeting has two components: budgeting the annual salary for all positions and budgeting the labor distribution PTA allocation for all positions.  If either one of these components is missing it will cause salary expenses to be understated.

Also, when positions are budgeted to PTAs where the position owning org (POO) is different from the PTA Task Owning Org (TOO), those need to be approved via the “Approve Labor Distribution Charges from Other Orgs” panel in the 01. Booked Budget: Expense and Revenue process.  This approval is required even when both the POO and TOO roll up to your own authority.  This step is often overlooked and causes salary expense to be understated.

Any line item that requires approval, will need to be re-approved after any change in Salary or LD.  In this case, return to the "Approve Labor Distribution" panel and re-approve.

After the re-approval is done, check the 601 or 603 reports to see that the salary expense has been fully calculated.

Can I undo a seeding action?

There is no way to undo a seeding action to revert back to a prior saved version of your budget. However, if you run another seeding action, it will first clear the results of any prior seeding action, then it will populate based on the criteria of the action selected. There is also an action available on most panels to clear seeding. Be careful when using these actions because they will run based on the current slice and page edges so you may either be seeding or clearing for a larger or smaller population than was intended.

What is a Transfer Source and Destination?

The Transfer “Source” is the PA that is providing funding (where the funds come from). The Transfer “Destination” is the PTA receiving funding (where the funds go to).

In the 02.Booked Budget: Setup and Fund Management process, on the Funding the Budget Matrix panel, the sources are listed as rows while the destinations are columns.

Transfers can be entered into your booked budget 3 different ways:

  1. Funding the Budget Matrix panel: This panel allows you to enter intra-unit transfers, or transfers where you control both the source and destination. The most common example of this is transferring Designated and restricted funds to cover expenses on Operating Budgets.
  2. External Transfers panel: This panel allows you to enter inter-unit transfers, or transfers where you control either the source or destination but not both. Label the side you do not own as ‘External’ to say that it is not a PA/PTA that you own.
  3. TAS – Transfer Administration System: This system allows the creation to 2 sided transfers for both budgeting and future creation in Oracle. Both sides must approve TAS transfers. They are loaded to Tidemark towards the beginning of the booked budget process, and can be adjusted in Tidemark using the External Transfers panel if needed.

Can I upload my budget to Tidemark?

It is possible for the UBO to upload your data to Tidemark.  The upload process is managed via the budget officer so that uploads can be consolidated in the templates for a more efficient process.  Please contact your budget officer to find out if they are allowing your school or department to submit upload files.  If so, complete this ServiceNow request, which includes instructions on how to format and validate your data prior to upload submission.

How is Ending Fund Balance calculated?

Formula:

30001 – Beginning Fund Balance

+ 400RV – Revenues

+ 49001 – Operating Transfers

- 50000 – Total Expenses

+ 49INT – InterUnit Funds Appropriated to Cover Expenses

+ 49300 – Asset Transfers

= ENDFB – Ending Fund Balance

If the Ending Fund Balance doesn’t look correct or reasonable, be sure to check that the Beginning Balance was budgeted correctly, then Expenses, Revenues, and Transfers.

How is my budget spread across fiscal months?

Budget planning is first done at an annual level. Your Annual Adjusted Amount will be spread to the months in the year according to your historical actuals. If there is no history available, your annual adjusted amount will be spread evenly.

You can go to the Monthly Adjustment panel to see and adjust this spread.

How do itemizations work?

Certain panels allow for itemized entries, often using a unit x rate calculation to provide supporting detail. An example is the monthly adjustment panel. In this panel you can select the itemization icon to open the itemization entry panel at the bottom half of the panel. Multiple rows can be entered using itemizations. The total amount for each PTA/PA and object code will be added to the above grid. Notes/explanations entered in itemizations will be retained for future review in the itemization panel only.

See the user guides for each process for screenshots, and a step by step walkthrough of entering itemizations.

How do I get the Adjustment % column to work?

Many panels in Tidemark give you the ability to make a percent or dollar adjustment to values in the rows. When you manually type in an adjustment and hit save, you should see your result automatically calculated. If you've saved a % adjustment, and are not seeing the result, try the following:

  1. Review the column to the left of the Adjustment % column. On most panels, this column is titled "Baseline Amount" and represents your starting amount for a percentage increase or decrease.
  2. If your Baseline Amount is blank, that means that you haven't run an action to “seed” a starting point for your budget. Applying a % adjustment will not have an effect, as there is no starting point for adjustment.
  3. Remove your annual adjustment %, and use the Annual Adjustment Amount to enter the full dollar amount you are trying to budget.

Why isn’t the Dropzone tool working well for me and why are the Dropzone links removed from many reports?

The Dropzone tool is a utility which was created by UBO in 2017 to mitigate some of Tidemark’s shortcomings in exported grids, especially the loss of indentation and number formatting.  Since then, Tidemark has made enhancements to exported grids by offering the “Export with Formats” option, which preserves most formatting.   As a result, the tool is no longer necessary except for certain reports such as the Appendix A report in the Budget Plan process.   Also, because of the recent redesign of many reports, especially in the “03. Reporting” process, the Dropzone tool is no longer compatible.   

Printing functionality in Tidemark has also improved.  Whenever possible, you should simply rely on using the “Export with Formats” option. You’ll get the best printing results if you choose Landscape, Fit to Width, Legal, and Repeat Row and Column Headers.

Why does it look like historical numbers are off on the 231 “Five Year History, with Variances” report?

This report, and a few others, use YTD (year-to-date) time members for selection, where a selection represents the time period starting at the beginning of the financial year (Sep) through the month designated.   So, “2019 May YTD” represents the period spanning Sep 2018 through May 2019.

YTD reports will generally open initially at the YTD month with the most recent actuals.  In the case of the 231 report, which also includes five years of actuals, each of those years will also reflect the same YTD month for that year; the default YTD month will result in “missing” history as a result.

To overcome this and see all of history, change the time page edge to the entire year, e.g. “FY 2019”, and the prior years of history will each show the entire year.

Where can I find year-end variance reports?

Tidemark Variance reports are included in Tidemark 03. Reporting process. There are five reports we suggest to analyze year-end variances and a few additional reports useful for longer trends and detailed analysis, see Variance Reporting Job Aid. Full descriptions of the reports can be found in the Variance Reporting Guide.

  • 204 – Variance by Object Code
  • 205 – Variance by Award Type and Object Code
  • 304 – Variance by Org Tree
  • 305 – Variance by Award Type and Org Tree
  • 231 – 5 Year History with Variances
  • 331 – Org Tree 5 Year History
  • 515 – All PTA Detail and Object Code Detail by Month

 

How Do I Calculate Infrastructure Charges (ISC) on Year-End Reforecast Transfers?

Most Infrastructure Charges (ISC) are calculated for the Booked Budget and Year-End Reforecast (YER) in Tidemark automatically by the Global Calculation.  There is one exception to this rule, however.

The YER Transfers are manually entered using a different "short-hand" method using the Set Beginning Balance panel in the 02. Setup and Fund Management process rather than using the Transfer Entry panels that are only used for Booked Budget.  The YER is not mandatory so when it was designed, its primary purpose was to help budgeters forecast the future year's Booked Budget beginning balance by allowing it to be carried forward from the YER ending balance.  In the original design, the budgeter would enter "Net Transfers" (the net result of transfers in and out).  The YER Transfer entry was later expanded to allow the entry of Transfers In and Out but unfortunately, that was still not enough detail for the system to calculate ISC based on the codes for Transfer OUT from Expendable or Endowment.   See the screenshot below of the Set Beginning Balance panel with an example of $100,000 being Transferred OUT from an Expendable Gift PA.

Since we cannot systematically calculate the ISC on this Expendable Transfer Out in the YER, we have a manual method for budgeters to enter the 8% ISC for a more accurate forecast.  Note that in the screenshot above, the YER ending fund balance of $290,574 which is being carried forward to the Booked Budget Seeded Beginning Fund Balance does not include the 8% or ($8,000) ISC on the $100,000 Transfer Out.

The manual method for entering the ISC on the Transfer Out is to use the ISC Transfer Adjustment panel (also in the Fund Management process).

In the above example, the 8% ISC or ($8,000) on the $100,000 transfer has been entered into the yellow YER cell for code 4971B.   Conversely, we can also see that the system automatically calculated $22,242 in ISC on Transfers for the Booked Budget into code 49710.

Once the YER ISC on Transfers is entered and saved, we can go back to the Set Beginning Balance Panel and note that the YER Ending Fund Balance now reflects a decrease of $8,000 to $282,574 shown in the screenshot below.  

The final step would be to RERUN the ACTION to carry forward the YER Ending Balance to the Booked Budget Beginning Balance.  This ACTION is located at the bottom of the panel.

Where do I make my 2% recovery on ISC charges?

If you have some awards that incur ISC charges at 6% instead of 8%, then you can enter your 2% recovery adjusments manually.  Which panel and code you make the ISC adjustment on depends on what type of ISC charge you are recovering against.  They are all done in the ISC Adjustment panels within the process.

TypePanel NameCharge CodeRecovery Code
RevenueISC Revenue Adjustment4899048904
TransferISC Transfer Adjustment4971049715
ExpensesISC Expense Adjustment5891548902

Note:  Indirect Cost Recovery (IDC) adjustments to Federal and Non-Federal G&C are made in the Booked Budget: Expense and Revenue Process.  

  • Open the appropriate Non-Salary Expense panel (YER or BB Annual or Monthly)
  • Filter Page Edge CB Award Type: Federal or Non-Federal G&C
  • Filter Page Edge Object Code to 56900
  • May need to Unhide Empty Grid Rows using settings icon on left sidebar
  • Enter + or – IDC Adjustment on code 5690B and click SAVE.

What is the Global Calculation for Fringe Benefits?

There is an automated calculation referred to as the "Global Calc" which runs 3 times per day, at 7am, noon and 5pm.  The Global Calc calculates all indirect costs including Fringe Benefits (based on budgeted salary expenses) for certain categories.  These categories include RBE Academic Salaries, RBE Staff Salaries, RA/TAs Salaries, Postdoc, Casual/Temp, etc. 

In addition to Fringe Benefits, the Global Calc also calculates other indirect expenses such as Infrastructure Charges (ISC) on Designated Other External Income, and on Expenses and Transfers Out from Expendable and Endowment Award Types.  Similarly, Indirect Costs (IDC) is calculated on Federal Grants and Contracts.  Also, Fed and Non-Fed G&C revenue is populated to equal expense.

Rates for Fringe, ISC and IDC are all set by the UBO in the Planning Assumptions panel located in the Fund Management process.

It is possible for users to run the Global Calc on-demand at any time for their organization.   The Global Calc appears at the bottom of several entry panels as an "ACTION" that can be run by the user.   There are separate Actions for Year End Reforecast (current year) and Booked Budget (future year) Global Calc which you will find depending on which panel you are on:

YER Calculate All Indirect Costs (found under Actions on Year End Reforecast Entry Panels)
BB Calculate All Indirect Costs  (found under Actions on Booked Budget Entry Panels)

If running the Global Calc manually in the Booked Budget process, please note that you should refresh your entry panel only after the final (5 of 5) calculation has completed.  See screenshot below.

Tidemark screen

How Do I Adjust Fringe Benefits?

Fringe Benefit rates are populated by the University Budget Office for all budget units for each category of fringe (i.e.  RBE, Post-Doc, Contingent, TGP, Grad, etc.).   Tidemark applies these rates to the appropriate salary expenses to calculate fringe benefit expenses whenever all indirect costs are calculated by the system or by the user.  The rates are viewable in the assumptions panel of each process but cannot be changed.  However, occasionally a budget unit may need to make an adjustment to calculated fringe benefits which can be done using the following method.

To view the calculated fringe benefits, use the Review Consolidated Budget report (for Budget Plan) or the 201 – Con Bud by Award Type report (for Booked Budget).  Click the Arrow (>) to the left of the BDGT FRINGE BENEFITS – 51700 line to expand the row to see and review all the individual fringe categories.

201 Report with Budget Fringe Benefits line expanded to show various types of Fringe.

Users can make plus-or-minus adjustments using the code BDGT FRINGE BENEFITS – 5170B which will add to or subtract from the calculated fringe benefits when rolled up to BDGT FRINGE BENEFITS – 51700.  These adjustments are made via the Expense entry panels for the appropriate process.  To do so, open the Budget Plan Expenses panel (Process 0.Budget Plan) or the Compensation Annual Reserve Adjustment panel (Process 01. Booked Budget: Expense and Revenue).   Select code 5170B in the Object Code page edge filter, remove the default value and click the APPLY button.

Use the settings button 

 on the left, gray sidebar menu to change the Hide Empty Grid Rows setting to OFF. 

This will expose all rows for code 5170B for each PTA (Booked Budget) or each Dept/Award Type category (Budget Plan).  Use the yellow Adjustment Amount cells to enter either a plus or minus dollar value adjustment in the appropriate row then click SAVE

                                                     

Once the data is saved, return to the Consolidated Report to see the adjustment and the impact on total Fringe Benefits.

How do I budget for Net Vacation?

Each month, as employees accrue vacation hours, the expense of those vacation hours is debited to the employee’s department and credited to the central Vacation Accrual account.  As employees use vacation hours, the employee is paid for the vacation by debiting the central Vacation Accrual account and crediting the department.   In any given month, the offset of these debits and credits to Vacation Accrual is referred to as Net Vacation (51552) as shown in the screenshot below.

Consolidated Budget report with Net Vacation line expanded to show Vacation Accrual and Vacation Used.

In this typical example, the expenses for Vacation Accrual for Exempt Staff (51556) are nearly constant month-to-month at approximately $200,000.  But the RBE Exempt Vacation Used (51555) fluctuates, with more vacation being used in December for winter break and in the summer months of June through August (highlighted in red).  Note that Net Vacation shows negative expenses in these months whereas all other months Net Vacation is a positive expense as more vacation is accrued than used.

If we look at the total year (highlighted in green) we see that Net Vacation generally will show a positive value as most employees tend not to use all the vacation they accrue for the year.

For budgeting purposes, we recommend comparing the aggregated Net Vacation actuals for the prior years and develop a forecast based on the trend, while considering the impact of any planned increases or decreases to headcount.

What are my Options to Fund Another Unit’s Expenses? (e.g. seed grants, fellowships, etc.)

  1. Transfer funding to another unit (e.g. operating transfers)

When is this appropriate?

When the source unit doesn’t need to track how the money is being spent, but still has the ability to decide how much and when to transfer.

PROS:

  • Source and recipient units know that there is an inherent cap on what can be spent (i.e. the amount of money transferred)

CONS:

  • Source unit has no visibility into how money is being spent
  • Source unit may have a harder time pulling back unused funds

Action – Funding Source Unit

  • Budgeting: use External Funding Transfers Panel in Tidemark
    • Enter actual source PTA; destination would be “external”
    • Transfer type = operating transfer
  • Actuals: use iJournals
    • Transfer specific amount from source PTA to recipient PTA

Action – Recipient Unit

  • Budgeting: use External Funding Transfers Panel in Tidemark
    • Enter actual destination PTA; source would be “external”
    • Transfer type = operating transfer
  • Actuals: use iJournals
    • Provide source unit the appropriate recipient PTA
  1. Interfund appropriation: The funding unit owns award and recipient unit owns task

When is this appropriate?

When the source unit doesn’t need to track how the money is being spent, and allows the recipient more autonomy on managing the expenses.

PROS:

  • Source unit has visibility into the spending being done on the PTA
  • The “transfer” happens automatically as the funds are expended

CONS:

  • Source unit does not have the ability to cap spending
  • Source unit sees a fund appropriation equal to total expenses, without detail

Action – Funding Source Unit

  • Budgeting: use External Funding Transfers Panel in Tidemark
    • Enter actual source PTA; destination would be “external”
    • Transfer type = interfund appropriation
  • Actuals: No action needed
    • Interfund appropriations happen automatically (in Oracle) as expenses are chargedAction – Recipient Unit

Action – Funding Source Unit

  • Budgeting: use External Funding Transfers Panel in Tidemark
    • Enter actual destination PTA; source would be “external”
    • Transfer type = interfund appropriation
  • Actuals: No action needed
    • Interfund appropriations happen automatically (in Oracle) as expenses are charged
  1. Source unit holds all funding and allows recipient to charge to its PTA

When is this appropriate?

When the source unit wants the highest level of control over how funds are being spent.

PROS:

  • Give the source unit high visibility and control over how funds are being spent.

CONS:

  • Greater administrative burden on the source unit.
  • Recipient unit has no visibility into expenses charged to PTA because they do not own the PTA.
  • Recipient unit’s spending will be included in source unit’s spending reports

Action – Funding Source Unit

  • Budgeting: Source unit is responsible for all budgeting
    • Communicate with recipient unit on spending updates
    • No transfer necessary
  • Actuals: Provides PTA to recipient unit

Action – Recipient Unit

  • Budgeting: No action necessary
  • Actuals: Recipient charges expenses to source unit PTA
Transfer TypesTransfer funding to another unitInterfund appropriationPTA is provided to another unit to charge
ExplanationTypically operating transfers between units.The funding unit owns the award and the recipient unit owns the task.The source unit holds all funding and allows the recipient to charge to its PTA.
When is this appropriate?When the source unit doesn’t need to track how the money is being spent, but still has the ability to decide how much and when to transfer.When the source unit doesn’t need to track how the money is being spent, and allows the recipient more autonomy on managing the expenses.When the source unit wants the highest level of control over how funds are being spent. 
PRO
  • Source and recipient units know that there is an inherent cap on what can be spent (i.e. the amount of money transferred)
  • Source unit has visibility into the spending being done on the PTA
  • The “transfer” happens automatically as the funds are expended

 

  • Give the source unit high visibility and control over how funds are being spent.

 

CON
  • Source unit has no visibility into how money is being spent
  • Source unit may have a harder time pulling back unused funds
  • Source unit does not have the ability to cap spending
  • Source unit sees a fund appropriation equal to total expenses, without detail
  • Greater administrative burden on the source unit.
  • Recipient unit has no visibility into expenses charged to PTA because they do not own the PTA.
  • Recipient unit’s spending will be included in source unit’s spending reports
Action – Funding Source Unit
Budgeting

use External Funding Transfers Panel in Tidemark

  • Enter actual source PTA; destination would be “external”
  • Transfer type = operating transfer

use External Funding Transfers Panel in Tidemark

  • Enter actual source PTA; destination would be “external”
  • Transfer type = interfund appropriation
  • Source unit is responsible for all budgeting 
  • Communicate with recipient unit on spending updates
  • No transfer necessary
Actuals

use iJournals

  • Transfer specific amount from source PTA to recipient PTA

No action needed

  • Interfund appropriations happen automatically (in Oracle) as expenses are charged
  • Provides PTA to recipient unit
Action – Recipient Unit
Budgeting

use External Funding Transfers Panel in Tidemark 

  • Enter actual destination PTA; source would be “external”
  • Transfer type = operating transfer

use External Funding Transfers Panel in Tidemark 

  • Enter actual destination PTA; source would be “external”
  • Transfer type = interfund appropriation
No action necessary
Actuals

use iJournals

  • Provide source unit the appropriate recipient PTA

No action needed

  • Interfund appropriations happen automatically (in Oracle) as expenses are charged
Recipient charges expenses to source unit PTA

What are Interunit Fund Appropriations?

Interunit Fund Appropriations are a type of transfer.  We refer to them as “pseudo” transfers because they are generated automatically in Oracle rather than on journal entries.  These appropriations will occur whenever expenses are incurred on a PTA in which the Task Owning Org (TOO) is different from the Award Owning Org (AOO) on the same PTA.  The purpose of the appropriation is to show the expenses being funded to the TOO and decremented from the AOO.  Let’s look at an example.

PTA:  1234567-1-DABCD

ProjectTaskAward
12345671DABCD
POO: Not relevantTOO:  WXYZAOO:  ABCD

Expenses are rolled up to the Task Owning Org: WXYZ

Funding is held in the Award Owning Org:  ABCD

Example $50,000 expenses on task 1.

How Interunit Fund Appropriations appear in reports

In this case, Org ABCD owns the Award (DABCD) and has decided to setup Task 1 so that Org WXYZ could spend on ABCD’s Award (DABCD).   When Org ABCD runs their consolidated reports, they will not see the expenses for Task 1 because those expenses are rolled up to Org WXYZ.   Instead, they will see a negative value under Interunit Fund Appropriations to represent the funding (transfer out) of the expenses to Org WXYZ.  This negative value will reduce the Fund Balance for Org ABCD. 

When Org WXYZ runs their consolidated reports, they will see expenses for Task 1.  They will also see a positive value under Interunit Fund Appropriations to represent the funding (Transfer In) from Org ABCD to cover the local (Org WXYZ) expenses.  There will be $0 net effect to Org WXYZ operations because the expenses for Task 1 are fully funded by the offsetting appropriation.

 

Org ABCD, owns the AWARD

Expense: $0

Interfund Appropriation: ($50,000)

Beg Balance: $200,000

End Balance: $150,000

Org WXYZ, owns the TASK

Expense: $50,000

Interfund Appropriation: $50,000

Beg Balance: $0

End Balance: $0

Inter-Unit vs Inter-Dept

There is a distinction in the reports between inter-unit and inter-department appropriations.  For example, if Org ABCD rolls up to School of Medicine and Org WXYZ rolls up to School of Engineering, then the orgs reside in different budget units and result in an Inter-Unit Fund Appropriation.   In this case, the “Transfer Out” would occur on line 49OUT for Org ABCD and the “Transfer In” for Org WXYZ would occur on line 49INN (highlighted in green on the screenshot below). 

If both orgs ABCD and WXYZ rolled up to the same school, they would reside in the same budget unit so the transfer would be inter-department while still within the same budget unit (intra-unit).  In this case, the “Transfer Out” from Org ABCD would occur on line 499OT and the “Transfer In” for Org WXYZ would occur on line 499IN.

The screenshot below is an example of from the 201 Consolidated report that was run at the Budget Unit level.  The Interunit Fund Appropriations section appears just below Total Expenses.  Note that the inter-department lines (499IN, 499OT highlighted in yellow) cancel each other out completely when rolled up to the total budget unit.

Budget Unit level 201 Consolidated Report showing Interunit Fund Appropriations which appear just below Total Expenses.

Consolidated Budget report showing Interunit Fund Appropriations

Budgeting for Interunit Fund Appropriations

Budget Units are required to budget for inter-unit appropriations.  These transfers are entered on the External Transfers panel in process 02: Setup and Fund Management.

To budget an interunit fund appropriation, use the “External fund type” (highlighted in green below) as the source to show a “Transfer In” to your unit’s PTA (destination) along with the transfer type “Interfund Appropriations”.  This will result in a positive value entered on line 49INN.  To show a “Transfer Out”, use your unit’s PTA as the source and “External fund type” as the destination with the transfer type “Interfund Appropriations”.  This will result in a negative value entered on line 49OUT.

At the Budget Unit level, it is possible to enter Inter-department appropriations in the same manner by entering the specific PTA of each department in the source and destination rather than using “External fund type” (highlighted in yellow).  These will however be booked on the inter-unit codes for budgeting purposes.

External Transfer entry panel

External Transfer Entry panel

Why don’t my numbers in Tidemark match what I am seeing in OBI?

Financial users of Stanford’s systems rightly need to feel confident that the numbers they see in Tidemark are accurate.  To this end, it is important to note that when actuals are loaded into Tidemark each month, there is a rigorous reconciliation to the source system before the data is released for user’s consumption.  However, there are several valid situations that may cause minor, immaterial differences when comparing totals between OBI and Tidemark for any given organization.  Below are some of the most common examples.

  • Award Differences Capital Awards (Awards beginning with PPE) are not included in Tidemark because they are part of the separate Capital Budget, managed by different units.
  • Org Hierarchy Differences Tidemark uses the “Future” org hierarchy based on the coming year anticipated org structure for budgeting.  OBI uses the current Oracle Org structure for reporting actuals.
  • Object Code Hierarchy Differences – Tidemark uses the “Consolidated Budget” hierarchy to roll up Expenditure Types and Revenue Object Codes.  There are some differences in the intermediate category rollups verses the Oracle category 1 through 5 rollups.
  • Timing Differences – Tidemark receives data monthly from Oracle after the fiscal month closes.  OBI reflects data as of the prior day based on the GL date.
  • Capital Expenditures (codes 531xx) – Capital Expenditures (other than code 53195) are included in Tidemark to match GA expenditure statements but are excluded in the GL because they are auto-accounted to code 49190.
  • Fabrications (code 53195) – Fabrications are included in Tidemark to match GA expenditure statements which results in a reduction to Fund Balances.  Fabrications, however, are auto-accounted to Asset Account 16100 in the GL which does not result in a reduction to Fund Balances.

For a complete list of differences between Tidemark, Oracle GA/GL and OBI please see the Tidemark vs OBI Differences Guide

How do I fund Dean's Office Allocations for Departments

This FAQ is for Dean’s or Central Office users.   It describes the entire process for Dept Allocations of which Funding the Allocations is the last step.  Below is a graphical representation of the three-step process within the Fund Management Process Map to identify the panels used in each step.

  1. Dean’s Office creates and enters Dean’s Office Allocations for Departments.

    a. The Allocation is simply a Placeholder for General Funds in the Department

    b. The Allocation does not show up in reports until Funds are Transferred from the Allocation to the specific Operating Budget PTAs to cover their budgeted expenses.

    c.  Below is an example of the Dean’s/VP Office Allocation Panel where the Allocations are entered.  In this example, the Allocations were entered directly into the Adjustment Amount column.

 

             d. Using the Actions at the bottom of the panel, it is possible to SEED the Allocations from the prior year and add cost rise.   There is also an Action to calculate the Fringe for Salary Allocations.

      e. When entering Allocations for the first time, or for new Allocation Orgs or Categories, select ITEMIZATIONS from the left gray toolbar to access the panel which enables these fields to be     populated.  An example of this panel is shown below.   

 

  1. Department Users see their Allocations in the Funding the Budget Matrix and use them as a Source of funds to transfer to cover Operating Budget deficits.  This part of the process is covered in detail in the Booked Budget Overview On-line course and in the Fund Management User Guide as it pertains to all Tidemark users.

 

          a. This creates a placeholder transfer entry in code 49ALL which rolls up under Other Operating Transfers \ Transfers Out – 49100 on the Consolidated Budget reports.

 

           b. Below is an example showing the Department Transfers from Base: Operations and Faculty Salary Allocations to Operating Budget PTAs.

 

 

  1.  After the Departments have transferred ALL their funds from Department Allocations to their Operating Budget PTAs, then the Dean’s Office can “Fund” the transfers.

    a. Funding is done via the “Dean’s VP Funding of Dept Allocations Matrix” panel as shown below.

 

          b.  The Dean’s Office chooses the central Source PTA that will fund all allocations and enters transfers exactly equal to the transfers that the Departments made to their OB PTAs.

          c.  Tidemark then reverses out the 49ALL “placeholder” transfers and creates new Transfers using the actual transfer codes now that both the Source and Destination PTAs are defined.

          d.  As a final check, the Dean’s Office reviews the 201 Consolidated Budget report to make sure 49ALL for the school has been completely reversed and is $0.

         e.  The Budgeted Funded Transfers will now appear in the correct codes under General Funds Transfer \ Non-Base GF Transfer – 49NBase as shown below.

 

Pooled Mapping

In the Budget Officers Pooled Mapping panel, how do I use the award purpose column?

In order to capture all PA/PTAs in the mapping rule, the Award Purpose should be set to All Awards.  If Budget Pool is chosen, it will only map Pool PA/PTAs, not all PTAs that match the criteria selected.

Do I have to use pool PTAs?

Yes.  Sponsored research (Federal G&C, Non-Federal G&C and University Research) are already summarized to “summary members” in Tidemark.  The “summary members” have names like QAUF-Federal G&C and summarize all activity in the Org and Award Type.  But these summary members are not real PTAs in Oracle so they need to be mapped to a Budget Pool PTAs.

Awards for ISC allocation (BYxxx) should not be mapped, so that ISC can be properly recorded. The UBO has entered rules to prevent these from being mapped.

Beyond these rules, it is up to you (or your budget officer) to determine how pooling is used.

Can I change my pooling rules after I set them?

Yes. Pooling rules can be changed at any time and the results of changes in the rules will be reflected in Tidemark the next day. However, once you start budgeting, be careful making changes where budgets have already been entered. Pay special attention to changing rules that involve PTAs used for Labor Distribution or Transfers, as this may impact work that has already been done in your budget.

Why does my budget look like it is in a deficit?

The consolidated budget is setup in the concept of a profit and loss (P&L) income statement.

It includes revenues, transfers and expenses.  The bottom line of the consolidated budget is the surplus or deficit that is generated after subtracting Expenses from Revenues and Transfers.

If you are dealing with a single PTA such as an Operating Budget (which, by definition, only has expenses), its bottom line will be in a negative or deficit balance.  It requires a transfer of funds to cover the deficit and balance the bottom line to $0.

How can I drill into Pooled PTA details?

It is possible in Tidemark to drill into Pooled PTAs to see what data is rolling up to them.

To learn how, please refer to our online training course entitled Tidemark Pooled Budgeting course# UBO-1100-WEB in STARS

Once you have launched the course, select Slide 1.10 "Drilling into Pool Details (in Tidemark)" for a full demonstration.