Pellissippi State has designated certain employees to be responsible for monitoring the budget and expense for the different functions and activities of the college. The Banner Finance computer system calls these responsible people Financial Managers. As a Financial Manager you are responsible for monitoring the budget and expense activity for your department/activity to assure that expenses are allowable, reasonable, and within budget. Finance Self Service provides useful information and tools to help you with this responsibility. Budget Queries up to the minute totals for transactions processed and budget available. (Note: transactions will not show until business processing is complete) Encumbrance Queries open encumbrances (purchase orders) View Documents documents processed to the department The Finance system is driven by what we call the FOAPAL.
Understanding a FOAPAL Finance Self Service FOAPAL is the acronym for Fund, Organization, Account, Program, Activity, Location The FOAPAL is the key to Banner Finance. It defines the accounting distribution used on ALL transactions processed in the Finance module. The elements of the FOAPAL are used for classification, budgeting, recording and/or reporting. The FOAPAL as used by Pellissippi State is 20 numbers long. Instead of remembering and typing 20 numbers for every transaction, the college has assigned an Index number. Index is a six-character code that acts as a shortcut to the FOAPAL. You will use this code in the self-service system to query your department activity. This code alone is also used for copier, bookstore, copy paper, toner, print shop and other in-house transactions. This code along with an Account code is all that is required when processing request for payments, petty cash, purchase requisitions, travel requests, etc. Fund is a six-character code that identifies the source of the funding used to pay the expenses. Funds may be unrestricted or restricted, and may be specific to one department or shared by many departments. Fund codes allow separation of college managed funds verses funds managed by outside sources. Organization is a six-character code that identifies a unit of budgetary responsibility and/or departments within the college. These codes make up the operating ledger and are normally used to define who spends the money. Organization codes show which college department or activity, for example Math department, Accounting, Counseling. Each Organization has a financial manager. Account is a five-character code that defines what type of expense or revenue, for example in-state travel or office supplies. A list of all expense codes (7xxxx) is available at http://www.pstcc.edu/finance/documents Program is a three-character code that identifies the function of the expense. The program codes allow reporting by instructional, academic support, student services, institutional support, operation and maintenance, or scholarships. Activity is an optional code that is not being used by the college at this time. Location is an optional code that identifies physical locations of equipment and buildings. Although locations codes are not used as part of the FOAPAL string, they are used in the Fixed Assets module for tracking college inventory. Page 2 of 14
Logging into Banner Finance Self Service STEP ACTION 1 From the Pellissippi State Community College Homepage (http://www.pstcc.edu/) Click on MYPELLISSIPPI Page 3 of 14
STEP ACTION 2 From the mypellissippi login webpage, enter a valid Username and Password. Username (should be the same as your Email/PSCC Domain) Password (should be the same as your Email/PSCC Domain) 3 Once a valid Username and Password has been filled in, click the Login button. Page 4 of 14
STEP ACTION 4 Once inside the mypellissippi Web Portal navigate Click on the Employees Tab (on the left had side) Page 5 of 14
STEP ACTION 5 On the Employees tab locate the box called Log Into Services and click on the Self-Service Banner (SSB) link (which will open a new window) If you see the Security Information Dialog Box, click the Yes button to continue Page 6 of 14
STEP ACTION 6 To navigate to the Finance Section of Banner Self Service, click on either the Finance Tab (located at the top of the page) or the Finance Link (located near the bottom of the page) Page 7 of 14
Performing Budget Queries in Banner Finance Self Service Accounted Budget - budget amount Year to Date - includes transactions to date Commitments - encumbrances plus reservations (purchase orders) Available Balance - budget less expenses and commitment Page 8 of 14
In the above query you can change any attribute to match exactly what you want to view. Standard Parameters: Fiscal year - select desired fiscal year (Example: the fiscal year 2017 is from July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017) Fiscal period - select 14 to include the entire fiscal year and for current totals. If you wanted to see what the balance of an account was at the end of any specific month you can change the Fiscal Period as follows: 01=July, 02=August, etc. Comparison Fiscal year and Comparison Fiscal period should = None (unless you want to run a comparison query (see below) Commitment Type - should be set to All as to pick up everything Chart of Accounts P=Pellissippi, F=Foundation & K=TN Tech Center/Knoxville Index enter your six digit index code here, click Submit Query and the rest of the FOAPAL will automatically be filled in Do not enter the Fund, Org, Account or Program. Only enter the Index code and allow the system to populate the default values Make sure that Include Revenue Accounts is unchecked Click Submit Query again to run your query Page 9 of 14
Comparison Queries: Comparison Fiscal year and Comparison Fiscal period can be used to compare data between fiscal years/periods. (Example: you can compare fiscal period 04 (October) for fiscal year 2014 (July 1, 2013-June 30, 2014) to fiscal period 04 (October) in fiscal year 2013 (July 1, 2012-June 30, 2013). Note: Any query result that is Blue (such as the Organization code circled above) is clickable so that information may be viewed further. If we click on what is circled above we would get something similar to this: And again, the items circled above can be clicked on to reveal more information (see next page) Page 10 of 14
Page 11 of 14 Finance Self Service
As you continue to select items in blue, you will see additional detail. You can continue to the invoice, purchase order, or journal voucher document detail as desired (see below). Caution: Remember that there are monthly transactions that will post to your department (organization code) one time per month, a few days after the end of the month. Such charges are: Motor pool, copy paper, duplicating/copier, postage, print shop, supplies purchased in the bookstore, and computer supplies delivered by the helpdesk, etc. Also, travel expenses are not encumbered. Expenses for travel will not be deducted from your budget until the expense has been paid by the college. Example: Travel request submitted in November for March travel. Air fare, registration, motor pool and/or travel claim expenses will not show until actually paid by the college. o In this example the air fare & the registration may be paid by the college to the appropriate party in December. Therefore these charges would be deducted from your budget in December. o In March the person traveling will file a Travel Claim to be reimbursed for hotel, meals, etc. Therefore these charges will not be deducted from your budget until March. It is strongly advised that all Financial Managers review their month end reports and retain them for future reporting needs. Page 12 of 14
Saving queries as templates: A query can be saved as a template at each step. However, each time a query is saved, only the information entered and queried up until that point is saved. A user can enter a query and save it at each step under a different name, creating several templates, each with its own detail or path. This functionality enables the user to save the query and retrieve it later for quick reference or customizing. Queries may be saved as Shared or Personal. Shared queries can be viewed by ANY other user Personal queries may be accessed only by the User who created them. (see a few examples below). User-Calculated Columns: The detail screen provides the capability to add User Calculated Columns to a query. The user may add, subtract, multiply, divide, or get a percentage of any two Operating Ledger columns, choose where they should be displayed, and name them. These columns may be removed, saved, or added from a query or template at any time. Note: The User Calculated columns cannot be downloaded into Excel because they are just calculations. Page 13 of 14
Downloading Budget Queries to Excel: Users can download budget query data to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and then edit it, according to their reporting needs. After running your query, click Download Selected Ledger Columns (see picture below) When prompted, click Save to download file When prompted, name your file and select the location where you would like it saved; Click Save Open the file using Microsoft Excel and format for your reporting needs Page 14 of 14