Business and Financial Services News

UC Merced Staff to Lead Discussion Group at Annual Research Administrators Meeting

Representatives from UC Merced’s Office of Research and Contracts and Grants Accounting will attend the National Council of University Research Administrators' (NCURA) annual meeting next month and lead a discussion group about the campus’s research administration process.

Autumn Salazar, Susan Carter and Thea Vicari will lead a presentation titled “After the Peer Reviews: What Now?” The trio will provide an overview of how UC Merced assessed and redesigned the campuswide research administration model, moving from a centralized model to a school-based model aligned with research-development services.

Salazar submitted an abstract with the goal of reaching audiences interested in both pre-award and post-award processes. 

The UC Merced group’s presentation will occur on day two of the conference, scheduled March 13-15 in New Orleans. A description of the session is posted online on page 20 of an electronic version of the conference agenda. Questions or comments about the upcoming presentation can be emailed to cga@ucmerced.edu.

For a quick report, email BFS Support

Business and Financial Services (BFS) processed thousands of invoices last year, adding to a heap of data growing higher and wider each year. This information has the potential to help each department complete day-to-day operations and gain insight for future planning; but with so much data, how does one increase productivity and decrease frustration?

Easy: Just send an email to BFS Support.

By way of Administrative Computing and Systems (ACS), BFS owns and operates many of the backend systems created to store and analyze financial transactions. ACS mines and reports on this wealth of information, and the department’s full-fledged Reporting Services can save time and avoid problems.

Reporting Services is the design and delivery of financial information culled from multiple databases and financial services sites. Presentation of this information, as detailed by the subject matter expert, is presented for analysis through an ad hoc report request (via the touch of the button or periodically through electronic delivery systems), email, news and dashboard feeds.

ACS will work with you to design, develop, test and report information your preferred way. Features of the reporting services ACS offers include:

• Fully customized reports and specifications 
• Expert assistance 
• Power tools for pulling your data 
• Delivered by button or at a predetermined time 
• Delivered in your desired format (pdf, xls, doc, rtf, html, xml, etc.)
• Secured delivery using IT’s LDAP

To request more information or to subscribe to ACS Reporting Services, please email bfssupport@ucmerced.edu.

Dell Class Action Settlement Claim Forms

The Office of the President has issued a notice regarding claim forms issued for a Dell Class Action Settlement with refunds due to campuses. The notice is being sent to faculty and staff  because claim forms are being sent to individuals as well as campus departments.  

“A number of campus departments and employees have recently received class action notices in the case of Mohan, et al. v. Dell Inc., et al., Case Nos. CGC 03-419192; CJC-05-00442 (San Francisco Superior Court and hereafter “Dell Settlement”). This class action provides a refund for incorrectly paid sales or use taxes on the purchase of certain computer hardware service contracts sold by Dell between April 8, 1999 and June 30, 2008. What is unusual about the Dell Settlement is that it requires that claims be filed  electronically by May 29, and the individual notices include a password, a Dell Claim number assigned to the person to whom the notice is addressed and a pre-calculated “tax overpayment” which is due to the claimant.

Because some refund amounts are quite small and the process of electronically filing a claim can be cumbersome for those not familiar with the Dell website, Eric Stevens, IT commodity manager for the UCOP’s Procurement Services department, has agreed to file any claims email to him at erice.stevens@ucop.edu as a PDF. Payments will be sent to the address on the notice provided to Stevens.

Claim form examples can be viewed on the BFS News site. Contact Eric Stevens at eric.stevens@ucop.edu or 510-987-0762 with questions. Karen Meade of UC Merced’s Purchasing department can also be contacted with questions via email or phone, 228-4611.

Upcoming Meetings and Training

• Join the monthly AO/MSO Meetings held on the third Tuesday of every month. The next meeting is from 10:45 a.m. to noon Feb. 19 in KL 232. Come and hear about the latest campus updates, requirements, training and support information.
• Purchasing training and the Full Accounting Units (FAU) course are scheduled Feb. 19 in the Mondo building. Both are prerequisites to CatBuy training, but are informative and open to anyone interested. Visit the training website for more information.
• CatBuy/BruinBuy training gives attendees a hands-on overview of how to use UC Merced’s purchasing system. Details about the Feb. 20 is on the training website.
• Visit training.ucmerced.edu to explore other upcoming opportunities for classes designed to help you with CatBuy, SharePoint and other systems and protocols used on the job.

In-Person Payroll Assistance 

Every Friday, a payroll expert is stationed in KL 201 until 5 p.m. to meet and discuss employee payroll concerns without making a formal appointment. Payroll-related questions may also be directed to the Payroll department by calling 228-2729 or emailing payroll@ucmerced.edu.