Finance FAQs

General

What is being implemented from CMS?

  • General Ledger / Budget - Track actual revenue and expenditures. Integration for Purchasing, Payables, Receivables, and LCD.
  • Purchasing - Create requisitions and purchase orders.
  • Accounts Payable - Pay vouchers and process claims submissions. Integration with Student Financials from Campus Solutions (CS).
  • Asset Management - Leverages fixed asset inventory and minimizes the cost of tracking physical assets.
  • Receivables - Efficiently process transactions and maintain control over account receivables (non-student related).
  • Billing - Calculate and submit invoices and manage bill cycle processes.

What benefits can we expect from CMS?
CMS Finance system replaces the FRS system and its old architecture. Such obsolete technology is expensive and difficult to maintain. The new system is a pure internet application, unlike FRS Web with just a web look on the front end.  The following are some of the known benefits of CMS Finance version 8.4.

  • The system can be accessed remotely.
  • We are able to integrate CMS’s Asset Management System with the accounting, procurement and shipping modules as one means to better manage resources.
  • Transaction processing time will be reduced.
  • Managers are able to post transactions real-time. In fact, most data will be available real time, compared to the 95% batch data situation we had with FRS.
  • Improved status tracking in all areas of CMS Finance.  We can anticipate more and better reports, better ways to communicate with the campus, and a means to provide managers with more accurate data to better run their divisions.
  • Enhanced reporting capabilities.  We will be able to create standardized reports to allow us to track and analyze budgets and expenditures.
  • The new ChartField structure allows for more flexible financial reporting which would include both summary and detail reporting.
  • Streamlining of business processes.

Finance Coding

Where can I go for more information about the Chart of Accounts?

Please visit the Finance Training & User Guidelines website for a web presentation and further documentation.

What is a combo code and what is it used for?

A Combo Code is a 25-byte(or less) mnemonic representation of a chartfield funding combination.  For example:

Combo Code: 10050-G- -201-5501-601300 
Chartfield string for this combo code is:            
Deptid: 10050
Fund: THEFD
Program: blank
Class: 20001
Project: 55000001
Account: 601300

Where can I find our account codes for entering requisitions into the system?
A listing for each ChartField will be available on the CMS Finance portal page.

How do we go about creating project and class codes? What are some sample uses of these? How are they different?
There will be a ChartField request form on the Accounting Services web-site.  For information about Project and Class ChartFields, please see your Divisional Finance Coordinator. All values for these two ChartFields come from the divisions and are designed to help eliminate the many shadow systems throughout the campus.

Approval Process

If I send the requisition for approval to someone that is out of the office and I want to send it to an alternate, how do I do that?  Can I pull the requisition back and click approval again for a different person?
No. You will need to send an email to the alternate approver yourself. Copy the original approver on the email so that the person knows what happened to the requisition. Follow this link for more information about the approval process.

When I request approval for a requisition from my alternate approver, why does my primary approver see the requisition in his list?
Authorized approvers for the preparer can view all requisitions they have been assigned security to approve. Only the approver selected by the preparer receives an email notification there is a pending requisition requiring review/approval. 

Reports

What reports are available to end users?
See a summary of distributed reports.

How long does it take for financial services to close and how soon following this process will reports be available?
With the implementation of Labor Cost Distribution (LCD), the month-end process initially may take up to a full month due to the new software and business processes. Once all the glitches are ironed out, it should be 1-2 weeks.

User Access

How were users identified for access in the implementation and how is it different after go live?
Users were identified via the Divisional Finance Coordinators. See Contact & Support for a listing of Divisional Finance Coordinators. Follow this link for more information about the approval process.