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 The former OSF Policy and Procedures Manual has been updated and renamed Statewide Accounting Manual. The new manual is NOW AVAILABLE here.
The manual reflects current policy and may be relied upon. However, until May 31st, the manual is open for comments. You are encouraged to review sections of the manual that are relevant to you and provide comments related to any of the following:
- Guidance that is not clear or wording that is confusing or ambiguous;
- Policies that may be obsolete;
- Policies or procedures for which you may have suggested improvements;
- Words that should be defined in the Glossary;
- Any typographical or other errors.
Comments should be e-mailed to Stephanie.langs@omes.ok.gov. DCAR will carefully consider each comment received. After May 31, any changes will be incorporated and the manual will be finalized.
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PAYROLL
Historically, the due date for
the OMES Forms 11 and 11A has been the 10th of the month following
the month being reported on. In the last OFMA meeting, a request was made
for OMES to consider extending the due date. We have evaluated this
request and have determined that allowing some additional time is reasonable. Due to the increasing complexity of some of the reconciliations,
we are changing the deadline to the 20th of the month. The
Statewide Accounting Manual will be revised to reflect the new deadline. As always, reconciliations on Forms 11 and 11A are required to be completed in
their entirety and submitted to OMES on a monthly basis. Reconciling
differences should be listed and receipts and disbursements should tie to
agency detail.
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Some agencies have been requesting access to run the Treasurer’s Activity Statement on all funds and accounts. The Treasurer’s Activity Statement was created to provide agencies a detail of the transactions that had been posted to the agency’s ASA or Clearing accounts within the Treasurer’s Office. Agencies are required to reconcile their ASA and Clearing accounts to OST and OMES monthly and submit the reconciliation form (Form 11 or 11A) to OMES by the 20th of the month following the month being reported on.
The Treasurer’s Activity Statement was not intended to provide a report on agency’s treasury fund accounts. Those funds are reconciled to OST centrally by OMES.
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House Bill 1107, of the 1st session of the 54th Legislature, 2013,
mandated the payment of the flexible benefit allowance for employees on
biweekly payroll to be credited annually over 24 pay periods. In addition,
benefit deductions for employees on biweekly payroll will now occur over the
same 24 pay periods.
As recently announced by the OMES Human Capital Management Division, this transition will be effective with
the first paycheck of 2015 (pay date of Jan. 9, 2015). This will only affect
state agencies; institutions of Higher Education are not affected. This only affects employees paid on a
biweekly basis (26 pay periods). The transition only includes benefit deductions
for health, vision, dental, life options, disability, health savings accounts
and flexible spending accounts (health care and dependent care).
Other deductions such as retirement, garnishments, child support, taxes
or voluntary payroll deductions (i.e.: banks, employee associations, college
savings plan) will not be affected.
Two months during the year, there will be a third paycheck with no
benefit allowance and no benefit deductions. The third paycheck in these
‘three-payday months’ may be larger or smaller than the previous two checks
that month. Employees may also see a difference in the amount of taxes withheld
for Social Security, Medicare, federal and state thereby increasing or
decreasing the amount of net pay.
The full notification may be found here.
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Any refund for EBD benefits will be processed through the PeopleSoft HCM payroll system. This process will ensure the employee’s payroll record is accurate for federal and state tax reporting purposes.
The following procedures have been established.
The agency must contact the EBD office to request authorization for any benefit refunds.
- Refund requests will be submitted by the agency coordinator to EBD on the Employee Premium Refund Request form.
-
This form can be found on the OMES website.
EBD will send the form back to the agency after making adetermination.
- If disapproved, no refund will be processed by the agency. EBD will provide written notification to the agency stating the reason for disapproval.
- If approved, the agency will process the refund through the HCM payroll system.
The agency must contact the OMES HelpDesk and an Enterprise Business Services (formerly known as CORE) team member will be assigned to provide the proper procedures for processing the refund.
- The refund will be processed on the next regularly scheduled pay run for the agency; a new pay calendar will not be created to process the refund (EBD refunds take up to six weeks to process and completing on the next regularly scheduled pay run will be within their policy).
- Enterprise Business Services (EBS) assistance with the procedures will ensure the refund is correctly input and amounts properly post to either the employee or to the agency.
- Any amount due to the employee will be taxed appropriately, and the employee will receive the net amount.
Any agency issuing refunds without prior approval will be at risk of having issued an improper refund for which the agency must reimburse EBD through a miscellaneous voucher. Also, the agency would be liable to OMES for any additional taxes on the amount paid to the employee.
For any questions regarding these policies or procedures, please contact Lisa Raihl at (405) 521-3258, lisa.raihl@omes.ok.gov or Jean Hayes at (405) 522-6300, jean.hayes@omes.ok.gov.
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Agencies may receive a quarterly statement of taxes due from
the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission (OESC). OMES submits to the OESC
wage and tax information for all agencies. A statement is automatically
generated for taxes due when a file has been processed and no payment has been
posted to the account within 7 days. All tax payments due to the OESC were
timely made as required. However,
payments may not have been fully posted within the 7-day window.
Please
review any statements received and disregard if the statement is for the
previous quarter (1st quarter 2014). The
statement is a result of the timing issue discussed above. If the statement is for an older quarter or
you have any questions, please contact Lisa Raihl at (405) 521-3258, lisa.raihl@omes.ok.gov or Jean Hayes at (405) 522-6300, jean.hayes@omes.ok.gov.
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Agencies need to review the PS Financials Payroll 36
Month Statutory Cancellation Report on a regular basis.
If there is a payroll warrant listed and the
employee is entitled to the funds, please complete the OMES Form 20R and send
to Transaction Processing. This will allow a replacement warrant to be
issued to provide the employees their due pay.
If
there is a payroll warrant listed and the employee is not entitled to the
funds, the issuing agency must notify OMES. (62 O.S. § 34.80)
Notification should include the employee name, warrant number, warrant date,
and amount. The notification must be signed
by an agency approving authority. Please send notification to Transaction
Processing stating that the warrant should not be reissued. In addition, the
amounts must be removed from the employee’s earning record. Please contact Lisa
Raihl at (405) 521-3258, lisa.raihl@omes.ok.gov
or
Jean Hayes at (405) 522-6300, jean.hayes@omes.ok.gov to have this
completed.
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40 O.S. § 165.3a allows employers to provide employees the option of designating a beneficiary for wages and benefits payable upon an employee’s death. There is no requirement for an employer to allow employees to select beneficiaries but agencies may want to consider adopting a policy which allows employees to designate a beneficiary. Providing the option to employees would relieve stress and anxiety after the death of the employee on the family members, etc. Also, agencies would have clear guidance on who is to receive final wage payments and avoid any potential difficulties in determining who gets the payment(s).
This statute does not include any longevity payment that may be due as of the date of death of an employee. 74 O.S. § 840-2.18 (H.2) authorizes any longevity payment to be paid to the decedent’s surviving spouse, or if there is no surviving spouse, to the decedent’s estate.
For more information or sample forms and instructions, please contact Lisa Raihl at (405) 521-3258, lisa.raihl@omes.ok.gov or Jean Hayes at (405) 522-6300, jean.hayes@omes.ok.gov.
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Beginning in 2012, the IRS mandated Box 12 reporting for the
cost of employer-provided health coverage. The W-2 must show the amount in Box
12 with Code DD.
To correctly report the cost of health coverage, all payments made for health
insurance must process through the payroll system. Failure to process through payroll will
result in incorrect reporting on the W-2. For help establishing the
appropriate deduction codes, state agencies should contact the OMES HelpDesk. Assistance will be provided by the Enterprise
Business Services (EBS) HCM Payroll team. For institutions of education, please
ensure payroll file information contains the total cost of health insurance
(employer and employee share).
As a reminder, this reporting to employees is for their
information only. The amount reported is not taxable and is only intended to
inform them of the cost of their health care coverage.
For questions or more information, please contact Lisa Raihl
at (405) 521-3258 or lisa.raihl@omes.ok.gov, or Jean Hayes at (405) 522-6300 or jean.hayes@omes.ok.gov.
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In planning your work for May, it is important to remember
that Memorial Day is Monday May 26, 2014.
OMES policy requires that all payroll transactions and
paperwork be filed with OMES FIVE (5) BUSINESS DAYS prior to the actual pay
date to ensure adequate time for audit and processing. Agency staff should plan
their work accordingly to meet this deadline.
Payrolls
that are received after the deadline are disruptive to the normal process
schedules and put a great burden on all parties involved.
Agencies that do not meet the deadline are increasing the risk that employees are not paid on time when processing payrolls late.
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The schedule for running the FY Combo Code Conversion
process is:
Evening of July 1, 2014 – Department of Human Services & Higher
Ed. This process must be run prior to running the July 15, 2014, payroll.
Evening of July 2, 2014 – Higher Ed Agencies with Bi-Weekly
“A01”. This process must be run prior to running the July 18, 2014,
payroll.
Evening of July 07, 2014 – All Agencies Having Bi-Weekly Payrolls.
This process must be run prior to running ‘B01’ or ‘C01’ payrolls which pay on
the July 25, 2014.
(NOTE: This date includes agencies running both Monthly and Bi-Weekly payrolls.
All supplemental and off-cycle payrolls must be completed and processed to GL
by 5 p.m. on July 3.)
Evenings of July 17 and 18, 2014 – All Monthly Anticipatory Agencies.
Do not begin processing M01 until July 21.
NOTE:
As soon as all On and Off-Cycle payroll processes are completed for the June
pay period, please notify Enterprise Business Services (formerly known as CORE)
by creating a Help Desk case asking for the case to be assigned to the HCM
Payroll group. This will enable the
Enterprise Business Services (EBS) team to try and schedule the agency’s FY
Combo Code Conversion Process earlier.
Questions may be directed to Carol Barton at (405) 522-4371
or carol.barton@omes.ok.gov
or Ed Bejarano at (405) 522-1729 ed.bejarano@omes.ok.gov.
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ACCOUNTING
The next Accounts Payable Report to be converted from Crystal to BI Publisher will be the Misc Warrant Report (OCAP0119). The conversion should occur within the next week, at which time the crystal report will be removed. The query, OCP_AP0119_AP, will support the BI Publisher report; however, the original query, OCP_AP0119, will remain. The column order does differ slightly between the two queries, but both provide the same warrant information with the same sort.
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A few vendors receiving payroll withholding payments have submitted their banking information through the vendor portal. The OCP_PAYROLL_VCHR_STG_VALIDATIO query was recently updated to inform payers which vouchers would build with a vendor location that has banking information. Currently there is not an electronic method to provide these vendors with the detail, so agencies are responsible for providing it to the vendor so payments can be applied appropriately and timely. If the detail can be contained in 70 characters and SSNs can be excluded, include the detail in the Message field on the Voucher Payments page. The Message prints on the Electronic Remittance Advice. If the Message field cannot accommodate the detail, contact the vendor to collaborate on the best way to provide the information and reference the payment.
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Recently there have been several incidences statewide where agencies have created two payments, both knowingly and unknowingly, for a single expenditure. Once a voucher is created, another voucher should not be created again as a means to correct a voucher or to pay a vendor for a lost or stat-cancelled warrant. Vouchers with exceptions should be corrected. Lost warrants can be reissued upon a stop payment request and an affidavit of loss on the OST Stop Payment and Hard Cancel form. Stat-cancelled warrants cancelling within the last 36 months can be reissued upon receipt of an affidavit of loss on the Form 20R.
Duplicate payments often result in one of the payments stat-cancelling. All agencies should be familiar with 62 O.S. § 34.80 regarding the Stat Cancel Fund and the reissuance of warrants. Agency internal controls should include a written invoice ID policy to prevent duplicate vouchers and the month end checklist should include the Month End Outstanding Warrants Report and the AP Statutory Cancellation Report as noted in the December 11, 2013 DCAR Newsletter. Questions regarding voucher exceptions, lost or stat-cancelled payments, an invoice ID policy, or Accounts Payable reports can be emailed to patricia.garcia@omes.ok.gov or steve.wilson@omes.ok.gov.
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ENTERPRISE BUSINESS SERVICES (formerly CORE)
Upgrading to PeopleSoft Financials 9.2 is a little different. Unfortunately, we don't have an install wizard. Our install wizards are OMES-ISD Enterprise Business Services (EBS) technical staff who will spend many hours over the next several months to make the transition as smooth as possible for you -- our users.
If you want to follow along on the progress, Upgrade, your project guide, has a Milestone Map for you to use.
 Step 1: Planning
This first step has been completed and we are off to the next one. What did we learn during Step 1? We learned that we do not use a standard, out-of-the-box copy of PeopleSoft. Over the years we have made a lot of changes and customizations to the system.
So, one of the goals of Step 1 was to do an in-depth comparison and retire as many customizations as possible while still maintaining our requirements. The teams that gathered did a remarkable job and retired 119 customizations! They decided that 115 enhancements would be included in the upgrade and that 19 additional items would be deferred until after the upgrade is completed.
Step 2: Design
Now that the initial planning is complete, we are moving on to the next step. In the figure above, we are in the design phase where we begin the process of putting together a shiny, new 9.2 environment in which EBS staff and consultants will eventually build and test out the new system.
The most exciting part of this step is evaluating all the new features 9.2 has to offer and reconfiguring, or picking the settings, we can provide to our users. Think of it like picking your preferences on Facebook or Pinterest. The new features come with lots of options and this is the first time we get to see them work with our data.
Get a copy of the Milestone Map or take a look at the latest Updates!
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VENDOR MAINTENANCE
Please contact Vendor Maintenance Victoria Baker (405) 522-3093 or Julie Dvorak (405) 522-1749 directly with all requests for
reactivation. Vendor Maintenance will first review account history and advise
reason for inactivation as well as eligibility for activation. To reactivate
vendors in inactive status, the state must have proper documentation on file to
validate the information received historically. Please submit a new Vendor
Payee Form verifying name, tax id number (social security number or federal employer
identification number), address and contact information. To ensure substitute
W9 reporting requirements are met, vendor must identify business or individual
status/type and sign page two of the document. Completed forms should be
emailed to Vendor.form@omes.ok.gov
with explanation of reactivation request.
Inactive vendors are also required to add new banking
information for Electronic Funds Transfer payment, unless an Exemption Request
has been filed and approved with the Office of State Treasurer. Once vendor
account is reactivated, please have vendors visit the Vendor Registration
portal https://www.ok.gov/dcs/vendors2/app/index.php
to register their EFT banking information. Upon completion of the online
process, vendors will receive a follow-up email with an attached Vendor EFT
Change form. This form should be
completed both by the authorized individual(s) for the vendors financial
activity, as well as the vendor's financial institution. The financial institution
should then fax or mail the form to the Office of the State Treasurer for processing
using the attached instructions. Please note, banking cannot be authorized
until form has been received and processed. The form consists of three sections
that must be completed.
Instructions:
1. Section I – Company information to be completed by the
Requestor (an individual authorized by the vendor company).
2. Section II – This section is to be completed and
signed by both a) the Requestor and b) an individual authorized, on behalf of
the vendor company, to open and close bank accounts (Authorized Individual).
Unless the vendor is a sole proprietor or the account is a consumer account
whereby the Requestor is the sole owner of the account, the Authorized
Individual shall be someone different from the Requestor. Once completed and
signed, the form should be forwarded to the vendor’s financial institution.
3. Section III – Financial Institution Information. This
section must be completed and signed by an authorized official of the vendor’s
financial institution. Once completed, the financial institution should fax
this form to the attention of PeopleSoft Vendor Registration, Office of the
State Treasurer, at (405) 521-4994, or mailed to the attention of PeopleSoft
Vendor Registration, Office of the State Treasurer, 2300 N. Lincoln Blvd, Room
217, Oklahoma City, OK 73105. Do not email banking forms.
To ensure timely and accurate processing of payments,
stat cancels and contracts please allow ample time for review and processing of
reactivation and banking.
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