FAST FINANCE REPORTING TRAINING NOTES

FAST FINANCE REPORTING TRAINING NOTES FAST version 3.6 Prepared by Financial Services December 2010

Table of Contents Introduction... 1 About FAST Finance Reporting... 1 How to Apply for FAST Finance Reporting Access... 2 Logging into FAST Finance Reporting... 3 Changing Your Password in FAST... 6 FAST Finance Reporting Support... 7 Download to Excel or Adobe Acrobat... 8 How to Query for an Invoice... 11 How to Query for a Document or Document Type... 12 Document Query... 12 Document Type Query... 13 How to View Outstanding Purchase Orders and Requisitions... 15 How to Use FAST to Monitor the Financial Status in Your Areas of Responsibility... 16 How to Check Current Operating or Capital Budget Available... 16 How to Check Current Funds Available for Special Purpose or Research Funds... 20 How to View Payroll Details... 23 Using the Operating Statement to View Detailed Payroll Information... 24 Using Current Year Actuals by Position to View Detailed Payroll Information... 27 Using Current Year Budget by Position to View Detailed Payroll Information... 30

Introduction About FAST Finance Reporting FAST (FAST Administration Support Tool) by Millennium Computer Systems is a suite of tools developed specifically for the higher education market. FAST provides webbased reporting that can be accessed wherever there is internet access. FAST Finance Reporting was the first module developed in this suite. It provides selfservice decentralized access to financial information in order to help users monitor their financial/budget status. Information can also be downloaded into Excel or Adobe Acrobat to enable users to further analyze their financial information in order to make better decisions. Information is downloaded on a daily overnight basis from both the Banner Finance and Banner Payroll modules into the FAST database. Some of the key features of FAST Finance Reporting are: financial reports that will allow you to drill down to transaction details and payroll details reports summarized by any field in the Chart of Accounts, and at any level, including drill down/roll up capability of organization details to and from institutional/divisional/ departmental levels flexible date parameters that allow queries on information within a date range or a specific monthly period (not only limited to current year-to-date information or prior fiscal information as at year-end) flexible data parameters that allow queries on any fund/organization/account/ program/activity code and/or combination as long as you have been granted access comparative and trend reports query on documents and document types query on invoices query on transaction details FAST utilizes integrated security to ensure that users only see the reports and information to which they have been granted access. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 1

How to Apply for FAST Finance Reporting Access 1. All new account requests should be made directly by e-mail to Financial Services at Financial.Reporting@kpu.ca. Requests should include: user s first name and last name employee ID Banner login ID if user already has a Banner account access required: fund(s) organization(s) access to salary information (Y or N) Notes: Granting salary access in FAST allows users to view salary account balances and payroll details (i.e., breakdown of salary account balances by person, earning type and amounts). If no salary access is granted, the user will not be able to view salary accounts (6XXX) and will not have the full budget/financial picture if salary budgets exist in, or salaries were charged to, the fund(s)/org(s) the user has access to. Salary access in FAST cannot be differentiated by specific funds and orgs. Whatever salary access is determined for a user, that access will apply to all funds and orgs the individual has access to. 2. Financial Services will have to confirm with the applicable Dean/Director or designate that the user should be granted access for the requested fund, organization and payroll information before the request will be processed. 3. Once the request has been approved, the user will be contacted by e-mail: If the user does not already have a Banner login ID, IET will send the user a preliminary e-mail when the first stage of set up has been completed. The e-mail will include the user s login ID and a temporary password. The user will need this information to log in to FAST after receiving a second e-mail from Financial Services when all stages of the set-up is finished. Keep e-mail for future reference. If the user already has a Banner login ID or has already received the preliminary e- mail from IET (see above), the user will receive an e-mail from Financial Services after all stages of the set-up have been completed. The e-mail will confirm the fund code(s), organization code(s) and payroll access that the user has been granted, and will also provide the link to log in to FAST Finance Reporting and some basic start-up instructions. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 2

Logging into FAST Finance Reporting FAST Finance Reporting Training Notes 1. Click on the following link to access the FAST finance reporting system: https://fast.kpu.ca/fastportal 2. You will be prompted to enter your login ID and Password. (Note: If you are logging into FAST with the temporary password provided to you upon set-up with FAST access, it is highly recommended that you change your password after initial login. Please refer to the Change Password instructions.) 3. Click Sign In to go to the FAST Portal. 4. Then Click Finance Reporting under Applications on the right side of the screen to access your financial information or select it from the Applications menu at the top. Tip: To quickly access FAST Finance Reporting, you can set up shortcuts to the site: Add a FAST button to your web browser toolbar: 1. Input the FAST Finance Reporting web address in the address bar of the web browser. 2. Press return to go to the site. 3. Drag the icon at the front of the URL to the right-hand side of the toolbar, next to the work Links. 4. You can rename the button by right-clicking on it and selecting Rename. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 3

Add FAST Finance Reporting as a bookmark in your web browser: 1. Input the FAST Finance Reporting web address in the address bar of the web browser. 2. Press return to go to the site. 3. Go to the Favorites menu and click on Add to Favorites. An Add Favorite window will open. 4. You can change the name of the URL in the Name box. 5. Create a new folder or select an existing folder to put the URL into or put the URL directly in the Favorite list. Add FAST Finance Reporting as a Quick Link in Banner: 1. From the main menu in Banner, select Preferences from the File menu. 2. Click on the My Links tab. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 4

3. Locate a set of fields with Enter the description for the My Personal Link link in the Description field. Enter the name you want to call your link in the User Value field. 4. Go to the next set of fields with Enter the URL or Banner object for the My Personal Link link in the Description field. In the User Value field, enter https://fast.kpu.ca/fastportal. 5. Press F10 to save changes and Exit. 6. Click on OK when the following warning message appears. 7. You should be able to see the Quick Link on the main menu screen of Banner the next time you log in. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 5

Changing Your Password in FAST FAST Finance Reporting Training Notes 1. Your Password can be changed on the FAST Home Page once you login. 2. You will need to enter your current password as well as your new password. Your new password will need to be keyed in twice. Click on Go to change your password. Important: The Change Password option will change your password instantaneously. Since FAST and Banner security are linked, changing your password in FAST will also change your password in Banner. Likewise, changing your Banner password will also change your FAST password. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 6

FAST Finance Reporting Support FAST Finance Reporting Training Notes In addition to this training guide, there are several other sources available to get support on FAST Finance Reporting: 1. FAST online Help and online tutorials are available on the main menu page of FAST. 2. Millennium also provides YouTube clips on how to use FAST Finance Reporting at http://www.youtube.com/fastmcsl#g/c/b7f46c667bb80224. 3. Other related materials can be found on the Financial Services website. http://kpu.ca/finance: Chart of Accounts/ FOAPAL Overview Frequently Used Accounts Salary Review Guidelines Payroll Schedules 4. If you have any questions or encounter any problems while using FAST Finance Reporting, please contact Financial Services for assistance. Visit the Financial Services website http://kpu.ca/finance for contact information or e-mail Financial.Reporting@kpu.ca. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 7

Download to Excel or Adobe Acrobat FAST Finance Reporting Training Notes Results that are returned with the various Desired Option queries can be downloaded to Excel or Adobe Acrobat: 1. If downloading the information into Adobe Acrobat, click the PDF icon at the bottom of the screen. 2. To Print, go to the File menu and select Print or press the printer icon at the top of the window. 3. To Save, go to File, and then click on Save a Copy. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 8

1. If downloading the information Excel, click the Excel icon at the bottom of the screen. 2. A window will pop up providing the option to Open or Save results in Excel 2003. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 9

3. It is recommended that you Open the extraction instead of clicking Save since the default format (as noted in the pop-up window) is Excel 2003. Note: If you select Open, the data will be opened in Excel in Web Page (*.htm; *.html) format. FAST automatically names your file and attaches.xls as the extension so a warning message will appear indicating that the format is different than specified by the file extension. Press Yes. Because the file is still in Web Page format, you must remember to do a Save As and follow the instructions below to ensure you do not lose any of the work you do with the data in Excel. It is important to select the correct file type when saving. Depending on whether you will be sharing the file with or sending this file to someone who does not use Excel 2010, use the default Excel 2003 file type. Otherwise select Excel workbook from the dropdown menu to enable you to use all the functionality in Excel 2010 and not lose any incompatible features when you save. Once the data is extracted to Excel, you will be able to manipulate the data with all the functions available in Excel. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 10

How to Query for an Invoice FAST Finance Reporting Training Notes 1. In the Main Menu, under Desired Options, select Invoice Query and Enter. 2. Here, you can fill in a variety of parameters. All the parameters are optional, with the exception of the date range. However, we suggest at least one optional search criteria be used to lessen the search time. 3. FAST will bring up the total of the all the invoices within your search criteria. 4. For more detailed information, click on the highlighted blue font. A listing of all the Grand and Toy invoices will be displayed in this case. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 11

How to Query for a Document or Document Type Document Query and Document Type Query are under the Desired Options in the FAST Main Menu. Document Query 1. Document Query is similar to invoice query except you are able to query on various types of documents as long as you know part of the document number: Feeds Invoices Cheques Purchase Orders Requisitions Journal Vouchers 2. Wildcards can also be used in Document Query. For example, if searching for a Journal Voucher, type J%, and this will return all documents beginning with a J. 3. The Kwantlen issued document number must be used for Document Query. If you do not have that number or are doing a general search, then you can use Document Type Query. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 12

Document Type Query FAST Finance Reporting Training Notes 1. Document Type Query can be used if you do not have the specific document number or if you are doing a general document search. The document types that can be searched are: Cheque (not available outside Financial Services) Invoice Journal Voucher Purchase Order Requisition 2. The Source should always be set at Income Statement. 3. IMPORTANT: When filling out the Beginning and Ending Fiscal Year/Period, please note that it is the Fiscal year and period and not the Calendar year and period. Kwantlen s fiscal year begins in April and ends in March. April is period 1, March is period 12 and March year-end (including year-end accruals and adjustments) is period 14. The example below shows a search for July 2008 (fourth period in fiscal 2008/2009) to June 2009 (third period in fiscal 2009/2010) and NOT April 2009 to March 2010. For April 2009 to March 2010 (aka Fiscal 2009/2010), enter Beginning Fiscal Year 2010 Period 01 and Ending Fiscal Year 2010 Period 14. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 13

4. Once your required search criteria has been completed, your results will look like this: 5. To sort the results by the various columns, click on the column header. 6. The number of records found are shown at the top and you can adjust the number of records shown per page by inputting another number in the field at the top right corner or pressing Show All Records at the bottom left of screen. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 14

How to View Outstanding Purchase Orders and Requisitions 1. Outstanding Purchase Orders (PO) and Requisitions can be viewed in FAST in the Main Menu under Desired Options. 2. You can choose which fund/org and period you would like to view outstanding purchase orders and requisitions for by inputting the applicable parameters in the Main Menu or leave all parameters blank and query a list of all the outstanding Purchase Orders and Requisitions issued against any of the fund/orgs that you have access to. The amount showing next to the PO is the amount still outstanding net of any invoices already paid against the PO without factoring any GST rebate received. 3. If you click on the blue link for a specific PO, you will see the amount of PO, PO details and the invoices paid against the PO listed at the bottom of the page. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 15

How to Use FAST to Monitor the Financial Status in Your Areas of Responsibility How to Check Current Operating or Capital Budget Available (IMPORTANT: Only authorized personnel have access to view payroll information. If you have not been authorized to view payroll information, no salary information is included in your view and therefore, the information available to you is not representative of the overall status. Please contact Financial Services if you have any questions about your level of access.) 1. In the main menu, enter either Fund 100 for Operating or Fund 9600 for Capital and the organization code you wish to check your budget for. If you cannot remember the organization code, click on the arrow next to the field to view all the organization codes you have access to. 2. Check that the current period and Operating Statement is selected and then click Enter. 3. In this first view, you will see your overall operating budget status for the organization code you have selected. To view your budget status by account, you can choose to sort by Acct from the dropdown box. If your initial query was for a higher level organization code and you would like to see details for a specific organization under it, click the blue organization codes until you see the account balances for the desired organization. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 16

4. Click the Acct Level down arrow to see more specific accounts. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 17

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5. Look at the Budget Available and Budget Fav/Unfav columns. For overall budget status, look at the subtotals and totals in the Budget Available column. (Note: It can be confusing looking at the Total Revenues Less Expenses results since this line is calculated by subtracting Total Expenses from Total Revenues. Because most revenues are recorded centrally, there will usually be negative amounts showing on this line. To avoid confusion, monitor your budget based on the Total Revenues Budget Available and Total Expenses Budget Available separately unless there is expectation that unbudgeted revenues are supposed to cover unbudgeted expenses.) The Budget Available is calculated by subtracting the YTD Total Activity (year-todate actual + outstanding commitments) from the Annual Budget for each account, subtotal and total. The Budget Fav/Unfav column shows the % of budget remaining which is calculated by taking the Budget Available amount and dividing it by the Annual budget amount for each account. The Budget Fav/Unfav column also shows either an F or a U. The F represents a favourable budget status for the account and will show up for an account if the Budget Available for the account is positive. The U represents an unfavourable budget status for the account and will show up for an account if the Budget Available for the account is negative. You should pay extra attention to all accounts with a budget status of U. Some accounts with an unfavourable budget status are boldfaced in red and some are not. All unfavourable account statuses should be looked into. The black U appears when an account has no budget but amounts have been charged to it. A % budget remaining cannot be calculated in these situations. The red boldfaced U and % budget remaining appears when an account has a budget, but the amount charged to the account has exceeded the budget. 6. To determine if there have been adjustments to your budget amounts, click on the blue-linked budget amounts to see the breakdown. The description of the journal entries should provide information on the budgeted amounts. 7. You can drill down to see a list of transactions that make up any of the amounts that are blue. From this list, you can select to see document details related to specific transactions by clicking on the blue document numbers. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 19

How to Check Current Funds Available for Special Purpose or Research Funds Because there are currently no budgets entered for Special Purpose Funds and Research Funds, reading your Operating Statement to determine the funds available is different from monitoring your operating or capital budgets. Another aspect that makes monitoring these funds different is that unused funds carry forward from one year to the next. (IMPORTANT: Only authorized personnel have access to view payroll information. If you have not been authorized to view payroll information, no salary information is included in your view and, therefore, the information available to you is not representative of the overall status. Please contact Financial Services if you have any questions about your level of access.) 1. In the main menu, enter the Fund number of the Special Purpose Fund (SPF) or Research Fund you would like information for, or click on the arrow next to the field to view all the funds you have access to. (Note: If you would like to view all Special Purpose Funds and Research Funds that you have access to, enter Fund 60. Go to Step 2 and then click on the blue link Special Purposes Fund under the Title column. Only fund codes that have had activity in the fiscal year of selected period will be shown.) 2. Check that the current period and Operating Statement is selected and then click Enter. 3. Once in the Operating Statement view, sort the view by Acct from the dropdown list. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 20

4. Click the Acct Level down arrow to see more specific accounts. 5. Once you arrive at the account level detail, you will see that the top line of the YTD Total Activity column (identified as the Opening Fund Balance) represents the amount carried forward (unused) from the prior fiscal year. This amount is factored in when determining the Closing Fund Balance. The bottom line of the YTD Total Activity column (identified as the Closing Fund Balance) indicates the amount of funds available (as at the period selected) in your Research or SPF. The Closing Fund Balance is arrived at by adding the Total Revenues Less Expenses to the Opening Fund Balance. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 21

6. You can drill down to see a list of transactions that make up any of the amounts that are blue. From this list, you can select to see document details related to specific transactions by clicking on the blue document numbers. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 22

How to View Payroll Details FAST Finance Reporting Training Notes (IMPORTANT: Only authorized personnel have access to view payroll information. If you have not been authorized to view payroll information, no salary information will be included in your queries, and the following Desired Options will not be available to you. Please contact Financial Services if you have any questions about your level of access.) If you have access to view payroll information, there are 3 different ways to view payroll details: Using the Operating Statement Desired Option Using the Current Year Actuals by Position Desired Option Using the Current Year Budget by Position Desired Option If you do not have payroll access, you will not see salary accounts in the Operating Statement, nor will you see the Current Year Actuals by Position and Current Year Budget by Position Desired Options in the Desired Options dropdown box. Each of these 3 ways to view payroll details will provide different detailed payroll information. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 23

Using the Operating Statement to View Detailed Payroll Information 1. If you are using the Operating Statement to view payroll information, you can access the information by: directly entering the organization you are interested in seeing detailed payroll information for in the main menu, drilling down to account level information and selecting a salary account to get detailed information by clicking on one of the blue linked amounts directly entering the salary account you are interested in seeing detailed payroll information for in the main menu then drilling down to the organization you want to see detailed payroll information for directly entering the combination of organization and salary account you are interested in seeing detailed payroll information for in the main menu and drilling down to the account level information 2. Once you get to the lowest (data-enterable) level of organization and salary account, you can drill down further to see all the feed and journal entries made to that organization and account. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 24

(Note: You can narrow or expand the amount of detail returned by choosing to include either only the current period s information by clicking on the amount under the Current Month Actual column, or including all the information from the beginning of the fiscal year to the current month by clicking on the amount under the YTD Actual column.) 3. You can further drill down into a specific journal entry (document numbers starting with a J ) or feed (document numbers starting with an F ) to determine what exactly was processed in the entry. To see details for all items shown, click the total amount (also shown as a blue link). Journal entry details will show you, for each line of the journal entry, the coding used, a description of what the entry was for, and the debit or credit amounts. A total of all debits and all credits is also shown at the bottom. Feed details will show the following information for each employee and position combination that payroll was processed for in that particular feed. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 25

Subtotals are included for each employee and position combination as well as a total for the feed. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 26

Using Current Year Actuals by Position to View Detailed Payroll Information 1. To access Current Year Actuals by Position to view detailed payroll information, enter the organization and salary account you want to see information for in the main menu. If you want to see details for all salary accounts in the organization, leave the account field blank. The results will be grouped by account. If you put in a higher level organization code, it will group all detailed salary information by organization and account for each lower level organization. (Note: If you leave your query too broad, the query may time out.) Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 27

2. Select the period you would like payroll detail for and select Current Year Actuals by Position from the Desired Options dropdown list. Press Enter. 3. A separate line will appear for each combination of employee and position code, grouped by salary account. The following columns will appear with the total amount of pay charged to the account broken down by month for the fiscal year of the period selected including pay from the beginning of the fiscal year to the period selected. There will also be a Total for the fiscal year up to the period selected and a subtotal of all amounts charged to the account by month and for the year by account. (Note: Because information from this option comes from the Banner Payroll module, sometimes information between the Operating Statement and this option may differ due to the stage the payroll process is in when you do the query. If information processed in the Banner Payroll module has not yet been fed over to the Finance module, there will be a discrepancy in the information shown. All information between this view and the Operating Statement should tie in together by the pay date of the pay period being queried except for one exception noted below.) (In-Process: Currently, the year-to-date total for the salary accounts will not necessarily agree to the account total as per the Operating Statement. This is because journal vouchers are not currently included in the view. You will have to go through the Operating Statement to see details of any journal vouchers included in the account balance. This issue has been brought to the attention of the software developer.) Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 28

4. You can click on any of the monthly amounts to drill down for a detailed breakdown for that amount. The information that appears will be broken down by earnings type for each feed. The following columns of information will be provided. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 29

Using Current Year Budget by Position to View Detailed Payroll Information 1. To access Current Year Budget by Position to view detailed payroll information, enter the organization and salary account you want to see information for in the main menu. If you want to see details for all salary accounts in the organization, leave the account field blank. The results will be grouped by account. If you put in a higher level organization code, it will group all detailed salary information by organization and account for each lower level organization. (Note: If you leave your query too broad, the query may time out.) Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 30

2. Select the period you would like payroll detail for and select Current Year Budget by Position from the Desired Options dropdown list. Press Enter. 3. The following columns will appear with the total amount of pay charged to the account, broken down by employee and position code for the fiscal year, up to the period selected. Under the employee details, there is a subtotal of pay processed for the account followed by an Unallocated row. Any amount in this row in the Actuals column represents the total amount of journal entries posted to this account. The Unallocated amount is added to the Subtotal amount for the account to arrive at the Total. (Note: Currently, unlike the Current Year Actuals by Position option, the total for the salary accounts in this view will agree to the account total as per the Operating Statement once payroll information has been fed over to Banner Finance.) (Note: Because information from this option comes from the Banner Payroll module, sometimes information between the Operating Statement and this option may differ due to the stage the payroll process is in when you do the query. If information processed in the Banner Payroll module has not yet been fed over to the Finance module, there will be a discrepancy in the information shown. All information between this view and the Operating Statement should tie in together by the pay date of the pay period being queried.) (In-Process: Currently, the budget amount for the salary account is not included in this view. We have contacted the software provider requesting that the budget amount for the salary account be added to the Adjusted Budget column in the Unallocated row.) Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 31

4. You can click on any of the actual amounts to drill down for a detailed breakdown for that amount. The information that appears will be broken down by earnings type for each feed. The following columns of information will be provided. (In-Process: Currently, to look up the details of the Unallocated journal entry amounts, you will have to return to the Operating Statement view and drill down to the journal entry detail level. This issue has been brought to the attention of the software developer and, hopefully, in the near future, a link will be available for the amount to enable us to drill down to journal entry details directly from this view.) Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Financial Services Page 32