Starting in October, the P-Card Office and Internal Audit will be conducting advanced monitoring and auditing of P-Card activities on a regular basis. The focus of these audits will include P-Card transactions, appropriate receipt uploads, and overdue allocation and sign-off activity. All cardholders and cardholder approvers are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the P-Card policy guidelines, meet all monthly sign-off and allocation deadlines, and to reach out to pcard@bu.edu with questions.

The Comptroller’s Office and Research Administration would like to remind everyone that there is an After the Fact (AFR) training recording available for view located here.  AFR is a good tool for new and seasoned Departmental Administrators on best practices when managing their restricted and unrestricted accounts.  We thought it would be a good reminder to send this link and stress one of the best practices around documentation.

You should always ensure you are documenting conversations you have with Faculty, Staff, or Principal Investigators around costs as we have recently encountered instances where we have had to reject cost transfers due to lack of appropriate documentation.  As BU continues to have a variety of work schedules both on campus and at home, it’s more important than ever to ensure this documentation exists.  

The printing of Payroll checks is now being managed by Bank of America.

It is strongly suggested that employees sign up for Direct Deposit, as a way to eliminate any Postal Service delays (as well as eliminating paper usage, streamlining processes, etc).  This can be done by following these instructions. 

This video tutorial contains the steps to complete an invoice using the PO Flip submission method in Ariba.  This invoice submission method automatically transfers the information from the purchase order onto the invoice, leaving minimal information for the supplier to fill in.  Typically, the supplier will attach their invoice and fill in two fields: Supplier Invoice Number and Line Item modifications.  Please see the Supplier Information Portal for additional information on supplier invoice submission.

If the supplier has questions after reviewing the Supplier Information Portal, please contact BUSupplierEnablement@ariba.com. 

COVID-19 and operational changes at the US Postal Service have begun causing notable delays in mail delivery.  It is strongly suggested that employees sign up to receive their W-2 forms online.  This can be done by accessing the Employee Self Service/ESS tab in BUWorks, and choosing W-2 Election under the “Benefits and Pay” header.  Instructions on how to make this selection can be found here.

The benefits to choosing this option are:

• Earlier access to your W-2
• Ability to file earlier
• It can’t ever get lost
• It saves labor and printing costs for the University
• Student employees can still access their forms, even if they’re no longer living in the residence halls, housing, etc on file at the time of the mailing

Additionally, please encourage any faculty/staff who do not elect to online W-2s to confirm their home addresses in BUWorks, and update them as necessary.  Instructions to do so can be found here.