System Information

Issue
Beginning in the January 2021 accounting period, vacation taken (earn code VAC) for some members of the Health Sciences Compensation Plan (HSCP) was charged to the default distribution established using the blank/catch-all chartstring (often times indicated using Project ID 2222222) instead of to the distributions established for HSR/HSP/HSN components of pay.

In addition, salary offsets for the VAC earnings were applied only against HSR earnings and not distributed across funding for all components of pay.

Root Cause
The program that distributes paid leave skips employees for reasons that the UCPath Center is still trying to determine.  This issue resulted for a higher volume of paychecks in March after UCSF was removed from the enhancement process to redistribute prior period paid leave.

Resolution
Update July 26, 2021
The UCPath Center plans to run a mass leave correction program to redistribute leave that incorrectly posted during payroll processing for the pay period ending March 31, 2021.

• Corrections are posted in the July 2021 accounting period.
• Salary cost transfers posted using a Direct Retro Transaction ID beginning with “MLCSFCMP”.
• A portion of the reinstated correction amount remains unposted due to a technical issue, Payroll and IT are working on a resolution.

The UCPath Center is planning an additional mass leave correction for incorrect postings outside of the March 31 pay period. This is expected to occur in the June 2021 accounting period.

Update August 23, 2021
The UCPath Center ran a Mass Leave Correction (MLC) to correct the way that leave (VAC, SKL, etc.) was distributed across funding for pay end dates between March and June.  March corrections posted to the July UCSF General Ledger, and April through June corrections posted to the August UCSF General Ledger.  These transactions are identified on the Distribution of Payroll Expense (DPE) Report with a Direct Retro ID value beginning with “MLC”.

In some cases, the MLC corrections resulted in incorrect adjustments moving salary across earning dates and incorrect effort percentages calculations. We estimate an average of 250 paychecks were impacted for each pay end date (March through June). The UCPath Center will run a historical correction this week. In the meantime, please do not process any subsequent Direct Retros for earnings end dates that have a Direct Retro ID beginning with “MLC”.

Update October 20, 2021
UCPath Center Corrections of the incorrect earnings end dates for the MLCs that were performed on pay periods ending 3/31, 4/30, 5/31, and 6/30 are expected in the next 2-3 weeks. The current guidance from the UCPath Center is to not enter a Direct Retro transaction on a paycheck that has already had an MLC performed. 

Mitigation Plan
If departments are unable to wait until the UCPath Center runs the correction program, Salary Cost Transfer Initiators can move salary expenses manually to correct prior period paychecks. As the distribution of payroll expenses for vacation also results in the reversal of charges to “regular” earnings codes, two steps may be required to transfer salary expenses.  The salary expense transfer will fix the funding distribution only, it is not possible to correct the salary offsets that distributed on the incorrect earning codes by Salary Cost Transfer.  Only the UCPath Center mass leave correction can correct the offsets to distribute across HSR, HSN and HSP.

• Step 1: Departments can perform Direct Retros to move the VAC expense from the default chartstring to the appropriate fund sources. This will also adjust and correct the corresponding Vacation Relief Benefits Credit.
• Step 2: Departments may need to perform an additional Direct Retro transaction for the prior payroll period to rebalance the distribution resulting from the system crediting the original Salary Expense Offsets to only the HSR earnings codes and chartstrings.

Review a recent office hours recording (MyAccess login required) discussing the mitigation plan for redistributing vacation that posted incorrectly. If you need assistance with correcting pay distributions, please contact the Controller’s Office Solution Center.

Update October 20, 2021
While we await further assistance from the UCPath Center, our next best option is to make a correction locally to distribute VLA relief credits and effort percentages across funding sources.  Making this correction through UCPath is complicated, requiring a recalculation of the vacation distribution and regular earning off-sets that must be entered as two separate salary cost transfers.  A Leave Redistribution Correction Worksheet is now available with detailed instructions and calculator to aid Salary Cost Transfer Initiators in the creation of the Direct Retro transactions necessary to make a local correction.  Use of the worksheet is intended only for transactions where an MLC correction or Direct Retro transaction has not already been processed for the payroll period.

We will walk through using the worksheet and how to make the Direct Retro entries at the Funding Entry and Salary Cost Transfer Office Hours session on Thursday, October 28, 2021, from 2:30 - 3:30 p.m. (session will be recorded). To receive the link to register for office hours, please contact the Controller’s Office Solution Center.

Funding Entry Best Practices
This issue only impacts funding for HSCP Faculty entered using the Salary Cap / MCOP Funding Worksheet. Please note that funding entry does not require the use of a Salary Cap / MCOP Funding Worksheet in the following scenarios.
•    The faculty position is NOT funded by any capped funding sources.
•    The faculty position is funded by capped funding sources, but the monthly salary is below the salary cap rate.
As a best practice, and to reduce the occurrence of this issue in the future, you can enter funding for these scenarios directly in the main Funding Entry page using blank earnings codes. A funding update can be entered with a new funding effective date.

The redistribution of prior period leave program will continue to skip approximately 20% of transactions each month. These same transactions may also be skipped by the mass leave correction (MLC) program to resolve this issue.  To avoid transactions being skipped, do not enter multiple date ranges on your Salary Cap / MCOP Funding Worksheet.  For each worksheet, the Begin Date should reflect the date when you want the funding to be effective, and the End Date should always extend through to June 30 of the same fiscal year.

Issue
In some cases, users are seeing a discrepancy between the total vacation salary expense being reported in a pay period and the total vacation relief credits. This issue is being observed in the Distribution of Payroll Expense (DPE) reports and all financial reports that source data from the General Ledger.

Root Cause
The UCPath labor ledger contains vacation salary expense lines marked as "do not post"; as a result, these lines are not being included in the payroll journal.  The corresponding vacation leave assessment (VLA) relief credits are marked "ready to post" and are included in the payroll journal.

Resolution
The defect has been reported to the UCPath Center, and we are awaiting a response.

Issue
During funding entry, Funding Entry Initiators receive a message indicating that "the position entered is not eligible for budget definition within the specified begin date." Initiators are unable to save and submit funding.

Root Cause
Errors during budget data loads may result in missing budget data for specific positions. Funding cannot be entered when corresponding budget year data are missing. This issue is under further investigation.

Mitigation Plan
Funding Entry Initiators should log a ticket with the Controller's Office Solution Center for further assistance with this issue.

Issue
In some cases when a salary cost transfer is performed on a biweekly paycheck, the effort percent and percent of pay for the transaction are miscalculated or not calculated. As a result, the total effort percent and percent of pay are also incorrect on the Distribution of Payroll Expense (DPE) report. Note that in these cases, the dollar amount and hours are correct.

Root Cause
This issue is under investigation by the UCPath Center.

Issue
HCOMP retro pay adjustments with effective dates prior to the conversion to UCPath (prior to May 1, 2020) cannot be processed in UCPath.

Root Cause
UCPath is not configured to process retro pay prior to conversion for HCOMP Faculty.

Mitigation Plan
UCSF was able to process some transactions in PPS; however, PPS is no longer available to process approximately 30 remaining cases.

Resolution
The UCPath Center is in the testing phase for a solution to process these retro pay transactions.

Update: July 29, 2021
A business process has been established with the UCPath Center to process the HCOMP retro requests.  The final remaining batch of backlogged transactions is being scheduled for processing.

Issue
44 unique departments (428 positions) are currently setup on the main funding entry page with a default chartstring that includes a Dept ID not at posting level. As a result, any payroll expenses recorded to these default chartstrings will not pass edit and will go to suspense rather than being easily visible in enterprise reports for departments to correct. 

Root Cause
In PPS, Home Department could be established at a non-posting level causing the issue with resulting default chartstrings established for these Dept IDs at go-live. The correct posting level Dept ID could not be determined during conversion. 

Mitigation Plan
Following the posting of suspended payroll to the suspense account, the Payroll Office will reach out to identify a posting level Dept ID to use to move payroll suspended on Project “2222222” and a non-posting Dept ID. To keep the General Ledger and Distribution of Payroll Expense (DPE) in sync, departments must move salary and benefits in suspense using a salary cost transfer. Outlined in the August 2020 Controller's Office Newsletter are the steps required to move payroll   that posts to the suspense account.  

Long-term Resolution
Update: March 2021
We have identified 981 Department IDs set up with default chartstrings that are invalid. The Payroll Office has collected posting-level Dept IDs from Control Points and is submitting a configuration update in UCPath to ensure that all default chartstrings have posting-level Dept IDs.  This will resolve the issue where the DIstribution of Payroll Expense (DPE) reflects that the payroll expense posted to the department default chartstring, and the General Ledger reflects the expense posting to the payroll suspense. While the UCPath Center works on the configuration update, the Payroll Office plans to submit a mass funding entry update to replace invalid chartstrings set up in UCPath on the department default page.

Issue
The Percent of Effort displayed in the Distribution of Payroll Expense (DPE) Report does not accurately reflect the percent of effort for some earnings distribution lines resulting from salary cost transfers onto capped funding sources. Earnings Amounts and Percent of Pay are accurately reflected in the DPE.

Root Cause
The incorrect calculations are being generated in UCPath and are due to an upstream defect in the General Ledger data. This issue is under investigation by the UCPath Center.

Mitigation Plan
To manually calculate the correct effort percent for each capped funding source, sum the N-OTC Percent of Pay and the Y-OTC Percent of Pay on the earnings distribution lines for the funding source. For example, adding the Percent of Pay from the N-OTC001 up to the cap distribution line to the Percent of Pay from the corresponding Y-OTC001 over the cap distribution line will equal the Percent of Effort for the capped funding source indicated on the N-OTC001 distribution line.

If you need further assistance, contact the Controller’s Office Solution Center.

Issue
In a small number of circumstances, funding overrides and earning periods are not always being applied when a one-time pay template is submitted:

• When the employee is separated: The position funding is used rather than the funding identified on the one-time pay template. In cases where the incorrect funding was applied, campus departments should submit a salary cost transfer and Health departments should submit a Salary Cost Transfer PeopleConnect Management Action form. 
• When payments for multiple earning dates are sent for the same employee: Although the funding override is correct, the incorrect earning period is sent to the labor ledger. Funding is correct, and dates appear correctly on paychecks. However, the earning dates viewed in reporting will reflect the incorrect earning period and no local correction option is available. To view the full amount correctly, sort by pay period end date or check date. 

Root Cause
Submitted to The UCPath Center for further investigation.