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When we think of Twinkies, golden spongecake with a sugary white filling usually comes to mind.  Whether you think they're delicious or dubious (I mean, they're supposed to outlast the apocalypse, right?) we can all probably agree that Twinkies aren't good for us.UNLESS you're in Workday.  Then, Twinkies are pretty much always good for you.  In Workday, "Twinkie" refers to the little rectangle with three dots that appears next to any blue text or magnifying glass icon . . . a

On March 9, 2023, Vice President for Finance Augie Maurelli shared his vision for the first 90 days as he transitions into the leadership role with the UVAFinance team.  The following are the main points of that presentation.First, thank you for all the work you have done to get us to this point.  We have just come through a major time of transition with the implementation of Workday Financials and all of the other deliverables involved with Finance Strategic Transformation.  &nbs

 Change management was a big part of Finance Strategic Transformation.  Members of the UVAFinance Change Team Angela Knobloch, Patty Marbury, and Brandi Van Ormer shared lessons learned from that experience at EACUBO's 2023 Workshop in Boston in a session called "Transforming the Experience of Stakeholder Change."___________________________________________________UVAFinance Team members:  Did you or your colleagues present at a conference or do something otherwise cool? 

 An update from Amanda Lockhart DavisAs I mentioned in my recent update to you, our stakeholders, our team has been organizing and prioritizing our workload, pinpointing the issues causing the most pain and getting solutions in place as quickly as possible. I'm pleased to let you know today that we've put one of those solutions in place.  Because of the difficulties with our optical character recognition (OCR) provider, we're bringing invoice processing back in-house.  This requir

 In the last blog digest, we introduced you to the Workday Support Team.  This team works behind the scenes to work out issues with Workday Finance, implement new functionality, review and adjust current configuration and business processes, and partner with stakeholders to assist in process simplification.So how do you work with the Workday Support Team if you need their assistance?The team uses Salesforce to identify issues and requests that need to be addressed, you can send your re

Finance Reporting and Analytics Release Notes for March 9th have been posted to the UVAFinance website.  This update includes significant new reports and modifications that have been released since February 9th as well as known issues that we are investigating or working on currently. A friendly reminder that you can always find this information and more reporting resources at Business Intelligence & Analytics | UVA Finance (virginia.edu)Quick Tip of the Month:  Saved Fil

Finance Reporting and Analytics Release Notes for March 9th have been posted to the UVAFinance website.  This update includes significant new reports and modifications that have been released since February 9th as well as known issues that we are investigating or working on currently. A friendly reminder that you can always find this information and more reporting resources at Business Intelligence & Analytics | UVA Finance (virginia.edu)Quick Tip of the Month:  Saved Fil

Joey Carls, User Success Manager of the Ask Finance Team, shares updated guidance on how our AskFinance team works with you, our finance partners.What happens after I send a case to AskFinance? Following the submission of a case to [email protected], you will be sent an automated message with your case number. You may respond to this email to provide additional details on your case so we encourage you to hold it until your case is resolved. The user success team will work with you to gath

Director of Disbursements Amanda Lockhart Davis asked her team to share some of their top suggestions for smoother sailing when working with AP transactions.  See their first crop of tips and tricks on the blog here.  Invoice/Payment Research:You can see when/how a payment was made on an invoice by clicking the “activity” tab.Invoice Payment Status Lookup:  https://invoices.uvafinance.virginia.edu/Suppliers:When to use which registration form in Payment Works: 

Director of Disbursements Amanda Lockhart Davis asked her team to share some of their top suggestions for smoother sailing when working with AP transactions.  See their first crop of tips and tricks on the blog here.  Invoice/Payment Research:You can see when/how a payment was made on an invoice by clicking the “activity” tab.Invoice Payment Status Lookup:  https://invoices.uvafinance.virginia.edu/Suppliers:When to use which registration form in Payment Works: 

Starting in mid-March with the March 14 Workday R1 Release, Workday Finance users will see a new application on display in the menu:  the Expense Hub.  This app will eventually replace the current Expense App, but for the near term future is available for your use on an optional basis.  Among the several attractive features of the Expense Hub include the ability for you to see all of your reports in progress and awaiting action in one place.  More features will be releas

The Hite FamilyAs the claims adjuster for the University of Virginia, Todd Hite handles claims for everything except matters involving medical center patients.  As he explains it, this means claims adjusting for anything involving anything UVA owns, including property, cars, buildings, and more, from UVA-Wise all the way to a research station in Alaska.  Hite has been with the University in the Office of Property & Liability Risk Management for almost six months and has a 20-y

UVAFinance is now using a third-party service to provide payment card administrative services to UVA schools and units that take electronic payments. Due to the growing technical complexity required for the position as well as the increased complication of payment platforms and processors, UVAFinance made the decision to secure the services of Arrow Payments, a company that currently provides administration services to a number of major universities including Cornell, Northeastern, Purdue,

Need some help navigating the resources available to find your expendable fund balances?  There are new resources available on the UVAFinance website to help with this:Expendable Fund Balance Quick Reference Guide:  Includes three different ways to pull expendable fund balance data (via Workday or UBI).  Direct Link to the QRG.Expendable Fund Balance One-Pager: Explains the terminology, accounting, and report parameters at work with expendable fund balance. Direct Link to the

Research Administrators and Principal Investigators love the Research Administrative Dashboard; so much so, in fact, that it was a top priority after the go-live of Workday Financials to rebuild the dashboard with Workday data.  RAD 2.0 was released as soon as possible in autumn 2022, and RAD 3.0 was released in February, with more improvements still to come.  Want to see what's available in the third iteration of RAD?  Read last week's blog post, and/or check out this quick

Great job, everyone, on submitting your FY24 Budget and MYFP!  At this point in the process, the budget team will be conducting quality checks, taking the FY24 original snapshot, and preparing for budget meetings, which begin on March 14. What's next?  We'll prepare for budget approval at the June Board of Visitors meeting, and make preliminary decisions on funding requests.  Those decisions are pending full budget approval by the BOV and will not be communicated until a

It’s March, so no matter what that groundhog said, spring is approaching, and so is our next series of Sprint Discussions. Building on our Allyship discussions from February, we’ll be moving on to the topic of fear in March.What kind of fear are we talking about? So many different kinds: Social fear that moderates societal behaviorFear in black employeesFear of black menFear of interacting with other racesFear for our childrenFear of moving beyond our comfort zonesFear of demographic chan

It's not light reading, but it's definitely interesting and has lots of great reference material.  View UVA's 2021-22 Financial Report on the Financial Reporting & Accounting portion of the UVAFinance website.  Here's a direct link for your convenience.

Kristin Dinwiddie, UVAFinance Senior Manager of Risk Control, received the 2022 UVA Youth Protection Champion of the Year award!This is a new award from the Department of Safety & Security, created in recognition of a partner or stakeholder at the University who has consistently championed youth protection efforts across Grounds.Dinwiddie played an instrumental role in connecting many programs and events with the Office of Youth Protection and supported the Office's goal of delivering safe a

 Contributed by Amanda Lockhart DavisI've had the pleasure of being here at UVA since early December, digging into the nuts and bolts of my job as Director of Accounts Payable, getting to know my team, and learning about the needs of our customers.  I joined the procurement team knowing we'd be working through the continuous improvements that come after a large system implementation and the associated business process changes.  After these first few months of getting settled

The University of Virginia announced on February 21 that Augie Maurelli has been appointed vice president for finance and chief financial officer.Maurelli is an experienced financial leader in higher education and has served as associate vice president for financial operations at the University since December 2019. He previously served as associate vice president for strategy and operations in University Finance at the University of Delaware and held leadership roles in athletics both there and

Amanda Williamson just joined UVAFinance as a Senior Sourcing Specialist with Procurement & Supplier Diversity Services. Just prior, she was a Finance Generalist for UVA's Facilities Management. Before working in finance, Williamson worked for both the academic and hospital service desks. Williamson's experience across Grounds has helped prepare her for her new role, specifically her understanding of policies and procedures."In this position, I am performing cradle-to-grave functions for the

Trainers and functional experts in finance and OSP, working with our support folks on the Ask Finance team and OSP-Help have been working together to sort out the grants-related questions that come into both areas.  Their aim is to best serve you, our partners across Grounds. A lot of the confusion around grants stems from the two units sitting organizationally, plus the transition from Oracle to Workday Financials.In some instances, your grant questions could either be answered by UVA

If you worked closely with the Finance Strategic Transformation project and/or UBI, you probably got pretty familiar with the Online Community, otherwise known as the CommunityHub.  For over six years, this space has been a place for folks across Grounds to access resources, ask and answer questions, and share ideas.  With both FST and UBI having stable support options available, the Online Community will be phased out gradually this spring and sunset by April 19.  Plans

Mark Cartwright, Director of Supplier Diversity, has stepped into the role of Interim Director of PSDS as the search for a permanent Director of PSDS continues. Cartwright, who has led Supplier Diversity for over a year, has a long and varied background in leading procurement teams in both academia and private companies. His experience includes launching the supplier diversity program at Virginia Tech and a stint as Special Assistant to the Governor of Virginia, heading up the Commonwealth’s s