DFL weekly update - May 26, 2023

Upcoming Deadlines at a Glance

  • Wednesday, 5/31 - Budget and budget templates due
  • Friday, 6/2 - Submit non-contract and grant deficit waiver requests
  • Friday, 6/16 - Complete External Audit Certification for Q3
  • Friday, 6/16 - Enter Permanent Budget transfers involving revenue rebudgets
  • Friday, 8/18 - Submit completed and approved org tree change requests

Budget process

Budget process update

The budget process guidelines and assumptions are available on the CFO website, along with the budget process timeline and information about this year’s budget process deliverables. Throughout the budget process, the FY2023-24 budget process page is the hub where we will post budget process materials and updates.

Budget templates

The templates for this budget process include:

  • Strategic Priorities template due Wednesday, May 31
  • Multi-year Budget template (which includes the Use of Reserves template) due Wednesday, May 31
  • FY24 Central Resource Request template (optional) due Wednesday, May 31

Reserve Analysis

As in previous years, the reserve analysis will be part of the budget meeting documents that leadership will review. Your reserve analysis summary report will be located in your Divisional folders by Friday, June 2 for you to review prior to your budget meeting. The report is based on your reserve analysis submission(s). Please contact the Financial Planning & Analysis team at dfl_concierge@berkeley.edu if you have any questions.

Form A

Thank you for submitting your completed Form A to the Financial Planning and Analysis team. Your division's May 2023 Form A submissions have been loaded to FY2022-23 Forecast and FY2023-24 Operating Budget in CalPlan.

Action Items

Submit non-contract and grant deficit waiver requests by Friday, June 2

The non-contract and grant (C&G) FY2022-23 Deficit Waiver request form is now available on the VC Finance website. If you are planning to submit a non-C&G waiver request, complete the form by Friday, June 2. As a reminder, all divisions are expected to meet their operating needs within their available funding; waivers should only be requested for exceptional circumstances. Deficits less than $25,000 are not eligible for a waiver request. To assist in this process, use the fund deficit report in Cal Answers: Dashboards>Finance>Fund Deficits Reporting>Deficits to be Cleared. Note that you do not need to submit a new request for a previously approved multi-year deficit waiver unless you require a higher waiver amount. To view waivers that were approved as part of a prior multi-year request, use the waiver report in Cal Answers: Dashboards>Finance>Fund Deficits Reporting>Waivers and Tolerances. More information about non-C&G deficit resolution policy and processes, including waiver eligibility thresholds, how to clear deficits, and what happens if a deficit is not cleared, is available on the Fiscal closing related webpage. If you have other questions regarding the non-C&G deficit clearing process, please contact the Financial Planning & Analysis team at dfl_concierge@berkeley.edu.

Complete External Audit Certification for Q4 by Friday, June 16

To ensure the completeness and accuracy of the quarterly Controller's report on the campus' external audit activities, please help us identify the campus' external audit activities. The Controller's Office is sending a separate email with additional information to DFLs with known external audit activity. By Friday, June 16, 2023, please submit the materials below to gao@berkeley.edu:

  • All DFLs: External Audit Confirmation Form (You must return the completed External Audit Confirmation Form even if you do not have any external audit activities so we can certify campus responses.)
  • DFLs with external audit activities: External Audit Confirmation Template (Include any related documentation with the template, i.e. notification of the commencement of the audit, audit report, etc.)

If you have questions, please contact gao@berkeley.edu.

Submit permanent budget transfers by Friday, June 16

Complete the Permanent Budget Journal Approval Request form to submit permanent budget transfers within your division by Friday, June 16. This includes any rebudgets to your revenue to fulfill these transfers. If you have questions, contact centralresourcemanagement@berkeley.edu with "permanent budget journal approval" in the subject line of your email.

Submit completed and approved org tree change requests by Friday, August 18

If you would like to submit changes to the Org Tree, please submit your completed, Budget and Financial Operations (BFO) Committee approved request by August 18. We recommend that you submit your change request form for review as soon as possible to allow time for the BFO team to review your request, follow up with you for any necessary clarification, approve your request, and allow you time to obtain all required signatures before the submission deadline. As a reminder, the May 16 submission date was the last day that approved change requests could be submitted for entry to the May Master Org Tree. Allowable changes through May 31 included New DeptIDs, New Org Nodes, and Description Changes. Important: The Org Tree is now closed to all changes through fiscal close.

The time needed to review change requests will vary, depending on the complexity of the request. For more information:

  • A high-level summary of the process to approve org tree changes is available on the DFL concierge webpage.
  • An overview of the org tree change submission deadlines is available in the Org Tree Submission and Processing Timeline. Important: Please review the update on the estimated processing time for journal source configuration of new L4 org node codes. As a reminder, journal source configuration for new L4’s is required if there is a need to prepare and approve journals.
  • Please review the Org Tree Calendar for the timeline of allowable org tree changes throughout the year.
  • Please review the new Org Tree Lookup Tool This new tool replaces the monthly manually produced Master Org Tree and will provide the most current org tree data as of one business day before. Training materials and Job Aids are located on the CFO website.
  • There are updates coming soon to the Department Prefixes, and How to Create Visio files job aids located in the Tools and job aids section of the Organizational Tree web page.
  • Please submit questions and requests for changes to the Org Tree to dfl_concierge@berkeley.edu. Note: If you plan to request an Org Node change or Entity Hierarchy redesign, please contact dfl_concierge@berkeley.edu and explain what you would like to change before completing the request form because these changes are typically more complex and involve longer consultations.

Informational Updates

Endowment FY24 payout projections are now available

Endowment payout projections for FY24 are now available through the Cal Advancement Database System (CADS), where users can look at estimates for specific funds or run reports for a school/college, division, or department. Users can run the Future Payout Report in CADSmart or look at payout estimates for individual funds on the allocation screens. Divisional Finance Leads should contact Fund Stewardship & Compliance at fundhelp@berkeley.edu with any endowment payout questions. To learn more about endowments, please go to Eureka, Berkeley's advancement intranet, which can be accessed with your CalNet credentials.

Financial systems availability

The following financial systems will be unavailable due to scheduled system maintenance.

Cal Answers

  • Saturday, May 27, from 6:00 am - 10:00 am

Office hours for BearBUY beginning Tuesday, June 20

SCM is pleased to announce a new remote office hour program which will be held every third Tuesday of the month from 10:00 - 10:50 am. Representatives from Supply Chain Management will be on hand to listen to your questions and provide information about purchasing at Berkeley. We encourage you to submit questions in advance using this Google form. Sign in using this Zoom link. You’ll need to sign in through your UC Berkeley Zoom account.

Office Hours for CalPlanning and Smart View

Office hours are available so that you can ask specific questions about CalPlanning and Smart View. Request office hours and indicate the topic for which you are requesting support. Office hours are an opportunity to get individual support for a specific challenge your unit is facing; they are not a replacement for training.

Cal Answers Training

Please review the self-service learning resources on the Cal Answers website, where Cal Answers users will find a complete course in basic navigation as well as short videos, job aids, wiki documentation, and a list of Frequently Asked Questions. Additionally, the two-hour instructor-led classes build on the basic navigation skills covered in the self-study. There are separate courses focusing on financial dashboards and student data dashboards. In the class, a subject matter expert will guide a deep dive into the reports and data available in the dashboards and answer specific questions.

CalPlanning April Actuals available

The CalPlanning reporting tools (CalRptg and HCPRptg) are available with 2023 April Actuals. The planning applications (CalPlan and HCP) and FY2022-23 Forecast Working version have March Actuals and will not be updated with Actuals until the budget cycle concludes.

Changes to the DFL in your division?

If the DFL role in your division is changing, email fpa@berkeley.edu to ensure our website, communications, and training plans are updated.

DFL Weekly Updates Page

As a reminder, these updates are regularly posted to the DFL Weekly Updates page so you can reference past updates at any time. Additionally, the Operational Deadlines page provides an overview of deliverables by quarter.

Thank you,

Office of the Vice Chancellor of Finance