Initial budget loads were done in ISRS, prior to the Workday conversion, language below uses both ISRS and Workday terminology.
Now that we are live in Workday, we are reviewing opportunity for improvement in how the budgets are loaded (i.e. cost center level vs program level). Any changes that will be made to how budgets are reflected in Workday, will be communicated with cost center managers.
Background/general awareness
- Carry forward for FY24 remaining restricted / designated cost center funds (into FY25) will be processed in September (ISRS was made complete with FY24 results by System Office on 9/3. That was a prerequisite to running reports that identify carry forward balances.)
- The information below relates to budget for ISRS cost centers in funds 110 General and 830 M&E Repair and Betterments.
- Budgets for grants, revenue funded cost centers, etc are loaded via separate process.
- Currently Grants and Projects do not show on the budget vs actual reports like we would expect. We are working with System Office to understand if the report or the data requires an update.
- They currently are listed with a label of 'blank' and totals combined. Click into transaction detail and Worktag column to see the program or grant a transaction is related to.
- We will also be following up on if eBuilder expense is flowing through as expected on these reports.
- Fund 110 and 830 budgets were
- loaded to ISRS by FM staff (late May)
- loaded into Workday by the System Office NextGen Team (late June)
- reconciled at fund level by Metro State staff (early July)
- Workday Budget vs Actual reports have budget column labeled as "Budget YTD", but it reflects our full year budget.
- Metro State budgeted FY25 for the year by object code -- not by month/object code.
- FM is not using a 1st load, 2nd load process like in FY24. All was loaded in late May.
- Workday does not have a BAT table reporting feature like ISRS had to match up actual to centralized expense budgets.
- ISRS allowed, for example, the ability to point pointing actual fringe expense in multiple cost centers to go against a budget in one central cost center.
- Metro State, like other Minn State institutions are looking at how to use cost center hierarchies and other Workday features to best organize our financial information.
- Best effort was made for conversion decisions, but with sometimes limited project information availability, FM staff turnover, and magnitude of the project, some tidying and revisiting of structure will be underway for the coming months as we continue to learn and stabilize.
- FM will be using Workday's Adaptive Planning tool for budgeting in FY26. Financial Management leadership and staff will be ramping up their knowledge on this tool in the coming months. Our hope is that it will aid in minimizing the number of spreadsheets in the process to some degree.
Academic Affairs / Colleges budget load
- Salary: For now, to comparison of salary actual to salary budget may only be done in Workday at the college's Workday cost center level.
- Total salary budget for college was loaded to dean's ISRS cost center, based on Financial Management's (FM) understanding of the NextGen team's recommendation. This means in Workday it will be in the dean's program # and the college's cost center.
- FM plans to redistribute existing budget from the deans program to the Workday Programs within the college (to match original budget spreadsheet) and provide ability to compare budget to actual at a program level. In addition, some budget redistribution will be needed for Academic Advising salaries (new Workday Program). FM is currently reviewing with Dina Inderlee and is prioritizing this against other work. We will communicate with deans once the adjustment has been completed.
- As a general rule, vacant positions not in search at the time of budgeting were excluded from the budget.
- Fringe: 32% of salary budget was loaded as a fringe budget to 215220-Central Salary and Fringe Benefit Costs (University cost center managed by FM)
- Fringe expense will show at the program/cost center level, but not the budget (since it is loaded centrally).
- Fringe variances to budget at the cost center or program level may be ignored, as FM will monitor fringe at the university level.
- While somewhat undesirable, this currently seems to be our best option.
- FM is working on identifying a university level report for fringe to show our use of that budget.
- Student Assistant - loaded to the academic dept cost center or other specific cost center as provided (some change underway in Sept due to the MSU Student Association funding provided for student employees)
- NonPersonnel - loaded to the academic dept or other specific cost center as provided
- Revenue for Personal Property Service Fee - loaded to dean's ISRS cost center; break down between colleges was based on info in the RCM model spreadsheet.
Other Divisions budget load
President, HR, Fin & Ops, SEM, IET, OEI, Student Success
- Salary: loaded to cost center in which the employee resides
- Exception: Fin & Ops who used the same total salary approach as colleges to gain a better understanding of that experience.
- As a general rule, vacant positions not in search at the time of budgeting were excluded from the budget.
- Any amounts in excess of actual salary should be absorbed back into GEN to minimize fund balance use (not available as a budget transfer to nonpersonnel).
- Base salary budget loads may be slightly higher than actual.
- Fringe: 32% of salary budget was loaded as a fringe budget to 215220-Central Salary and Fringe Benefit Costs (University cost center managed by FM)
- Fringe expense will show at the program/cost center level, but not the budget (since it is loaded centrally).
- Fringe variances to budget at the cost center or program level may be ignored, as FM will monitor fringe at the university level.
- While somewhat undesirable, this currently seems to be our best option.
- FM is working on identifying a university level report for fringe to show our use of that budget.
- Student Assistant: loaded to the academic dept or other specific cost center as provided (some change underway in Sept due to the MSU Student Association funding provided for student employees)
- NonPersonnel: loaded to the academic dept or other specific cost center as provided
- Revenue: Not all revenues were budgeted as part of the process used, however most major revenue budget amounts were loaded to the cost center in which actual is expected to be recorded. FY25 will be a learning and transition year as we transition our budget vs actual reporting to align with financial system data (vs using a combination of financial system expense data and revenue in budgeting spreadsheets)