NewsLink Articles
Greetings Administrative System Users!
Ohio State employees should first log in to NewsLink to ensure any staff-only posts display.
NewsLink provides news and information about Workday and other Ohio State administrative systems. Updates are collected twice a month, or more frequently as needed, and pushed out to system users by direct email. Bookmark and check this page frequently for the latest information. The next NewsLink email updates are scheduled for Monday, December 9 and Monday, December 23.
Please note: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center's purchasing information for employees is available through go.osu.edu/supply.
Important dates and deadlines:
- GFA SP25 deadlines
- Business and Finance Period Close Calendar
- PCard Transaction Expensing
- Workday maintenance page (login required)
The Administrative Resource Center is your go-to spot for Workday training resources. Separate Fiscal policy training is available and offered by the Office of the Controller.
Need more hands-on help? Periodic Office Hours sessions are conducted by Ohio State business areas to help provide answers to commonly asked Workday questions. Office hours are open to users of all levels and are hosted by subject matter experts.
Mileage Reimbursement for January 2025
Effective January 1, 2025, the mileage reimbursement rate will increase from 67 cents per mile to 70 cents per mile for all business miles driven from January 1, 2025, through December 31, 2025.
New Catering and Event Rental Catalogs in Buckeye Buy Jan. 1
New hosted catalogs for drop-off and full-service catering and event equipment rental services will be in Buckeye Buy by Wednesday, January 1. These catalogs will replace the Catering Marketplace supplier website which will be removed from Buckeye Buy at the close of business on Friday, December 27. See the full post for answers to common order placement questions.
Enhancements to "Find Suppliers - OSU" Report
New prompts have been added to the "Find Suppliers - OSU" report. Users can now prompt on the "Last Updated On or After" and "Last Updated On or Before" dates. The "Last Updated Date" has also been added as a column on the output of the report.
Mass Close of Old Purchase Orders
To assist with the year-end procurement roll-forward process, the Controller’s Office will be analyzing and closing out old internal and external Purchase Orders (PO) which meet the parameters listed below.
- POs that are over two years old which have not been invoiced in the previous year (excluding POs for multiyear service contracts that are only billed annually, those related to construction projects beginning with "PJOSU," OAKS type purchase orders, and those that are FD520 grant related).
This will occur the last week of December 2024. As a reminder, this process occurs on a 6-month closure cadence (during the last week of December and the first week of June each year). To see what POs will be closed as part of this process, run the "Find Purchase Order Details – OSU" report, and filter using the above parameters and the "last invoice date" column.
Once POs are mass closed, if there is a true need, they can be reopened by the service center if the transaction is within the same fiscal year. If you see that PO is closed and believe it was closed in error, review the process history of the purchase order and contact the user who closed it. Users with the Spend Analyst security role can view who closed purchase orders in the purchase order process history.
While this is a semi-annual cleanup effort, units are still required to work with service centers to close POs on a regular basis and once it is apparent the PO will no longer be used.
Coming Soon: Update to PCard Application/Maintenance Request
Effective Friday, December 20, Cost Center Managers will have the ability to edit PCard Application Requests and PCard Maintenance Requests during the business process review. For further guidance refer to the PCard - Application Request and Maintenance Request Job Aid.
For questions, contact the PCard Office at pcard@osu.edu or 614-292-9290.
Cost of Sales Worktag Changes and Validations on Expenditure Treatment (ET101)
As of Friday, December 6, Workday validations will be placed in various spend business processes to ensure the cost of sales expenditure treatment worktag can only be utilized by approved university earnings operations (Funds FD120, FD121, FD122 and FD200). In addition, users will no longer be able to add ET101 to costing allocations, one-time payments, or period activity pay.
As a reminder, use of the ET101 expenditure treatment drives the transaction accounting to the cost of sales ledger account (61020).
ET101 plus the appropriate earnings fund value and an eligible spend category value should be used to designate cost of sales. Eligible spend categories are those included in the services, supplies, or fuel and fuel additives hierarchies. Manual journals should use the cost of sales ledger account 61020 and an eligible spend category. Please refer to the university earnings operation policy for additional guidance and the full definition of cost of sales.
Inactivation of Cost of Sales Spend Category (SC10258)
The Cost of Sales Spend Category (SC10258) will be inactivated for future use, as it does not meet the definition of spend category. ET101 plus the appropriate earnings fund value and an eligible spend category within the services, supplies, or fuel and fuel additives hierarchies should be used to designate cost of sales.
Enhancements to "Financial Balances Summarization with flexible selectable columns" Tableau Report
The "Financial Balances Summarization with flexible selectable columns" Tableau report has been enhanced with an additional tab for "Flexible columns Financial Balances Summary Yearly Trending."
In the new tab, users can view the actuals data by fiscal year. Users can now select columns and filters based on their needs and compare multiple years of financial data. The "Period" field is used to drive what month(s) populate the actuals results by fiscal year. A selection of a January period would compare yearly trends from the start of the fiscal year through January across fiscal years selected.
Find Supplier Requests
The "Find Supplier Requests" report in Workday will be enhanced with an additional column on the report called “Supplier Request." This drill down field allows those who have access to this data to see and take additional actions.