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Adding New Employees into USPS Made Easy!

It’s a new fiscal year and along with that comes the hiring of new employees. Now, where to start? Entering all the necessary information into USPS can be quite overwhelming. Fortunately, there are options to help simplify the process! These options include:

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1. Add the new employee records using Core options. This option allows records to be added one by one by selecting the appropriate option from the dropdown.

   • The first Core record that needs to be added is Employee. Once the Employee record is created, go back to Core and select, create, and save all the other records that apply.

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2. Add the new employee records using the Employee Dashboard. This option provides a list of all possible records that may need to be created. Any record that applies can be selected from the list on the employee’s dashboard.

   • The first record that needs to be added is Employee record. To add the Employee record, go to Core>Employee. Once the Employee record is added, use the search option to locate the employee and be taken to their dashboard. Then, use the list provided to assist in adding any records that apply to the employee.

3. Add the new employee records using templates and Mass Load. This option allows records to be created using a load file/spreadsheet.

• The load file needs to contain specific column headings and certain information is required to be included. Those requirements can be found here.

• Once the load file has been created, the file needs to be saved in CSV format.

• Using the Utilities>Mass Load option, browse to locate the CSV load file and select the appropriate importable entity. Click Load. The Import Results grid will display the number of records loaded and the number of errors encountered. If errors occur, use the load error file to make any necessary corrections. Save that file in CSV format and step through the load process again.

• For assistance in creating the load file, template load files can be found in the Public Shared USPS Reports Library. Click here to be taken to these templates.

4. Add the new employee records using the Employee Onboarding option in Workflows.

• This option allows employee records to be entered in a separate system called Employee Onboarding. The information entered using Employee Onboarding remains in this system until the Complete Task option is selected. At that time, the records are created in payroll and can be viewed in the Employee Dashboard or the Core options. The Workflows option does require some additional setup. If you are currently not utilizing this feature and would like to, please reach out to your ITC for assistance in getting this option installed. For more information regarding Employee Onboarding, click here.

Remember…

Don’t forget to use those Templates! Once the record has been created, click the ‘Choose Template’ option (located in the upper right-hand corner) and select the appropriate template from the dropdown. Once the template is selected, the values from that template will auto-populate on the employee’s record. Make any necessary updates and click Save.

Vendor Merge

The USAS Vendor Merge option is here! Have you ever noticed you have 2 (or more!) vendors in your system that are actually the SAME vendor? Maybe they were accidentally re-entered for a different location or by a different staff member. This option is going to be super helpful for cleaning up those records and combining vendors in these situations. This will make it easier for your employees when selecting vendors to use on their Requisitions or Purchase Orders and make sure that all payments to any one vendor are totaled together for accurate 1099s at the end of the calendar year. 

Where is the Vendor Merge?

You’ll find the Merged Vendors option on the Vendor when viewing it from the Core > Vendors grid. This button will only be available for vendors that are eligible to be merged or vendors that have already had other vendors merged into it. This option is one where the goal is to merge vendors that ARE actually the same so this helps ensure that goal. This also helps the system curate a list of vendors eligible to merge INTO your current vendor to make the selection process easy since there could be a list of them!

If there are no other vendors with this information it is not eligible to be merged and therefore the Merged Vendors button will be grayed out.

How does Vendor Merge work?

Once you open the button, the first grid you see will show if any vendors have already been merged into this current vendor. We’ll come back to this later in the article! In order to initiate a new merge, first click on the pop up!

This is where you’ll see the list of vendors eligible to merge into your current vendor. These vendors all have the same Tax ID Type, Tax ID#, and Type 1099. Select one or multiple vendors to merge into your current vendor. Also note the Effective Calendar Year at the top. When you merge vendors, all transactions for the selected year will be updated from the old vendor to the new vendor. Transactions in prior years will remain intact with the old vendor. The old vendor(s) will be made inactive once merged.

After merging, you will also get a nice report that shows all of the transactions that were updated from the merge. This will automatically be sent to your File Archive and it can be regenerated on demand from the Merged Vendor List. 

Here we are back to the first pop up window. Now that a merge had been performed, this window will show any previously merged vendors, the calendar year that was selected, and the date that it happened. From here, you can regenerate the Merged Vendor Transactions report for individual vendors or select all and Print from the top to get a full report.

What happens to transactions after a Vendor Merge?

Any transactions for the old vendor that are dated within the Effective Calendar Year of the merge will be updated to show the new vendor in the Vendor field. Don’t worry though, it will be easy to still reference the previous vendor if needed! All transactions now include a field called “Original Vendor.” If the transaction was updated due to a vendor merge, the previous vendor name and number will show in this field.

The Original Vendor field will be populated for Requisitions, Purchase Orders, AP Invoices, Disbursements, Refunds, Billings, Payments. If there were any invoices that had been processed with the old vendor but not yet paid, those will show as highlighted on the Payable grid.

The vendor I always use was merged to a new one. How do I know what vendor to use?

When a vendor is merged into another vendor, the “old” vendor is made inactive and will no longer be available to use on transactions. If you need to know what the new vendor number is, this will be marked right on the vendor record to make it easy to find! Simply navigate to the Core > Vendor grid and look up the “old” vendor number. Once you locate that inactive vendor, use the eye icon to view the full vendor record. Near the bottom, there is now a section called Merge Info. The “Merged” checkbox will be marked and the “Merged Into” field will show the new vendor name and vendor number.

For more information on Vendor Merge. click here.

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SSDT recently covered a Deeper Dive into STRS Advance training with ITC staff. To find out more on USPS' STRS Advance and how the system is calculating it behind the scenes, please view the recording.

Did You Know?

Salary Notices and its Endless Options

With salary notices in ‘full swing,' this is a great opportunity to review all the customization options that are available. For a complete list of these options and the steps to aid in customizing a form, click here.

Once the salary notices have been created, the Processing>New Contracts>Salary Notice program allows a variety of options to generate the forms themselves. First, be certain to select the appropriate custom form from the Form dropdown.

If desired, the salary notices can be generated for specific employees and/or specific pay groups.

The salary notices can then be emailed or a PDF created, printed, and distributed to employees.

Did You Know?

Employee Leave Balancing

With the end of another fiscal year approaching, balancing employee’s leave is usually on the to-do list. This can be a daunting task; however, there are a couple reports to help with the process.

The Leave Balance Report lists employees current sick, vacation, and personal leave balance.

The Leave Activity Report provides the detail of what the Leave Balance Report is showing and can be helpful in isolating balancing issues. Keep in mind the two ‘date columns’ (Date Applied and Activity Date) are different.

• Applied Date = For those districts not using deferred absence posting, the applied date is the date the balance changed.

• Activity Date = The date entered when the Attendance/Accumulation record(s) was created.

Did You Know?

How are AP Invoicing Dates used at FYE

When you receive an invoice from a vendor dated in the new fiscal year but includes the billing for goods/services used in FY24, there are dates entered in USAS when processing invoices that should be considered.     

For example, when creating an AP Invoice in USAS, the invoice date and the received date entered become important for GAAP purposes to ensure the expense is recorded in the correct fiscal period.  These dates also determine what items will be reported as payable amounts in FY24.  The Account Payable Report is used to capture these Payables for GAAP.

When entering an Invoice in USAS, the Date will default to the current date. 

This is the transaction date used in the system and must be a date in an open posting period.  Thus, when you receive an invoice in July that is dated in a closed posting period (i.e., invoice with a June date), you may choose to enter this date in the Vendor Invoice Date field. The Vendor Invoice Date does not need to be in an open posting period as it is just being used to track the physical date of the invoice.  

Another important date field is the Received Date on the item’s invoice line number. 

The Received date records ‘when’ the goods/services were received by the vendor.  In USAS, this date may be entered by the user or when left blank, USAS will default to using the (invoice) Date. There is also an optional rule that may be enabled to have the Received Date use the Vendor Invoice Date as the default when enabled. The rule is: org.ssdt_ohio.usas.model.invoice.InvoiceReceivedItemDate