Weekly Bulletin No. 817
Tuesday 23rd June
In this week's edition
- Supplier in Administration – Bertram Books
- REMINDER: Merger of Sigma Aldrich, Millipore and Merck Chemicals and suspension of orders from 1st - 6th July
- Dispensation requests – completing the website form
- GE Healthcare is becoming Global Life Sciences Solutions Operations UK Ltd on the Marketplace
Please see the link below for previous communications and guidance regarding measures put in place as a result of Covid-19.
COVID-19 Communications
Bulletin Archive
Accounting Timetable
Supplier in Administration – Bertram Books
It has recently been announced Bertram Books has gone into administration. Bertram Books own Dawson Books, who were part of an Southern Universities Purchasing Consortia (SUPC) framework (ref LIB4035 SU) for books, e-books, standing orders and related material. Departments are still able to access alternative suppliers through this framework, which you can find on the master framework contracts spreadsheet .
Meanwhile, the supplier has been deactivated on UFS for any new purchase orders although any outstanding invoices can still be processed providing the goods have been received. Departments with outstanding purchase orders will be contacted directly by Procurement Services.
Issued by Anita Wilson, Category Manager
REMINDER: Merger of Sigma Aldrich, Millipore and Merck Chemicals and suspension of orders from 1st - 6th July
As of the 1st July the following suppliers will be merged into the new legal entity - Merck Life Sciences UK Ltd:
- Sigma Aldrich Co Ltd
- Millipore (UK) Ltd
- Merck Chemicals Ltd
Please continue to place your orders with the above until 5pm on the 30th June, after this time no orders will be able to be submitted. While Merck Life Sciences makes the switch over to their new systems and to enable testing to the new connections of the Marketplace and eInvoicing, there will be period from 1st-6th July where no new orders (Marketplace, Oligos punch-out catalogue or Non-catalogue) can be placed. We therefore recommend, where possible, that you submit any orders which may be necessary during this time before the 30th June cut off.
We are continuing to work with the Merck Life Sciences to establish if there will be an emergency purchase order process during this time. A further update will be sent in next week’s bulletin.
If you have any questions, please contact the Procurement Services Team via: procurement.services.enquiries@admin.cam.ac.uk.
Issued by: Tony Fish, Category Manager
Dispensation requests – completing the website form
All users seeking dispensation approval via the Procurement Services website are advised to complete the online form in one sitting to prevent the form from timing out and it having to be completed again in full.
This will also avoid a rare issue of a timed-out form being submitted 'successfully' on the user's side, but not registering in the system and being passed to Procurement Services. Such instances result in significant delay in reviewing requests for dispensation.
Issued by Matthew Kidd, Procurement Services
GE Healthcare is becoming Global Life Sciences Solutions Operations UK Ltd on the Marketplace
Issued by Matthew Kidd, Procurement Services
Rationalisation of UFS Payroll transaction codes
In 2014 there was a major review of the UFS transaction codes used for payroll expenditure. A complete set of new codes was set up, to be used for payroll expenditure starting from Aug-14. At that time all existing payroll codes were left still active, although rendered obsolete by the new list. These obsolete codes are in the process of being deactivated.
In May-20, around 650 of the old UFS codes, which had not been used at all this financial year, were deactivated.
The Finance Division has been working with colleagues in departments and HR, to recode all payroll expenditure that still goes to around 80 other obsolete old codes, to the appropriate new payroll transaction codes:
- staff whose regular monthly payroll was coded to an "old" code" have been recoded on CHRIS, with effect from June 2020, to the appropriate new code for their role and grade (as identified by School Finance Advisers);
- UPS users and submitters of CHRIS forms for casual pay, overtime, etc, have been asked to review and update the coding at source on their various input forms, with effect from June 2020 (new codes as identified by users);
- Additional payments (with the exception of Safety Office payments, covered below) have been reviewed and their coding updated on CHRIS to the appropriate new code for that pay element (as identified by School Finance Advisers). The last of these should take effect in the July 2020 payroll;
Following the above changes, usage of obsolete codes will be monitored for the rest of the 2019-20 financial year and any remaining usage of old codes will be followed up with departments by the Central & Research Accounting team.
From 1st August 2020
Once all the above recoding has been achieved, the Finance Division will deactivate all obsolete transaction codes for payroll at the end of Jul-20, and only those UFS transaction codes available in the official lists (published 2014 and 2016) and available on the Training section of the Finance Division website will remain available:
Safety Office payments
There will be a delay in deactivation for nine old codes to which some Safety Office payments are made.
Safety Office payments are requested by departments, via the Safety Office, on an annual basis for each Academic Year (not Financial Year). For those few codes where SO payments (for Safety Officer/Advisers, Biological Safety Officers, Laser Officers and Radiation Protection Supervisors), are currently coded to obsolete transaction codes, those codes will be left open until after the Aug-20 payroll is processed. Departments are asked, and will be reminded when making their annual request for SO payments, to ensure they use a code from the valid lists when requesting their SO payments for the 2020-21 Academic Year.
Please forward
This notice is being circulated to readers of the HR Bulletin and the UFS Bulletin, and to HR Business Managers and Advisers, and School Finance Managers & Advisers. Please forward to affected colleagues, and keep a copy of the official payroll code lists to hand (or the link to "revised pay transaction codes" on the Finance Division website) and ensure that new payments being set up are coded to the correct UFS transaction code.
Your School Finance Adviser is available to advise on appropriate coding for staff pay if needed.
Monthly Accounting Timetable
To view the status of the monthly process including the month end close dates please use the following link: Accounting Timetable
UFS Bulletin
- Click here for Bulletin archives
- If you would like to receive the bulletin email please send your details to this address