Bulletin No. 882
Monday 27th September
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- Old unpaid invoices on AP with missing bank details
- Training - Forthcoming courses
- Monthly accounting time table
Use of Vulnerable Period - Tuesday 28th September 2021
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Users who are processing in CUFS when the VP starts will lose their work.
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Users who are running requests in CUFS when the VP starts could delay the start of work while those requests complete.
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Users attempting to log onto CUFS while the system is being brought back online can face instability and delay the return of the system
UFS Communications will be issued when the work is complete and users can access the system.
Issued by Lesley Dent - System Administrator
Marketplace access - September and October maintenance
Thursday 30th September 2021
The Marketplace will be unavailable from 6pm Friday 1st October to 11:59pm Sunday 3rd October.
Users will not be able to access the Marketplace - please note that this means no orders will be received / sent during this time.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Friday 1st October to 11:59pm Sunday 3rd October
The Marketplace will be unavailable from 6:30pm to 9:30pm Thursday 30th September 2021 for routine maintenance.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Issued by Heather Twin - e-Procurement Administrator,
BOC update
Please see the latest updates from BOC both in relation to the CO2 situation you will have seen on the news and also in regard to BOC staffing issues impacting on other deliveries.
Thank you for your email and I can understand concerns from customers given the media announcements recently regarding natural gas prices and the closure of the CF Fertiliser facilities.
The position for BOC currently for the liquid CO2 is business as usual: we have availability of product and are receiving good levels of imports from across the wider Linde European network. But the liquid CO2 market remains vulnerable and subject to change at short notice.
BOC obtains all its Dry Ice supplies from a third party and it is the supply of liquid CO2 to this third party that presents the risk to our supplies of Dry Ice. We have been advised that we have full deliveries of dry ice until further notice. This is a situation that I’m sure you’ll appreciate is a dynamic one that remains subject to change at short notice, and one which we are monitoring closely.
If there is a shortage in the supply of Dry Ice to BOC, we will prioritise supplies to accounts where the customers have advised BOC their activities support the preservation of human life, providing there is sufficient volume to fulfil these demands; and then allocate any remaining supplies evenly and fairly across other demands.
At this time, it may be helpful for end users to assess their critical needs for Dry Ice, in case there are activities that may be deferred or halted should supplies be at risk, as well as checking that they have optimum storage solutions in place to help preserve the Dry Ice once delivered, extending the time that the product remains useful.
We are currently experiencing some temporary issues with staff availability that is impacting in several areas across our business. This is resulting from a number of causes including but not limited to the impacts of Covid and Brexit.
This is currently impacting our customer service centre where our staff are providing additional flexible support in manning the inbound calls to cover shortfalls as they occur on a daily basis. This is resulting in some calls to the customer service centre not being answered as quickly as normal, but with the plans and actions in place this is being minimised wherever possible and we are improving service levels each day.
Also impacted are our deliveries due to the availability of HGV drivers, predominantly in the South East, in the same way as the rest of the UK at this time. The transport industry has various lobbying and forums to try and ease the situation which includes government assistance with apprenticeship and training programs, relaxation of driver’s hours, relaxation of immigration rules for lorry drivers and getting on top of the 30,000 HGV driving tests that were short last year. These initiatives however do not address the immediate problem, but to hopefully provide some insight and comfort I can confirm in recent weeks we have inducted over thirty new HGV drivers whilst continuing to recruit further numbers to improve our service. Please be assured we are addressing this with many measures and hope this will be improved as we overcome the many different issues that contribute to this situation. In the intervening time we are working very hard to provide the very best service levels with the available HGV workforce and hope the current issues with delivery lead times in some areas will improve as we increase our HGV workforce.
The issue regarding CO2 cylinders gases being supplied on a full for empty basis is a measure to try and prevent any sudden increases in demand for over stocking whilst also ensuring we have sufficient returned cylinders available to be filled to complete future deliveries.
Europe gas issue – Further Reading
Should you want further information on what is happening with energy pricing and the gas situation, please have a look at the following.
- 2021-09-15 soaring european gas prices force fertilizer plants to shutter
- 2021-09-15 whats behind europes skyrocketing power prices quicktake
- BOC C02 information pdf
Should you have any queries, please get in touch.
Issued by Helen Stuckey - Category Manager
Exports : Safety and security declarations required from 1 October
Safety and security declarations will be required from 1 October for all goods leaving Great Britain. This now includes goods moved in roll on roll off (RoRo) vehicles, and for empty containers, pallets and vehicles moving to the EU under a transport contract. This reflects the existing model already in place for trade between Great Britain and countries outside the EU.
This may mean that your customs /freight agents ask you for additional information about shipments.
More guidance on the requirements is available from HMRC here
Issued by Karen Sheldon - Finance Training
VAT: 5% rate for hospitality and tourism increases to 12.5% from 1 October 2021
Departments are reminded that the temporary 5% reduced rate of VAT for certain supplies of hospitality, holiday accommodation and admissions to certain attractions (see Bulletin 853) will, from 1 October 2021, be replaced by a new reduced rate of VAT of 12.5% which will remain in effect until 31 March 2022. The assumption is that the standard 20% rate will apply from 1 April 2022.
This impacts supplies that the University makes of food and drink, as well as entry to the Botanic Garden and charges for holiday accommodation & wedding venues. The VAT team has already been in touch with those Departments it knows to be affected to help accommodate the new 12.5% rate, and FSG have ensured that a new 12.5% VAT rate is live on CUFS that can now be used to raise / process invoices and the training guidance has been updated.
Please do contact us on vatqueries@admin.cam.ac.uk if this change affects your Department.
Issued by Angela Fearnside - Deputy Head of VAT
Old unpaid invoices on AP with missing bank details
We have a number of old unpaid invoices in AP which cannot be paid as there are no bank details on the supplier. These are generally set to pay by cheque ("CHECK", per CUFS), and won’t appear on the Invoice on Hold report.
Please can you review these items for your department and either:
- Get bank details added to the supplier using the normal procedure; or
- Cancel the AP transaction if it is no longer valid and no payment is due.
These items can be found using the Cognos AP Dashboard using the method listed below. See links at the bottom of this item for a reminder of the AP Dashboard.
- Open the AP Dashboard report in Cognos, limiting the results to your department. This can be found in your Departmental (Shared) Reports folder.
- Click on the number below Invoices Due for Payment to take you to the detail for that section.
- When that report has appeared, export it to Excel by pressing the triangle ‘Play’ icon on the black bar at the top of the screen and selecting Run Excel.
- When you have the report in Excel, scroll down past the Supplier Summary section to the Invoice Listing section. (You may want to delete all rows above the Invoice Listing section to make it easier to review). You’ll see all your unpaid AP invoice due for payment, with the payment method in column K, and the invoice date in column E. You can filter this data to show only the items set to pay by CHECK. Note this may include some internal invoice. These can be ignored for this review.
Where you have more recent invoices and you have already sent in the bank details for verification and adding to the supplier, you can ignore these.
AP Dashboard
- Previous bulletin note: https://ufs.admin.cam.ac.uk/849#APD
- Video introduction: https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/447cdc38-adbc-4b8d-97ed-fa1e5891b18c
Issued by Stephen Kent-Taylor - Head of Corporate and Shared Services
Forthcoming courses
Grants 3: Viewing Grants in CUFS, Wed 6 & Thu 7 Oct
View your grant structure in CUFS – a useful check for new awards or if you are having issues with pre-existing one. Discover where to find the budget control setup and learn how to run some CUFS Grants reports.
General Ledger 1: Getting started in GL, Tue 12 & Wed 13 Oct
Learn the basics of how the General Ledger module works. Topics include the University’s chart of accounts and how to run online account enquiries. The optional second session covers how to process journals.
Issued by Christine Rogerson - Finance Training
Monthly Accounting Timetable
To view the status of the monthly process including the month end close dates please use the following link: Accounting Timetable
Bulletins
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