Contact
Robert Reiter
Human Resources
Compensation
615 West 131st Street
Studebaker, 4th Floor, MC 8705
(212) 851-7059
email for this exercise: HR_comp@columbia.edu
Departments will not submit salary information or provide a calculation of the accrual value. In addition to names and employee ID numbers, departments will only have to submit the number of vacation and personal days for each eligible employee. The Compensation Department will perform the needed calculations once the data is submitted and will provide the results to Finance.
The Balance Sheet has been modified to allow for easier insertion and deletion of rows, and any references to salaries have been removed. It is easier for you to modify your population and share this file with others who might not normally have access to salary information.
So that CU Human Resources can calculate the value of reported accrual balances and satisfy auditing requirements, we ask that completed Balance Sheet forms be submitted to CUHR twice: first, electronically, as an email attachment to HR_comp@columbia.edu, followed by submission of a paper copy signed by both the person preparing the form and the preparer’s manager. In order to calculate the accrual value, CUHR will use the electronic copy to link to other data files with salary information. Original, signed copies must be submitted to satisfy auditing requirements.
In order to report the University’s vacation and personal day accrual liability on year-end financial statements, departments are required to submit vacation and personal day accrual balance information for all Officers of Administration, Officers of the Libraries, and Support Staff who are entitled to these benefits. For those employees, accrual balances as of 7/1 (including any carry-forward adjustments) and related "Employee Information" should be posted to the Balance Sheet of Unused Vacation and Personal Days form.
The completed Balance Sheet must be submitted to Human Resources by Friday, 8/1/2008.
All Officers of Administration, Officers of the Libraries, and Support Staff who earn vacation and personal time must be listed on the form. This includes part-time Administrative Officers and Support Staff who are entitled to these benefits. Note that part-time Administrative Officers may be eligible for vacation, but not personal days.
In addition to the vacation and personal day balances, the form requires the entry of the following information for each employee: last name, first name, employee ID number (NOT social security number). Simply type or copy the information onto the form.
IMPORTANT: Be sure to include the Employee ID for each person, as this will enable us to process your submission accurately.
If the department does not have the required Employee Information for covered employees, the CUIT Data Warehouse is providing access to that data on the web. Staff members from each department who have access to departmental salary information in PeopleSoft will automatically have access to the required Employee Information through a secure web location. The Data Warehouse information will appear in an Excel format, allowing it to be downloaded or saved to a local disk, and then applied to the Balance Sheet. If you are using Data Warehouse information, it is recommended that you copy the data, as an Excel spreadsheet, to your hard drive, and from there, copy the required data onto the Balance Sheet form.
End of June PeopleSoft data is included in the Data Warehouse file. Departments should check the Data Warehouse file to make sure that all June changes have been captured.
In order to access the Data Warehouse Reports for the "Employee Information" (to be entered in the "Balance Sheet for Unused Vacation and Personal Days"), follow the steps outlined below:
1) Using Internet Explorer, go to https://my.columbia.edu/
2) Login using your Columbia UNI and password.
3) Click on the tab marked "DWR Reports" (or, ''Data Warehouse reports").
4) Click on the menu entry "Scheduled Jobs"
5 ) Click on the sub-menu entry "Scheduled Reports".
6) You will see an entry labeled “Vacation_Emp_0608.xls”. Click on "View" to open the Excel spreadsheet, which you should then save to a local disk.
If you are having difficulty accessing the data, check with your department’s IT support person to make sure your browser is up to date. If that is the case, please contact Bob Reiter in CUHR at rr52@columbia.edu for additional assistance.
Under University policy, the amount of vacation carried over into a new fiscal year cannot exceed the total vacation accrued in the prior fiscal year. For example, if an employee earns 23 days of vacation per year, on July 1st, the amount of vacation carried over from the prior year cannot exceed 23 days. In this case, the accrual amount posted to the balance sheet must be 23 days or less.
Personal Days earned must be used within one year. Therefore, the balance of personal days cannot exceed 3 days (or 2, in the case of the Medical Center).
Regular part-time support staff members are entitled to prorated sick leave, vacation, and personal days based on the number of hours they work per week. For the purposes of this form, a "vacation day" or "personal day" is equal to the number of hours in the employee's "average" workday. To calculate this "average" workday, divide the employee's weekly hours worked by five. That is, if an employee works 20 hours per week, the ''average'' workday is 4 hours even if the employee works two 8-hour days and one 4-hour day. If this employee has accrued 23 hours of unused earned vacation, divide 23 hours by 4 hours to arrive at the number of days (5.75 in this example) to place in the Vacation Days column.
Beginning January 1, 2008, regular part-time Officers of Administration who work 20 or more hours per week accrue vacation at the rate of one day per month, up to a maximum of 10 days per fiscal year. When a part-time officer takes vacation time, the department charges the officer’s time balance in whole or half-day increments, as appropriate. Given that, as of July 1, 2008, the number of unused accrued vacation days should not exceed 6 days for this group.
For more information about the calculation of part-time accruals, see "General Limits" in Time & Attendance: FAQs.
For each employee, there is a formula in the column on the far right that adds together the number of vacation and personal days. And, there are formulas in the “Total” row (the blue boxes) that total the data for the department. Both of these formulas cover up to 100 employee lines. If you are listing more than 100 employees, revise the formulas, as follows:
Go to the “Total Days” column and the cell for the 100th employee you have listed (the last employee for which that formula appears). Copy the formula in that cell down to all rows below it in which you have entered data.
Also, go to the “Total” row and adjust the formulas in the blue boxes. Revise the ranges covered by the totals formulas in the blue boxes to include the last line on which data appears (this would be the number of employees plus 22).
Back To TopTo print out an Excel spreadsheet with more than 100 names, first go to “File” menu on the menu bar and open up the “Page Setup” dialogue box.
Choose the “Sheet” tab. In the “Print area” box, the default reads "A1 :H122." Change "122" to a number that corresponds to the number of rows in your Excel spreadsheet. (Note: This number must be at least 22 more than the number of names on your list). Click on OK.
Under the “File” menu, now open the “Print” dialogue box. Click on OK.
Back To TopBecause of the need to calculate and report total accruals for the University in our year-end financial reports, it is very important that the completed Balance Sheet for Unused Vacation and Personal Days be submitted to HR by Friday, August 1st.
Back To TopOnce the form has been completed for the department and checked for accuracy, please submit your data to CUHR in the following way:
** In order to comply with auditing requirements, it is critical that the form be signed by both the preparer and the preparer’s manager. Departments who submit paper copies without these signatures will be contacted to re-submit.
Back To TopFor questions about the form, the information to be provided, or your access to the Data Warehouse file, please contact:
Bob Reiter at (212) 851-7059 or via e-mail at HR_comp@columbia.edu, the email address for this exercise.
Back To Top