FY 2023 was a busy year with a number of new updates to the Beacon Finance application. Below is a summary of all significant changes to the application made this fiscal year. Overall, we updated almost every screen in the application to conform to our new standard look and feel. Heading into FY 2024 we will continue adding new features, data, and reports based on your feedback. If you have requests please email support@netcomm.net and your idea can benefit all of NIH!

 

New Finance Reports: 

  • CAN by Funding FY: a new summary report that sums a CAN's obligations and commitments processed in a single FY by the transactions funding FY. Found under the Actuals tab.
  • Multi-Year CAN by Funding FY: a new summary report that sums a CAN's obligations and commitments processed over all FYs by the transactions funding FY. Great for no-year appropriation accounts such as CRADA and Gift Funds. Found under the Multi-Year tab.
  • UCG Report by CAN: a new balance report for unconditional gift funds. The report calculates the total balance and individual task year balance for a single UCG CAN based on user-entered collections and a system sum of obligations overall FYs. Found under the Multi-Year tab --> Unconditional Gifts.
  • OO/PS Report: a new actuals report that blends HR data with standard financial reporting. In this report, typical PS costs are replaced with the employee costs calculated in HR, summarized by employee type (FTE, Fellow, Contractor). Other object costs are summarized over the month. Found under the Actuals tab.
  • Expired Funds: a new transactions screen dedicated to all Expired Funds activity. Found under the Transaction tab
  • Finance Audit Log: a new report with advanced search capabilities for system administrators to track all manual changes in the application. Found under the Admin tab --> system utilities.
  • CGF CRADA Carry-Over Report: a new historical multi-year balance report for Gift fund and CRADA accounts. The report shows the starting and EOY balance of all historical FYs, based on manually entered collections and a system sum of obligations. Found under the Multi-Year tab --> Conditional Gifts or CRADAs.
  • Monthly Revenue by OC Code:


New or Altered Data Fields

  • New PS CAN Flip Column: A new column available on the main Accounts screen. Sums transactions that contain the standard document number ICFY-000lognumber i.e. RC23-00012. The dollar amount found on the accounts screen sums CAN flips in and out of the account and links to the transactions screen for more detail. Found under column preferences on the Accounts Page. How to add the PS CAN Flip column to your view
  • New Requester and Item Description Columns for Open Commitments: Note that these columns are summaries for the order number. If there are multiple transactions related to the same order please review the detailed order. Found under the Pending tab.
  • Collection Last Updated Column for CRADA and Gift Balance Report: When a user adds or edits a collection for a CRADA or Gift Balance account the balance report will reflect the date the modification was made. Found on the CRADA and Gift Balance Report.
  • Unposted (Near Real Time) Transactions now Include Commitments: Found under the Pending Tab --> Near-Real Time. Also included in the Unposted column available on the main Accounts screen.
  • Grant Application ID: A new column available on the transactions screen that identifies the transactions Grant Application ID. How to add the Grant Application ID column to your view


Planning and Admin Screens:

  • New Edit View: The most substantial update we made in FY 2023, was a ground-up rewrite focusing on user interface and consolidating functionality from several older screens. Users can drag and drop accounts into place or use right-click menus and checkboxes to organize and edit their views and summary accounts. Found under the Admin tab. 
  • New Projections Data Entry: The Projections module received a complete makeover, featuring Excel-style data entry for entering upcoming projected obligations. Reconciling projections now requires a simple button click, and projections automatically roll over to future FYs to make next year's data entry even easier. Found under the Planning tab.
  • New Allocations Rollup Data Entry: A new method for entering Allocations for all CANs in your view at once by a single category group. Users still have the existing Allocation by Category data entry option for entering allocations for a single CAN. Found under the Planning tab.



New Features:

  • Edit Account Titles: Administrative users can now edit account titles from the Accounts screen and the Edit View screen using the right-click menu on both screens 
  • Account Structure Save Reports: On the Accounts screen, users can create and save a group of columns as a custom report. After updating your column preferences, click the Save Report button to save that grouping as a new report, or select an existing report from the dropdown to load it. 
  • New Transactions Bubble on the Main Accounts Screen: This number tracks the number of new transactions that were downloaded overnight. Click on the number to link to the transactions screen filtered by today.

  • MYT Transactions FY Filter: When searching for transactions in past years users can now select the from and to period FYs. For example, you could search for all transactions for a single CAN between FY 2012 - 2018. Found under the Multi-Year tab --> Transaction Search.
  • CGF and CRADA Balance Reports Track Your FY: For both the CRADA and Conditional Gift Reports as you change your system FY the balance report will update based on the data as it existed for that period FY. For example, if you update the FY you are viewing to FY 2021 you will see the accounts and balances as they existed in FY 2021. 
  • PS Projection Report by View and Ad-Hoc View: On the HR PS Projection report (found under the HR planning tab), users can filter the employees in the report by a Finance view (even your Ad-Hoc views!).
  • Enable View Change on any Screen: Users can update their view on any screen in Finance. This used to be limited to only the Accounts screen.

  • Ad-Hoc Save View: Last year we created a new Ad-Hoc View feature to enable non-admin users to create their own custom views. Now users can save their Ad-Hoc views and create multiple custom views for themselves.