SPA November Newsletter

Campus Hospitality Justification Form

As announced by Sacramento State Accounts Payable & Travel Manager, Sarah Hansen, the CSU Chancellor’s Office recently revised the Hospitality Policy with many changes, including a requirement for campuses to have a Hospitality Justification Form. As a result, effective immediately, a Hospitality Justification Form is required for all hospitality transactions that occur on Sacramento State’s campus. To comply with campus requirements, UEI will release a similar Hospitality Justification Form for use with sponsored projects. UEI’s Business Services Division will send out a notice when the form is available. Please watch for the campus announcement with future changes to the hospitality procedures. The current procedure is available here.

New Award Protocol for Issuing UEI Account Numbers

SPA implemented a new procedure several months ago for assigning UEI account numbers to new awards. Some of you have commented positively on your experience with the new procedure. In an effort to expedite our account set-up process, SPA is providing an account number within 5 business days after receipt of an award from the Offices of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development (ORIED). SPA sends an email to the Principal Investigator/Project Director (PI/PD) with the account number and details of their assigned Analyst and/or Associate. This allows the PI/PD to begin activity on their newly established accounts more expeditiously. Additionally, within two weeks of the account assignment, SPA staff will contact you to schedule a PI Orientation. If more than two weeks have passed since the receipt of the email containing the new account number, please contact sp@csus.edu or (916) 278-7565.

Earlier UEI Timesheet Submittal Times

UEI Payroll Services recently announced a change to the deadlines for submitting and approving timesheets through UEIWorkforce. The deadline for employees has changed from Noon to 10:00 AM on the first business day after the end of the pay period. This went into effect in mid-September. Similarly, the deadline for supervisors to approve employee timesheets was moved from 4:00 PM to Noon on the same day. The earlier deadlines provide Payroll Services with time to reach out to employees and supervisors to assist with timesheet issues before beginning to process payroll. The payroll calendar with the deadlines and paydays may be found here on UEI Payroll’s website.

Help Expedite Expenditure and Purchase Order Requests

We need your assistance to further streamline and expedite the processing of your expenditure and reimbursement requests. As a reminder, SPA centralized its expenditure processing in April 2023. All payment and purchase order requests should be sent to spa-admin@csus.edu to allow for better tracking and efficiency in processing. To prevent delays, please submit requests and all related backup items as one PDF attachment rather than several. This will save a significant amount of time for the person responsible for receiving and distributing requests. As an additional reminder, please submit requests as email attachments rather than via Adobe Sign. We appreciate the extra effort to help make the process faster for everyone. Thank you.

SPA Personnel Updates

Ranika Sharma, Contract Analyst, joined the Sponsored Programs Administration (SPA) team in early October. Ranika is part of the newly formed Contracts Unit within SPA that oversees agreements with external entities providing services on sponsored projects. They work in collaboration with your SPA account administration team. We welcome Ranika to SPA and to the Sacramento State research community.

Additionally, two internal promotions recently occurred. Jua Her was promoted from Account Associate II to Compliance and Grants Analyst I. Jua will oversee her own portfolio of sponsored programs accounts. Emma Kroger was promoted from Account Associate I to Account Associate II and will have an increased role with University Support Program accounts. Congratulations, Jua and Emma!