1. Banner Finance Presentation

2. Agenda Banner Finance System Overview
Banner Finance vs. Oracle Financial (Table comparison)
Banner Finance Implementation Plan
Banner Interfaces
Customization
Risks and Difficulties
Questions and Answers

3. Banner Finance System Overview

4. Banner Finance – System Overview
An online product which utilizes the Oracle Relational Database Management System (RDBMS)
Can function as a stand-alone system or integrate with various Banner Systems, enables you to access information that already exists on any of the other systems
Has both the functionality and flexibility to serve multiple users through a common database of financial information
Not only responds to accounting requirement , but also addresses your need for strategic and operational information
Provides a comprehensive, integrated financial management system that enables you to track, maintain, and process all of your relevant financial data

5. Major Features of Banner Finance
Comprehensive Reporting – numerous standard hard copy reports and online inquiry forms
Menu and Help Forms – to assist you with online documentation
Online Data Entry – the system subjects the data to the appropriate validation test
Validation Forms – flexibility to enter values that meet specific requirements, do not need to make any coding changes
Maintenance Forms – allows to enter data with ease and assurance
Audit Trail – provides for tracking data from point of entry through archiving
Processing Rules – can format the processing rules for specific requirement, requires some coding
User-defined Security – ensures that only authorized users can view and / or update certain data
Online Documentation – comes with a dynamic help set to help you navigate through the system and its forms

6. Modules in Banner Finance
General Ledger
Purchasing and Procurement
Research Accounting
Accounts Payable
Accounts Receivable
Budget Development and Position Control
Fixed Assets
Store Inventory
Cost Accounting
Endowment Management
Investment Management

7. General Ledger Module Core of the Banner Finance System
Supports complete Fund Accounting
User-defined Chart of Accounts
Rule-based processing
User-specified security options
Provides extensive financial information query capability

8. List of Banner Finance Ledgers
General Ledger
Operating Ledger (OPAL)
Encumbrance Ledger
Grant Ledger

9. Chart elements (C-FOAPAL)
C = Chart code (1 character)
F = Fund code (6 characters – 5 levels)
O = Organization code (6 characters – 8 levels)
A = Account code (6 characters – 4 levels)
P = Program code (6 characters – 5 levels)
A = Activity code (6 characters – 0 level) (optional)
L = Location code (6 characters – 5 levels) (optional)

10. Banner Finance VS Oracle Financials

11. Banner Finance vs. Oracle Financials Banner Finance Oracle Financials
1. Structure of COA (FOAPAL)
1. Structure of COA
Consists of 7 segments (Chart-Fund-Orgn-Acct-Prog-Activity-Location)
Consists of 6 segments (Fund-Prog-Acct-Orgn-Controller-Institution)
Consists of 37 characters (of which 12 are optional)
Consists of 26 characters
Allow several levels of hierarchy for each segment except Activity Code
Has to define Parent / Child Segment Values, Rollup Groups and Summary Account Template
Fund Type – links to user-defined fund codes, and provides a definition of each fund for proper categorization
Not applicable

12. Banner Finance vs. Oracle Financials Banner Finance Oracle Financials
Account Type – links to user-defined account codes, and provides a definition of each account
Not applicable
No code combinations, can use index code
Has code combinations
Pool accounts for budgetary control
Summary Accounts for budgetary control

13. Banner Finance vs. Oracle Financials Banner Finance Oracle Financials
2. Operating Ledger
2. Operating Ledger
Transactions of income and expenditure types would be posted to the income / expenditure accounts in the Operating Ledger and the control accounts in the General Ledger.
No Operating Ledger, all transactions are recorded in the General Ledger.
General Ledger shows all the balance sheets accounts and the control accounts only.
Has to refer to the Operating Ledger for details of the income and expenditure accounts.

14. Banner Finance vs. Oracle Financials Banner Finance Oracle Financials
3. Bank Fund, Cash Account & Cash Interfund Accounts
3. Bank Fund, Cash Account & Cash Interfund Accounts
The Bank Fund is a special fund created to show the total cash and the breakdown of where that cash is deposited.
No bank fund is maintained.
The use of Bank Fund and Cash Interfund Accounts permits individual cash balances by fund and enables you to see the entity’s cash position in total.

15. Banner Finance vs. Oracle Financials Banner Finance Oracle Financials
4. Research Accounting Module
4. Research Accounting Module
Enables you to track grants from the time you submit a proposal to a funding agency through the award and disbursement process.
Not applicable
Enables you to perform accounting, reporting and billing functions after you receive a grant award.
The Grant Inception to Date Report displays operating account information from the inception of a grant to the specified as of date.

16. Banner Finance vs. Oracle Financials Banner Finance Oracle Financials
5. Accounts Receivable
5. Accounts Receivable
Feed data from the Banner Student, can refer to the system for individual records.
Receipts are entered into the system by batch, have to refer to other system for individual records.
Refunds to students are processed by the Accounts Receivable Section.
Refunds to students were processed by the Payment Section.

17. Banner Finance vs. Oracle Financials Banner Finance Oracle Financials
6. Purchasing and Procurement
6. Purchasing and Procurement
The search function is less powerful
The search function is more powerful (e.g. PRs & POs can be searched by description, buyers, etc.)
The Document History Form – displays the processing history of purchasing and payment documents, identifies and provides the status of all documents in the processing path for the document you select.
No such summary is available.

18. Banner Finance vs. Oracle Financials Banner Finance Oracle Financials
7. Accounts Payable
7. Accounts Payable
With the soft copy of the bank statement from bank, bank reconciliation could be done automatically by the system.
Bank reconciliation is done manually
May enter more than one vendor invoices in one Invoice Document.
One Invoice Document is for one vendor invoices only
Need to determine which Bank Code to use when processing the invoices.
Bank Code is required when issuing cheques.

19. Banner Finance vs. Oracle Financials Banner Finance Oracle Financials
8. Reporting
8. Reporting
Standard Reports from the system are inadequate and not informative.
Standard reports from the system are more informative.
No Financial Statement Generator
Financial Statement Generator (FSG) – users may define financial reports as necessary to meet special reporting needs.

20. Banner Finance vs. Oracle Financials Banner Finance Oracle Financials
9. Others
9. Others
General Encumb. – able to encumber or reserve fund for future commitments without issuing POs.
To encumber or reserve fund for future commitments, need to issue POs.
Users can choose whether to use document or commodity level accounting when inputting PRs, POs & invoices.
Not applicable
Committed encumb.are identified as having been rolled from the prior year & the amount of the encumb. when liquidated would be reflected in the Prior Year Encumb. Control A/C in the current year.
No such distinction is maintained.

21. Banner Finance or Oracle Financials?
Your Choice!

22. Banner Finance Implementation

23. Banner Finance Implementation
Remarks : Agreement with SCT was signed in July 2001, Banner Finance was implemented on 1 July 2002.
Major Tasks
Duration / Time Spent
1. Initial Setup and Installation
Hardware and Software set up
10 man-days
Designed the COA in Excel file format and uploaded to the Banner Finance Database Tables
Oct 2001 – Jan 2002
Developed and entered applicable validation table data in various modules
Dec 2001 – Jan 2002
First test for the Banner Finance – before any approval and security set up
Feb 2002 – Mar 2002
Revised the COA and initial set up of various modules
Mar 2002

24. Banner Finance Implementation Major Tasks Duration/Time Spent
Second test for the Banner Finance – after the approval and security set up
Apr 2002 – Jun 2002
Interfacing tasks and their testing
Vax Payroll System Banner Finance
Citibank Paylink ---- Banner Finance
E-payment & JETCO ---- Banner Finance
Jan 2002 – Jun 2002
Set up in Accounts Receivable and testing of Interface from Banner Student
Apr 2002 – Jun 2002
Report Development – ITSC to create various essential reports (around 30) that are not available in the Banner Finance
90 man-days

25. Banner Finance Implementation Major Tasks Duration/Time Spent
2. Training / Consultation
Initial training
Problem solving during implementation & Year end
Data Conversion of GITD
Aug 2001 – Apr 2002
Apr 2002 – Aug 2002
Jul 2002 – Oct 2002
3. Data Conversions
Vendor, Commodity listings from Oracle Tables to Banner Tables
Entered the outstanding POs in Oracle Financials to Banner Finance manually
Mar 2002 – Apr 2002
July 2002

26. Banner Finance Implementation Major Tasks Durations
4. Form and Data Securities
Reviewed the forms and processes in various modules, classified into different categories
Set up security and approval queue in the system
Jan 2002 – Mar 2002
Mar 2002

27. Banner Interfaces

28. Banner Interfaces Banner Student A/R to Finance
Banner Alumni to Finance
Banner Payroll to Finance (not yet implemented)
In Lingnan, three modules will feed data to Banner Finance. They are Banner Student, Banner Alumni and Banner Payroll. The former two are currently adopted by Lingnan while the Banner Payroll is not yet implemented. Though we do not have implemented Banner Payroll, we have some basic idea on HOW Banner Payroll feed data to Banner Finance.

29. How to Interface? Pass Retrieve
Student
A/R
Pass
Retrieve
Process (A)
Interface Process to
pass the transactions
from corresponding modules
to GURFEED table
Process (B)
Interface Process to retrieve
And validate the GURFEED
Data and transform them into
General Ledger and
Journal Vouchers transactions
GURFEED
Alumni
Rule Class
How to interface?
Let’s look at this diagram, Pink Circle represents different modules in Banner. i.e. Student A/R, Alumni, Payroll and Finance.
When user wants to feed the data to finance, they will run a process (A) to retrieve the data from the Student A/R, Alumni or Payroll first. This process will analyze these data by referencing to the Rule defined and adding the FOAPAL information to it. These massage data will be stored on the GURFEED table.
The data in the GURFEED will then be passed through another process. This process (B) will validate the data and transform them into the G/L and J/V tables. Then, these data will then be able to be view through the Banner Finance module.
The interfacing processes are attached to a set of rule classes defined by SCT Banner. These rule classes select the appropriate account (FOAPAL) for liquidating General Ledger or Operating Ledger account balances
Rule class allows to process:
Reduces outstanding balances on individual charge or payment detailed items on the individual account Forms.
Selects the appropriate account (FOAPAL) for liquidating General Ledger or Operating Ledger account balances along with selecting the appropriate Rule Classes for Finance posting.
(Note: GURFEED is a collector table through which all interfacing transactions to the Finance System are passed.)
Payroll
Finance
FOAPAL

30. Banner Student A/R to Finance
Student Deposits
Hostel Deposit, Chinese Test Deposit
After a certain period, when a deposit is released or returned to the payee, the record will be converted to the Student Charges & Payments
Student Charges and Payments
Laser Copies Fee, Hostel Fee, refund of Hostel Deposit
Miscellaneous Charges
Transactions other than Student Deposits & Student Charges and Payments
What data will be fed to Finance?
Mainly three types. Student Deposits, Student Charges and Payments, and Miscellaneous Charges.
The four types of data you noted represent distinct activities that are recorded differently from each other in Banner and need to be processed separately by TGRFEED.
Student charge and payment records can be created in a number of ways including fee assessment processing and manual entry on TSAAREV or TSADETL, etc. These transactions are recorded in TBRACCD.
Student deposits, such as housing, are entered in the Deposits block of TSADETL and are recorded in the TBRDEPO table. When a deposit is "released," a record is created in the TBRACCD table at that time.
Miscellaneous transactions are entered on the Miscellaneous Transaction Form (TFAMISC or TSAMISC depending on whether you use Banner Finance) and recorded in TBRMISD. Unlike TBRACCD and TBRDEPO, PIDM is not a required field in TBRMISD.
Re miscellaneous transactions, if something cannot be recorded using TSADETL or TFADETL, then the miscellaneous form would be used. For example, some schools collect a fee when a transcript request is made and then record the total amount collected at the end of the day. In this case, since the one summary transaction at the end of the day doesn't have a PIDM associated with it, the entry would be made using a miscellaneous form.
Cashiering sessions are used to organize transactions by cashier (user ID) and session number. All transactions in TBRACCD, TBRMISD and TBRDEPO are assigned a user ID (cashier) when they are created. When a cashiering session is closed, the session number and ending date are recorded in TBBCSHR and updated for all transactions included in the session. TBBCSHR is also used to record a bank code and bank deposit number for each cashiering session. This enables one to associate a cashiering session and user with specific transactions and a bank deposit and is important for auditing and tracking purposes.
cashiering sessions are not created by a user, but by the system so there isn't anything that a school would need to do to create a session. Cashiering sessions are closed and finalized by users or by running TSRCLOS. Since each transaction needs to be associated with a cashiering session, the system will create a new session for a user if one is not presently open when a transaction is entered.

31. Banner Student A/R to Finance
Run a data extraction process to feed Student A/R data to GURFEED table
Run a data retrieval process to get data from GURFEED table and insert them to the Ledger and Journal Voucher Tables
A/R
Transactions
(1)
Student A/R
Interface Process
GURFEED
(2)
Ledgers and
Journal
Vouchers
(3)
This diagram shows how the data feed to Finance.
Detail codes are comprised of descriptive information, both Chart of Accounts Code Elements and Rule Classes. This data is highly interactive.
In the Detail Code Control Form (TFADETC or TSADETC), Rule Classes consist of three fields, two allowing the Application of Payments Process to perform two basic functions:
Reduces outstanding balances on individual charge or payment detailed items on the individual account Forms.
Selects the appropriate account for liquidating General Ledger or Operating Ledger account balances along with selecting the appropriate Rule Classes for Finance posting.
Finance
Interface Process

32. Banner Alumni to Finance
Gift and Payments
Actual hard accountable dollars that are received by the institution
Pledge
A promise to give money
Due Payments
Actual hard accountable dollars
Used within the Membership portion of the system to pay for the various membership programs
3 types of data could be fed to Banner Finance. Only the first item is currently adopted by Lingnan.
Gift and Payments (AGAGIFT)
Pledge (AGAPLDG or AGAPMAS)
Due Payments (AAADUES)

33. Banner Alumni to Finance
Run a data extraction process to feed Alumni data to GURFEED table
Run a data retrieval process to get data from GURFEED table and insert them to the Ledger and Journal Voucher Tables
Alumni
Transactions
(1)
Alumni
Interface Process
GURFEED
(2)
Ledgers and
Journal
Vouchers
(3)
Finance
Interface Process

34. Banner Payroll to Finance
Encumbrance
Actual Payroll
Position Budget
For Banner Payroll, three types of data will be fed.
Encumbrance, Actual Payroll and Position Budget
The benefit of the encumbrance accounting feature is the ability to have the
system control the expenditure budget from the General Ledger, reducing the
risks of potential over expenditure. This is often a legislated requirement for
public organizations.
(1) reserves within an
expenditure subaccount the anticipated amounts required to
cover these obligations as they become payable after the
goods are delivered or the services are rendered, and
(2) reduces the available fund balance in that particular
subaccount.
Thus, the recording of encumbrances serves as
a valuable aid to departments for keeping expenditures
within amounts budgeted.

35. Banner Payroll to Finance
Budget &
Actual
Expense
(1)
Run a data extraction process to feed Budget and Actual Expense to GURFEED table
Run a data retrieval process to get data from GURFEED table and insert them to the Ledger and Journal Voucher Tables
Payroll
Interface Process
GURFEED
(2)
Ledgers and
Journal
Vouchers
(3)
Finance
Interface Process

36. Banner Interfaces Summary
“Pass and Retrieve” Interfacing Processes
Student A/R, Alumni, Payroll “pass” the data to a table for interfacing i.e. GURFEED table
Finance “retrieves” the data from the GURFEED table and transforms them into General Ledger and Journal Voucher transactions
Rule-Based Processing
Define the FOAPAL for the rule class. The rule class then selects the appropriate account (FOAPAL) for liquidating General Ledger or Operating Ledger account balances

37. Customization

38. Customization Reasons:
Banner’s reports are relatively inadequate and not perfectly fit the needs of Lingnan
Develop a more user-friendly interface to download/ upload records from/ to Banner Finance

39. Customization by Lingnan
Oracle Report (Oracle Developer)
Management Reports in PDF or Excel format
Excel Data File Generation Program (Visual Foxpro)
File Upload Program (Visual Foxpro)
Journal Voucher Batch Upload
Print Report Program (Visual Foxpro)
Print Bank Checks, Budget Balance Report, etc.
Web Report (HTML, Javascript, PL/SQL)

41. Oracle Report

42. File Generation Program
Print Receipt

43. Print Checks

44. Report Printing

46. Risks and Difficulties

47. Risks and Difficulties with Banner Finance
Due to the limited supply of manpower and time, we were not able to arrange for the parallel run.
Not enough testing for the COA, problems arose after the implementation.
The SCT consultants were not well prepared for the training session and were not helpful in solving our problems.
Training material were inadequate and we had to download the user manuals from the Banner website, which was extremely time consuming and confusing.
The system cannot handle Chinese characters.
Difficult to avoid the creation of duplicate Banner ID.
Causes changes in workflow and re-allocation of job duties both within the Office of the Comptroller and among various departments.
Electronic PR through the Web for Finance does not cater for commodity level accounting.
Difficult to trace feed documents.
Standard reports are inadequate and do not fit our requirements.

48. Q&A

49. The End