Tips, laundry charges and alcoholic beverages are not reimb

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2nd Quarter 2006 April / May / June
In This Issue
2006 Fiscal Year End Deadlines
The table below contains the cutoff dates for
fiscal year 2006 financial transactions. The
dates and times shown are the financial
department's processing deadlines. All
departments submitting transactions must allow
sufficient lead time for the financial department
to process the transactions prior to the
deadlines listed.
2006 Fiscal Year End Deadlines Page 1
Payments to Independent Contractor Page 2
Travel Reimbursement Page 2 Workplace Securi
ty over Information Page 3 PowerPoint
Tips Page 4
As the end of fiscal year 2006 approaches, all
departments should review the following reminders
and take appropriate action to ensure these
issues are addressed.

• Account reconciliations should be completed to
  identify and correct errors or
• missing transactions in department budgets,
  revenue or expense prior
• to year end.
• Appropriate steps should be taken to ensure
  that department invoice activity is
• recorded in the correct fiscal year.
  Invoices for items or services received prior to
• year end should be recorded in fiscal year
  2006. Invoices for items or services
• received after year end should be recorded
  in fiscal year 2007.
• All department employees should be reminded
  that requests for fiscal year 2006
• expense reimbursements must be made prior
  to fiscal year end. All expense
• reimbursements for fiscal year 2006 must be
  approved by the final approval level on
• or before July 12, 2006.
• Sales tax reports must be submitted to David
  Young in Treasury, Tax and Risk
• Management Services before July 3, 2006

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Page 2 Business Administrator Quarterly

• Following are some notable points in the Kent
  State policy regarding payments to independent
  contractors and travel reimbursement requests.
• Payments to Independent Contractors
• All payments for services to independent
  contractors must be submitted to Procurement on
  check requests. It is necessary to use this
  payment process to ensure that all independent
  contractors receive an accurate Form 1099 from
  the University at the end of the calendar year.
  At no time should payments to an independent
  contractor be paid by an employee personally and
  submitted as an expense reimbursement request.
• Travel Reimbursement
• Original receipt retention and record keeping is
  critical to maintain compliance with State IRS
  regulations on travel entertainment expenses.
  The documents that must be retained in the
  travelers home department when reimbursement
  requests are submitted electronically through the
  Lotus Notes application include original itemized
  receipts or bills, the transportation itinerary
  and the passenger receipt portion of the
  transportation ticket (such as the boarding
  pass).
• It is the expense reimbursement approvers
  responsibility to verify the following on all
  reimbursement requests that they approve
• Duplicate payments are not made to requestors.
• Shared hotel rooms are not reimbursed in full to
  each traveler. Only the traveler who incurred
  
• the charge should be reimbursed for the charge.
• Mileage claimed on expense reports is reasonable
  for the locations involved.
• Tips, laundry charges and alcoholic beverages are
  not reimbursed.
• University policy states that a traveler must be
  on travel status at the times listed below to
  receive the meal reimbursement indicated, and the
  trip must include an overnight stay

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Page 3 Business Administrator Quarterly
Workplace Security Over Information

• In the last year, there have been three computer
  security issues at Kent State that have created a
  heightened sense
• of awareness regarding electronic information.
  Since these incidents occurred, the university
  has expanded its
• review of data security and has worked to adopt a
  more proactive computer security posture. All
  associates are
• required to comply with the universitys computer
  security guidelines and to handle electronic
  files properly, such as
• storing all documents with sensitive information
  on a server (not on a PC hard drive).
• In addition to the computer security
  requirements, all Kent State employees need to be
  aware of the physical security
• of the information in their departments.
  Evaluate your department work place and ask
  yourself these questions
• Is the sensitive data and / or federally
  protected information used in this department
  (such as social
• security numbers and credit card numbers)
  adequately protected from the view of curious or
  prying eyes?
• Is the information in my work area safe and
  secure from intruders and other hazards?
• As you evaluate the physical security in your
  work place, consider how the following security
  practices can be
• implemented.
• If your workstation is in a public area such as
  near a service counter, angle the monitor so that
  clients at the counter or those visiting the work
  area cannot readily view the contents displayed
  on your screen.

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Page 4 Business Administrator Quarterly
PowerPoint Tips
Microsoft PowerPoint has become an indispensable
tool for developing and delivering powerful
presentations in the workplace. It allows the
presenter to more effectively communicate their
message through the use of graphics, charts,
animation and even video or audio. PowerPoint is
also a great tool to capture complex business
process flows and organizational structures in a
visual form. Information in PowerPoint files can
be easily shared with others electronically.
Following are some hints and shortcuts that are
useful when working with PowerPoint files.
Preview slide show effects While editing a
presentation, hold down the Ctrl key while
clicking the slide show view button. This will
open a small preview window showing that slide in
slide show mode. Preview a presentation in black
and white When working on a presentation that
will be printed in black and white, it may be
helpful to view the presentation on the screen in
black and white. This can be done by accessing
the View menu at the top of screen and selecting
Color / Grayscale from the first menu, then Pure
Black and White from the next menu. Use
Ctrl-Drag to copy an object Quickly make a copy
of any object in a PowerPoint file by holding
down the Ctrl key while dragging the object. 
This will "drag off" a new copy of the
object. Change text case from caps to lower case
(or vice versa) If a PowerPoint file contains
text that is in the wrong case, highlight the
text with the cursor and then click ShiftF3
until it changes to the desired case. Clicking
ShiftF3 toggles the text case between ALL CAPS,
lower case, and Initial Capital styles. (This
useful trick works with Word too!) Hide the
presentation screen Once a presentation is open
in Slide Show mode, the presentation can be
hidden by pressing the B key to blackout the
screen or the W key to whiteout the screen. When
it is time to begin or resume the presentation,
simply press the B or W key again to display the
slide.
All previously published newsletters can be
viewed on-line at http//www.kent.edu/bas/Newslett
er/index.cfm. Please let us know if you would
like us to cover a specific topic regarding
business operations or fiscal management in a
future issue. Contact Maureen Kennedy at
extension 2-8615, Vicki Ladd at extension 2-1956,
or send an email to bas_at_kent.edu.