Cal Answers Financials Overview
Cal Answers Financials provides the ability to report on financial data using Cal Answers rather than BAIRS. The Office of the Vice Chancellor of Finance (VC Finance) released a series of dashboards designed to transition financial reporting from BAIRS to Cal Answers. These dashboards have all been released. Cal Answers now includes a full suite of functionality to replace BAIRS.
Feedback
We’d like to extend a big thank you to the project teams and everyone who partnered with us and provided feedback on this project. Going forward, the point of contact for questions will be the Help Desk atcalanswers-help@berkeley.edu
Access
To learn more about getting access to Cal Answers Financials, visit the Access page.
Benefits
Benefits of using Cal Answers Financials include:
- Log in with Chrome and Firefox as well as Citrix.
- Locate data from Berkeley Financial System (BFS), Berkeley Campus Solutions (BCS), Human Capital Management (HCM), BearBuy and other campus systems all in one application.
- Drill from summary values down to detailed transactions.
- Customize dashboard reports as needed while in the report, rather than downloading static content.
- Share customized reports by sending bookmark links or creating briefing books.
- Export data in a variety of formats.
Permbudg, Ad Hoc, and new General Ledger reports
LIVE October 4, 2018
This release includes the new Permbudg dashboard, two new reports in the General Ledger dashboard; the Prior vs Current reportand the Transaction Verification report, access to Ad Hoc Finance, and various enhancements based on user feedback, including new filter options and new options in the includable column list.
Encumbrance and Procurement Card Reporting
LIVE September 13, 2018
Encumbrance Reporting and the Procurement Card report are now available.
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Encumbrance Reportingis a new report tab within the General Ledger dashboard that tracks outstanding liabilities to suppliers awaiting payment. It will be especially useful to professionals who use BearBuy and/or BFS to close out purchase orders.
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Procurement Card is a new report tab within the Spend dashboard in the Procure to Pay subject area and tracks transactions that need to be cleared in BFS. It will be relevant to professionals who track procurement card purchases.
Multi-Year Reporting, Payroll, Chartfield Lookup, Telecom Billing, Telecom Phone Usage
LIVE July 26, 2018
The Multi-Year Reporting, Payroll, Chartfield Lookup, Telecom Billing, and Telecom Phone usage are now available. The Multi-Year Reporting dashboard allows you to report on financial data across multiple fiscal years. The Payroll dashboard includes Payroll Expense Detail and Leave Accrual information from the Payroll and Personnel System (PPS) and replaces the existing BAIRS payroll reports. Other dashboards in this release include Telecom Billing, Telecom Phone Usage, and Chartfield Lookup
HR Termination and Org Change Report
LIVE June 28, 2018
There is a new Human Resources report available in the Cal Answers HR Workforce Detail dashboard. The Cal Answers team partnered with Human Resources professionals from central and campus units to respond to feedback and create the Termination and Org Change report. This report shows information on appointments with an org change, as well as appointments that have been terminated. It will allow you to filter by current or prior org node, job code, or appointment type. This report replaces the HR-BAIRS termination report and includes org change functionality previously unavailable in the former report.
Gifts in Suspense Accounting
The Gifts in Suspense Accounting report displays gifts that are waiting for processing and answers the question “What gifts am I expecting that haven't been processed yet?” The Gifts in Suspense Accounting report is part of the Gift & Endowment Reporting dashboard. It is relevant to units that receive gifts and to the processing units within University Development and Alumni Relations.
Fund Deficits Reporting
LIVE May 22, 2018
The Cal Answers Financials Funds Deficits Reporting dashboard includes a Deficits to be Cleared report, which identifies any recharge or other current funds in deficit at the L4 org level, and a Waivers and Tolerances report, which shows recharge tolerance amounts and approved deficit waiver amounts for other current funds. The dashboard will be especially relevant to fund managers.
General Ledger Reporting
LIVE April 19, 2018
The Cal Answers Financials General Ledger (GL) Reporting dashboard reports replace the GL summary and detail reports in BAIRS with the Cal Answers functionality and global access to campus financial data. The dashboard will be especially relevant to those who are responsible for BFS journals, who manage non-current funds and who need to report on asset and liability accounts. Learn more about the General Ledger (GL) Reporting dashboard.
Cal Answers HR Reporting
The Cal Answers team partnered with Human Resources professionals from central and campus units to develop dashboards to replace the HR reporting currently in BAIRS, which is being retired in December. The project team rebuilt highly-used BAIRS reports with additional information, functionality, and filters. The team did not rebuild BAIRS reports with little to no use. Learn more about the HR Reporting dashboards.
Enhanced Financial Management Reporting dashboard now available
LIVE January 25, 2018
We are excited to announce that the enhanced Cal Answers Financials Financial Management Reportingdashboard is now available! The enhancements are based on your feedback and include the addition of four new management reports and expanded filter options. You are no longer required to filter on an Org Level 3 from the report prompts. You only need to select and apply at least one filter from either the Org levels, Fund options, CF1, or CF2, but performance is better the more you narrow your search.
With this release, there are now four new reports available (in addition to the three reports released in August 2018) for anyone who needs a quick and simple way to view the monthly financial activity for their unit(s):
- By Month: Provides a monthly format for tracking the trend and seasonality of Revenue, Operating Transfers, Compensation Expenses and Non-Compensation Expenses at a summary level, with drills to the transaction detail
- Revenue & Transfers: Displays all Revenue and Operating Transfer transactions based on the selected filters.
- Compensation Expenses: Shows all Compensation Expense transactions based on the selected filters.
- Non-Compensation Expenses: Provides all Non-Compensation Expense transactions based on the selected filters.
Gift & Endowment Reporting
LIVE November 20, 2017
We are pleased to announce that Cal Answers Financials has partnered with University Development and Alumni Relations (UDAR) to develop the Gift & Endowment Reporting dashboard, released on November 20, 2017. The Gift & Endowment Reporting dashboard is an enhancement of the gift and endowment data currently available in BAIRS. It is intended to help units understand what gift and endowment funds they have available and how they can use those funds. The enhancements in Cal Answers include the ability to:
- Search for funds administered by your department and review the whole-fund balances across campus.
- Reconcile transfers from the Foundation ledger by month for funds with activity in both Foundation and campus ledgers, with the Foundation and campus ledger balances displayed next to each other.
- Review key Cal Advancement Data System (CADS) data for gifts and endowments.
Financial Management Reporting
Live August 31, 2017
The first Cal Answers Financials release is the Financial Management Reporting Dashboard. The Financial Management Reporting Dashboard includes three tabs: SRECNA, Summary by Chartfields, and Transactions.
SRECNA
This tab displays the Statement of Revenue, Expense, and Changes to Net Assets for the selected organization. It is modeled after the CR103 report in CalPlanning.
Summary by Chartfields
This tab summarizes transactions for each unique chartstring combination. It is modeled after the 008 GL Sum by Chartfields Mod C&G report in BAIRS.
This tab provides the lowest level of transaction detail for
New to Cal Answers?
Check out these helpful links.
Top 10 Cal Answers Financials Report Runners!
- August 2018 Top 10 Financial Management Reporting (FMR) Runners
- August 2018 Top 10 General Ledger & Multi-Year Report Runners
- July’s Top 10 Cal Answers Financial Management Report Runners!
- General Ledger Top 10 Report Runners, July 2018!
- Financial Management Top 10 Report Runners, June 2018!
- General Ledger Top 10 Report Runners, June 2018!
- Financial Management Top 10 Report Runners, May 2018!
- General Ledger Top 10 Report Runners, May 2018!