Hey BMB’ers,
This is going to be a quick one as it’s just a reminder.
When you are registering for a conference please don’t forget that things like a t-shirt, or an excursion should be paid for by you. These are extras beyond the conference. This also includes any social events that take place during the conference, like a dinner or dance that you have to pay extra to attend.
Let’s do our best to keep the finance ninjas happy, and follow all the rules.
Happy Half Friday BMB’ers!
It’s been a couple of weeks and today I’m coming ‘atcha with a request straight from the almighty powers that be: the Finance Office.
Trust me, I’ve booked your travel, I know.
So, it’s only understandable that you would want to hang out in California for a few days after the conference or get to Australia a week before the big symposium. And that’s great, you can do that! But you need to do a couple of things for us back here.
If this includes a flight, please provide the airfare itinerary for the personal portion of your trip too. If it’s anything else, like say you took a train to Italy or rode a donkey to the next village before flying home, just make a note of it.
Happy Half Friday, BMB’ers, have any of you bumped into our newest faculty member, Dr. Emily Weinert yet? I got the chance to meet her recently and she’s delightful! She even agreed to let us all get to know her a little better via the BMB Buzz. We discussed important issues like dogs and favorite snack food. Be sure to swing by her Lab Warming Party tomorrow, Thursday, August 29th in 306 Althouse from 3-5:00 pm. Snacks will be in 303B, because Weinert Lab plays by the rules, yo!
Tracey – Where are you from?
Emily – I was born outside Chicago but grew up mostly on Long Island (near Brookhaven National Lab) with a few years in Germany, and then bounced around the country for school.
Tracey – What’s a local food from your old stomping grounds that you are going to miss?
Emily – There are a couple taco places in Atlanta that I’m going to miss, plus the Buford Highway corridor that had amazing Chinese and Korean restaurants.
Tracey – Tell me a little about your research?
Emily – My group is working to generate a molecular-level understanding of how bacteria sense and respond to the environment. In particular, we’re focused on a family of oxygen-sensing proteins that allow bacteria to respond to changing oxygen levels. And we’re exploring a new cyclic nucleotide signaling pathway that seems to be related to cellular stress.
Tracey – What’s your favorite time of year, and some things you like to do during that time?
Emily – Early fall, when it’s still warm during the day but the humidity has dropped so I can get outside and bike or hike.
Tracey – Do you have a family? Pets?
Emily – I’m married and my husband Brian is an architect. And we have a rescue schnauzer named Sherman. We rescued him when he was 2.5yrs old and have had him for 4 years, during which time he’s gotten more demanding, but also snugglier.
Tracey – What are some of your hobbies or interests that are non-science related?
Emily – I really like riding bikes (I used to race on the road and the track) and am looking forward to getting back into that with all the good riding in Central PA. And I also love baking, mostly because I love eating dessert.
Tracey – What’s your favorite snack food? (Super-important question, really.)
Emily – For savory snack food, chips and salsa/guacamole. But if we’re including sweets, then any kind of baked good with chocolate.
Welcome again to the department and Penn State, Emily! And don’t forget to pop in for the lab warming party tomorrow afternoon! Let’s all give Emily a big welcome in the comments section!
I’d like to start this blog post on a personal note.
Did you know not only am I Penn State staff, but I am also a Penn State student? (Hey, Hey World Campus!)
And I read the syllabus for every class, every single time.
You’re welcome.
See? Some of us actually care and we’re here to learn. So, thank you for getting your syllabus turned in to Karen Mullen on time.
You all know Karen, right?
She’s super sweet, helpful, and always has a smile and a piece of bubble gum for you.
But let me tell you if those syllabi aren’t in her hot little hands on Friday, you can say goodbye to the bubble gum and smiles!
The wet-noodle lashings will commence, my friends, and it will not be pretty.
Do yourself a favor, get those syllabi turned in.
Just to recap:
Okay, glad we are all on the same page.
Have a great semester and try not to run over any students on your way in next Monday!
P.S.- Don’t you just love buying new school supplies? Let me know in the comments your favorite thing to buy when it’s Back to School heaven in the stores.
Last week we had an uptick in new subscribers (Hey, new readers!) so I wanted to take a moment and show you the different ways that you can search for information within the BMB Buzz.
Every blog post I write is categorized and tagged profusely.
For instance, this blog post is under the categories: General, Business, and Welcome
It is tagged with: search, find, help, tool, new subscriber, and index
So, when you are getting ready to fill out your pcard support form and you remember reading something about using a new form, but you can’t remember which one it is or where to find it, but you remember reading about it here and now you’re back at the home page wondering how to find that post, what do you do?
Easy!
Up at the top of the page and in the right sidebar are the categories. Click the one that your subject falls under (Pcards = Finance) and all the posts in that category will be pulled up.
Or you can use the search function. The little magnifying glass in the header or the search bar in the sidebar. As I said I tag these posts profusely, so if you search for pcard, all the posts tagged with pcard will pop up. And hey look, there’s the post about switching over to the portrait version of the pcard support form.
Hopefully, this will make it easy for you to find the information you need here.
You ate food while you discussed sciency stuff.
You had a Group Meal.
And you didn’t invite me.
But you’re wondering where that charge for the food you purchased is going to show up.
Do you have to hand in just a Group Meal form or do you have to hand in a Group Meal form with a pcard support form as well? (Portrait, naturally.) You break out in a cold sweat trying to figure out where the charge is going to show up and what paperwork has to go with it.
That’s it, you can’t take this pressure anymore. We are never ordering food in again!
Ask yourself these easy questions to get the answer:
If you paid out of pocket, fill out a Group Meal form and turn it in for reimbursement. Boom, done, easy.
If you paid with your pcard now you have to ask question #2.
What’s the magical combination that determines where your Group Meal gets processed?
Easy.
Banks code vendors based on the type of business they are, for instance, restaurants get coded one way, gas stations get coded another, and your monthly subscription to Netflix gets coded another way, and so on and so forth.
(Have you watched the third season of Stranger Things yet? So good.)
CONCUR is only set up to pull in businesses coded as restaurants (where food is concerned)
So even though you may consider your lunch bought from Trader Joe’s as food just like India Pavilion and keep watching for the transaction to show up in CONCUR, Kim will be patiently waiting for you to realize that Trader Joe’s is a grocery store and is coded as such by the bank and that you will be waiting for that Trader Joe’s transaction to show up in CONCUR until you retire.
Please don’t do that.
Instead, in addition to your Group Meal form fill out a portrait pcard support form and turn them both in to Kim (or Kristin).
Vendors that only sell food i/e restaurants go to CONCUR and get an ERS report done.
Grocery stores and other vendors that sell more than just food, like Sheetz or McClanahan’s, those all get pcard support forms. Don’t forget the Group Meal form too.
Dang, now I just want cookie butter.
And Sheetz fries.
So, there won’t be any fun informational post this week.
Have you turned in all of your paperwork?
Do you still have outstanding pcard transactions?
How about travel reports that still need to be turned in?
Did you turn in your Group Meal form for last Friday’s lab lunch?
Please take a moment today and review any emails requesting paperwork from the ladies in Althouse and make sure all necessary paperwork is turned in.
The business team in Althouse is working hard to button all the buttons, dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s. Show them some BMB Love when you pop in! Shout out to all the BMB Staff that are killing it for EoFY! You rock!
(Regular posts will resume next Wednesday when ERS releases me from its slimy claws! Send help! And an Americano!)
You’ve just received the email saying your travel report is ready to go; you should look it over to make sure everything looks fine, and then submit it. You log into CONCUR, glance at a list of expenses, see a couple of dollar amounts at the bottom, shrug and say, “Uh, sure,” and then hit submit and hope for the best.
Alright, put your hand down, people are staring.
When you get that email, log into CONCUR and open up the report, in the upper left-hand area, just below the report header it says, “Details”
Click on it and it will give a drop-down menu with access to all kinds of information.
For instance, if you want to see which grant/fund the report will be paid out of, click on “Report Header.” But the one you really want is “Totals”
Clicking on “Totals” opens up this nifty little box. From here you can see how much you will be reimbursed or how much will be deducted from your payroll.
Have you seen the weather out there? If not I strongly suggest a walk to the HUB for a sugary caffeinated beverage from Starbucks. As my great grandmother used to say, “You need to go out and get the stink blown off you.”
Yeah, I don’t get it either. My grandma Ralph was a bit odd.
We have a special blog post this week. I’ve been asked to cover some best practices for handing in paperwork at the office.
Only with less confetti. And more paperclips.
And that’s it! Nothing super crazy to change up. Just a few small adjustments that will help us run a bit more efficiently. To recap: my grandmother was odd, paperclips are awesome, and portrait mode is for pcard forms. Now go pick up your stapler, I was only kidding about throwing it out the window.
Hit me up in the comments with suggestions for new BMB Buzz topics. Share with me your plans for the summer. Or tell me what you prefer for phone videos: portrait or landscape.
This will help to ward off those emails that show up months after you’ve presented your poster and you can’t remember what conference it was for, which grad student presented or what day of the week it is.
Okay, it won’t help with that last part.
But it will make your life easier if you fill it out using the pink invoice you receive at the Engineering Copy Center. You can find the form on the BMB webpage under Resources and then under Finance Office. Or you can use this spiffy hyperlink to get to it.
That bit highlighted in yellow is important. Scan or take a picture of the pink customer invoice you will receive at the Engineering Copy Center