Budgets to Actuals Q&A

I found a discrepancy between Workday and Qlik in the payroll area of the report, primarily regarding transactions that occurred on or around 7/1/25. Which should I trust?

Neither, until the team has a chance to do research! Around this time, some payroll costs were sent to default costing allocations and are still being cleaned up which could create some data issues. Additionally, some of the payroll charges aren’t in their finished state for the fiscal year. 

I have incorrect spend categories in Qlik, but when I go into Workday to do a journal adjustment, it has a proposed spend category prefilled. Will Qlik eventually be changed to the proposed spend category?

 There is a recommended account to be used for every spend or revenue category, but in some circumstances there is a mismatch between the appropriate ledger account and the spend or revenue category. From a financial reporting perspective, there should only be certain revenue or spend categories used within certain account code types, barring a few edge case exceptions where there might be some shared accounts. 

Are obligations in Qlik the same thing as encumbrances in Workday?

For the purpose of this report, obligations are just purchase orders that have been opened and have not been fully resolved (haven’t been fully invoiced or closed out). Obligation is technically the correct term to be using here because once we create a purchase order, there’s a legal obligation to the supplier that we are going to pay them for a given purchase order. You can encumber funds without entering them as a formal purchase order with a vendor (set aside funding) but that’s not something W&M does. 

If I see an issue with an encumbrance, who should I reach out to?

Please submit a Workday ticket. 

Can we rely on having this Qlik report available and updated through the end of this fiscal year?

Yes, there is no expiration date at this time. 

I see that some lines in Qlik are blue to represent cancelled, drafted, or in progress items. What does this mean, and is there a data column that says the status as well?

The color coding was to provide a visual aid if the totals looked off. In the Qlik report, if you scroll to the right (just past the Workday ID field), you will see a column for line status which will tell you if they are in progress, cancelled, or posted. 

Are payments shown in real time as they clear buyWM?

No, there is an overnight delay. As a PO or invoice is created in buyWM, it gets sent in real time to Workday. The Workday to Qlik integration happens overnight. 

It looks like the Direct Pay Description field in buyWM isn’t migrating to the Qlik report like it used to. Is this something that could be added?

In Banner, there was a field that allowed us to move that data from buyWM to Banner we haven’t come up with a good place for that yet in Workday to be able to report on it. This is currently on the enhancement list. 

Is there any timeline on getting payroll into Qlik?

This is on the wish list but is not in active development. 

 What is the payroll transactions report in Workday called?

Both the WM Payroll Details by Cost Center and WM Payroll Accounting with Adjustments reports can be used to show payroll transactions in Workday.  Each one will display different columns of information, but the amounts will be consistent.  Thus, the report you use may depend on the information you are looking to collect/analyze. 

In OSP, we are unable to easily report to sponsors. What is being done to make this easier?

The Data & Analytics team is working with our managed services partner on OSP reporting. 

Is there a way to see all the transactions on a certain obligation, or look up all the transactions on one award? 

You can do this right in the Qlik report. First, select a particular designated or cost center. The bottom section will show the transaction detail level. If you scroll down, you can see the actual transactions that are occurring. Scrolling to the left will show you the transaction date for an entry, and scrolling to the right will show you the budget actuals obligations.

If you click on transactions at the total, it will sort them from largest to smallest or vice versa. 

Scrolling to the left will show you the transaction date for an entry.

Scrolling to the right will show you the budget actuals obligations

To see all the transactions on one award/grant, filter the “Driver ID” column by the specific grant worktag you are looking to analyze.  The below “Detail” table will show all the transactions that have posted to that grant.   

Does anyone run their reports on a schedule in Workday?

Yes. One recommendation is to set them to run daily on weekdays at 7am so they are ready when you come in. You can schedule a report to run by using the “Schedule a Report” task in Workday.  Choose the report you want to run, the frequency in which you want to run it, and then select the appropriate values for filtering the report.  The “Schedule” tab will allow you to set a time and date for the report to run.  The “Output” tab allows you to choose the file type for export and how many days the file will remain in your notifications center before deletion. 

"Schedule a Report' task in Workday.

 This is where you select your filters for the report. 

“Schedule” tab from the “Schedule a Report” task. This is where you can set the time and date(s) for your report to run.  

“Output” tab from the “Schedule a Report” task. This tab will allow you to choose the file format to export the report and the number of days to keep your report in your notifications center before deletion.