Update on VPF Resources and Services During COVID-19 Response

VPF teams are currently working remotely under the Institute’s COVID-19 guidelines. We are ready to provide assistance and guidance to the MIT community by phone and email.

Please see below for updates on services and operations, and refer back to this page for updates from VPF.

 

Contact VPF

Key Contacts:

Buy-to-Pay (B2P) Contact Center, B2P@mit.edu, 617-253-7000

HR/Payroll payroll@mit.edu, 617-253-4255

Travel and Card Services, travelsupport@mit.edu, 617-253-2753

VPF Reception and Service Desk has relocated to NE49-3000. The Desk is open for in-person assistance, Monday-Friday, 9 am - 5 pm. 

If you need help on topics other than those listed above, you can find a complete list of VPF contacts here or use this form to submit a question.

 

Ordering from the MIT COVID-19 Store for return to campus

Posted July 24, 2020

As the Institute prepares for the next phase of the campus ramp-up, MIT is providing additional guidelines on ordering supplies from the MIT COVID-19 Store on B2P, which provides items such as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and cleaning supplies necessary to keep our community safe. MIT has pre-ordered the supplies and is making them available to DLCs at no charge.

 

MIT provides detailed guidelines on the return to campus

Posted June 14, 2020

As research staff prepared to return, an extensive set of FAQs offers guidance from MIT Medical, MIT Human Resources, MIT Facilities, and MIT Information Systems and Technology (IS&T). While initially meant to inform the return of research staff starting this week, these guidelines will apply broadly to all staff, faculty, and students as they return to campus.

Of note: New: Access Protocol for MIT Vendors, Contractors, and Suppliers

 

Paper Paychecks

Amid the ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis, and with the stay-at-home emergency order issued for nonessential businesses and organizations in Massachusetts, VPF is experiencing limitations in our capacity to access the tools on campus that are used to issue paper paychecks. To ensure that we can pay all employees without delays, we are working to replace paper paychecks with direct deposit to employee bank accounts.

MIT employees who are receiving their MIT pay in the form of a paper check via the U.S. mail should immediately sign up to receive their pay via direct deposit. VPF is communicating this guidance directly in an email to employees who receive paper checks.

Review these instructions to sign up for direct deposit. Please reach out to us at payroll@mit.edu or call 617-253-4255 with questions. 

 

Travel and Events

VPF has created an FAQ to help address the community’s questions on canceling and expensing travel and events (MIT certificate required). You can review the resource here and contact travelsupport@mit.edu with additional questions.

Event Planning and Travel Contracts - VPF strongly suggests checking in with Jessica Tam, Strategic Sourcing Analyst for travel and hospitality, before you move forward with a deposit or contract for travel, guest rooms, event space, or catering, as event planning has taken on a new level of complexity in the COVID era. Details >>

 

Strategic Sourcing

The Strategic Sourcing team can provide assistance with current commodity and supply chain needs and vulnerabilities. Reach them at strategic-sourcing@mit.edu.

 

Office of the Recording Secretary (RSO)

How to Submit 2021 End-of-Fiscal-Year Gifts

Our teams continue to work remotely during the pandemic. We are able to receive mail from USPS and interoffice/campus mail (which is delivered by MIT Mail Services) and also receive deliveries from UPS and FedEx in secure mailboxes at the front and back entrances of W98. A few members of our staff are authorized to go to W98 on a regular (but not daily) schedule to collect the mail and deposit checks. However, DLCs and donors should expect a delay in check processing times due to these changes in operations.

During this time, we ask that you:

• Encourage donors to make their gifts to MIT electronically such as via credit card, ACH, or wire transfer as campus staffing has been reduced at this time.
• Continue to inform the RSO of expected gifts by sending an email to recsec@mit.edu.
• If you are expecting a check or you think it might be in your mail and you are not in the office to retrieve it if possible ask the donor to void the check and send electronic payment instead.
• If you send invoices to donors for pledge payments or membership dues, you should specifically request wire payments and include wire payment instructions.
• If checks are the only way a donor will make a gift, please ask the donor to mail the check directly to the Office of the Recording Secretary, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, W98-300, Cambridge, MA 02139. Email recsec@mit.edu to inform the RSO of expected checks and how to apply them. We will deposit and apply the checks as we are able to. However, DLCs and donors should expect processing times to be delayed.  The current processing time is expected to be at least 3 weeks, but may be adjusted as circumstances change.
• DLCs receiving gifts via check should also expect delays in posting payment to SAP as processing and posting will only after the checks are able to be recorded and deposited.

If you have questions about RSO processing, please email the Office of the Recording Secretary at recsec@mit.edu.

 

Accounts Payable

Accounts Payable is not able to provide “fast checks” (rush payments) to the community. Payment and reimbursement checks will continue to be mailed via a third-party vendor.

 

Invoices from Suppliers 

Please do not send paper invoices through campus mail. Instead, send them by email to invoices@mit.coupahost.com.

 

Accounts Receivable (AR) and Cashier Services

MIT community members who receive physical checks in the mail should not attempt to drop them off at NE49.

Instead, at this time, we ask that you:

• Encourage customers to pay MIT electronically (as these are deposited directly to the bank, and the team can then electronically see them and post them against open AR or to DLC accounts). See Pay Online with a Credit Card, Pay by Wire Transfer, and Pay a Sponsored Invoice.
• Continue to inform VPF of expected wires, or remittance advice of wires sent, by sending an email to wire-transfers@mit.edu.
• If you are expecting a check or think it might be in the mail, ask the customer to void the check and send electronic payment instead.
• If you send invoices to customers, you should specifically request wire payments and include wire payment instructions.
• If checks are the only form of payment a customer will make, ask the customer to mail the check directly to Accounts Receivable/Cashier Services, MIT Office of the Vice President for Finance, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, NE49-4000, Cambridge, MA 02139. Email cashier-services@mit.edu to inform VPF of expected checks and how to apply them. We will deposit and apply the checks as we are able to. However, DLCs and customers should expect processing times to be delayed. The current processing time is expected to be 4 weeks, but may be adjusted as circumstances change.

 

Property

The Property team has suspended all fieldwork, which includes tagging all new major equipment, conducting an inventory of existing equipment, and site visits for assisting DLCs to dispose of equipment. The WW15 Storage Warehouse has been closed since Tuesday, March 17. We will notify our customers when it reopens.

The Property team will continue to create new equipment records in the Property database (which will include assigning a bar code tag number). These new assets will be represented in MIT’s financial records. Physical tagging for these new equipment records will resume when we are back on campus.

Business will continue as normal for equipment journal vouchers review/processing, approval of purchases of capital equipment costing greater than or equal to $50,000, and processing requests for inventory reports.

Contact the Property team with any questions at property@mit.edu.

 

Update from Property Office: Extending Equipment Fabrication Accounts

While working under reduced on-campus operations during the COVID-19 crisis, if you have an account set up to fabricate new equipment in connection with a research contract or grant and need an extension to complete the project, VPF’s Property Office offers the following guidance:

 

Summary Statement and DTR

VPF is unable to distribute printed copies of the Summary Statement and DTR. The Summary Statement and DTR can be viewed and printed via SAPgui.

If you have any questions about your statement or the monthly-close process, please contact vpf-monthlyclose@mit.edu.

 

DACCA 

VPF is unable to distribute printed copies of the DACCA. Community members should instead reference the eDACCA (electronic version of the DACCA). To access the eDACCA, you must be designated as a Certifier/Administrator. If you do not have this authorization, please contact Pam Schickling Buckley at pamelas@mit.edu.

For other questions regarding the eDACCA, contact payroll@mit.edu.