DFL Weekly Update

Friday, July 10, 2026

• Friday, 7/10 - Last day to review and post all Financial Journals and Temporary Budget Journals (Campus Units) - Today
• Friday, 7/17 - Submit chartstring for deficit clearing
• Friday, 7/31 - Complete department review for Vacant Position Cleanup 
• Friday, 8/21 - Submit completed and approved Org Tree change requests
• Friday, 9/25 - Submit proposals for 2027-28 SIR deposits

Budget Process

Thank you for all your effort in preparing for your budget meetings. Budget decisions, including deficit waiver approvals, will be made in the coming weeks. Approved waivers will be entered into BFS before the automated deficit clearing process runs on July 27. The CalPlanning planning tools (CalPlan, HCP) are closed so the Financial Planning & Analysis team can review the budget submissions. CalPlan and HCP will remain unavailable while the Operating Budget is finalized.

Fiscal Close Dates

The combined list of VCF/VCA deadlines on the Fiscal Close Dates - FY2025-26 is available on the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) website. This year’s fiscal close steps are similar to those in previous years for Berkeley Regional Services (BRS) and the Finance Office. Please take a moment to review the information to ensure that all relevant steps are taken according to the deadlines.

Submit a chartstring for deficit clearing by Friday, July 17 

As part of the Non-C&G Deficit Clearing process, send the Financial Planning & Analysis team a chartstring (DeptID and Fund) to manually clear any remaining deficits that the automated deficit-clearing process cannot resolve. Please email the chartstring to centralresourcemanagement@berkeley.edu.  

Review Vacant Positions by Friday, July 31

UC Berkeley UCPath and the Vice Chancellor for Finance’s Office have launched a Vacant Position Cleanup Initiative to eliminate unneeded vacant roles in UCPath. This is strictly a data-cleanup effort and does not impact your hiring plans; positions can be quickly reactivated if needed. To minimize your workload, pre-populated review sheets have been made with default actions based on vacancy dates and active recruitments.

Key Dates & Required Actions:

• June 17: DFLs were sent pre-populated spreadsheets.
• June 18 – July 31: Department review period
• Early August: Final file preparation and submission to UCPath
• End of August (Target): UCPath processing and mass inactivation (as appropriate) with effective date June 30, 2026

You can reach the UCPath Operations team at UCBUCPath@berkeley.edu.

Submit completed and approved Org Tree change requests by Friday, August 21

To submit an Org Change request, please access the Organizational Tree Change Request Portal. For Org Tree changes to be processed in August, please complete your org change request form in the portal as early as possible to allow time for the Org Tree Change Committee to review and route for all required approvals by the August 21 deadline. Please review the Org Tree Change Request Portal Job Aid for more information on how to get started. Contact dfl_concierge@berkeley.edu with questions. Note: The Master Org Tree is now closed to all org changes; however, review of org change requests will continue throughout the closed periods (June and July) for processing approved changes in August.

Submit proposals for 2027-28 Statement of Intent to Register Deposits by Friday, September 25

Requests to establish or modify a Statement of Intent to Register (SIR) deposit are reviewed by the campus once per year. The call for proposals, submission materials, instructions, and templates are available on the SIR Deposit page. Please submit your proposals to studentfees@berkeley.edu by Friday, September 25, 2026. All academic units with graduate professional degree programs, including self-supporting degree programs, are eligible to propose a new SIR deposit or to modify an existing SIR deposit for the admission cycle following the proposal year. For example, an SIR deposit request submitted in 2026-27 can begin with the cohort admitted for Fall 2027. Please reach out to studentfees@berkeley.edu with any questions.

Special Character Restrictions for CF1/CF2 Chartfield Values

Going forward, please use only alphanumeric characters and underscores (_) when creating CF1 and CF2 values. Do not use any of the following special characters: 

• Dash (-) 
• Percent (%) 
• Dollar sign ($) 
• Asterisk (*) 

Due to technical limitations in upstream systems, such as SIS, chartfield values containing these characters are considered invalid and will cause transactions to fail. Thank you for your cooperation in helping to prevent transaction errors.

Guidance on Costing and Pricing to external clients for Academic Support Units

At UC Berkeley, it’s important that units providing specialized services to external clients operate in a financially sustainable, transparent, and compliant manner while supporting the campus’s research and teaching mission. This costing and pricing guidance webpage (CalNet authentication required) will help academic support units when they engage with the business contract office to deliver specialized services to external clients. If you have any questions, please email Kevin Mack at recharge_certification@berkeley.edu.

SSGPDP fund deficit clearing and disallowed funds reminder

For divisions and departments with self-supporting graduate professional degree programs (SSGPDPs), we want to remind you that you may not clear deficits on SSGPDP funds with core funding sources. These funds are considered disallowed for use by SSGPDPs to cover campus operating expenses, per UCOP policy. Disallowed sources include state general funds (199XX), tuition (20095), Student Services Fees (20000), nonresident supplemental tuition or NRST (19942), and professional degree supplemental tuition, or PDST, funds. While self-supporting program expenses are intended to be fully covered by the program fee you charge your students, you may use allowed sources – such as unrestricted current-use gifts or sales & services revenue – to cover short-term deficits. Please reach out to studentfees@berkeley.edu if you have any questions about this policy.

Cal Answers training

Enrollment is now open for the two-hour instructor-led class that builds on the basic navigation skills covered in the self-study. There are separate courses focusing on financial dashboards and student data dashboards. In the class, a subject matter expert guides a deep dive into the reports and data available in the dashboards and answers specific questions. The Cal Answers website also hosts self-service learning resources, including a complete course on basic navigation, short videos, job aids, wiki documentation, and a list of frequently asked questions.

CalPlanning and Smart View training

Enrollment is now open for instructor-led classes for CalPlanning and Smart View. Self-study materials for CalPlanning and Smart View are available on the website for everyone to use; they can be a helpful resource for those who have already completed the training and are looking for a refresher. Review the CalPlanning training page to access the self-study materials.

Federal Updates

Please be aware of two resources regarding the evolving federal policy shifts: the UCOP "Federal updates" page and the UC Berkeley "Federal updates" page, which will be updated regularly as new information becomes available. 

Changes to the DFL in your division?

If the DFL role in your division is changing, email fpa@berkeley.edu to ensure our website, communications, and training plans are updated. 

As a reminder, these updates are regularly posted to the DFL Weekly Updates page, allowing you to reference past updates at any time. Additionally, the operational deadlines page provides an overview of deliverables by quarter.

Thank you,

Office of the Vice Chancellor of Finance

If you are having difficulty accessing the information in this message, please contact vcfinance@berkeley.edu for assistance.