UW System Home > Financial Administration > Shared Financial System

The University of Wisconsin System has been actively in search of best business practices since 1995. One concentrated area of review has been financial systems, with the goal of identifying the most efficient and cost effective strategy for configuring and managing these systems.

A new system is needed.
The legacy system is a cash-based system, recording only revenues and expenditures. Generally accepted accounting principles for colleges and universities require accrual based accounting. Thus, the current system does not meet our systemwide financial reporting responsibilities. A new approach and a new system are critical to preventing problems in the future.

Unity equals savings.
Individual UW Institutions have begun to make significant investments in financial systems to accommodate the year 2000 problem. The nine institutions who have invested in their own systems require maintenance, upgrading and replacement with institutional resources, an increasingly expensive strategy. It was decided to explore the premise that, given the flexibility offered by current software, efficiencies could be obtained with a consolidated, systemwide approach to financial systems.

Shared System
A committee of systemwide representatives surveyed other multi-campus systems and business corporations. They identified a shared software approach as the Best Business Practice for Financial Systems. The Institution Business Representatives thoroughly reviewed the proposal and committed to adopting the shared software solution. Institutions will maintain the option of using their own financial systems but will be responsible for ensuring that all systemwide data needs are met.

Phases
A phased in approach will be utilized with UW-Whitewater identified as the pilot institution. The goal is have UW System completing Phase III, a core financial system available to all institutions, by July 1, 2001. Flowchart Timeline

The Software
PeopleSoft continues to have an increasing presence in the higher education financial software arena. As a result of the significant commitment across the UW System to PeopleSoft Student Information Systems, they became the vendor of choice.

Before PeopleSoft can be installed, institutions will need a data base platform that can support the software. Oracle has been identified as the database that will best meet this need. It has also been singled-out across the System as the database of choice for a number of administrative, academic support and academic applications. It is likely that negotiating one large contract rather than many small contracts could save as much as 50%.

Paying for the project
In order to take the work of the committee one step further, a Financial Resources Team and a Negotiating Team were established. The Financial Resources Team identified principles to be associated with the acquisition and implementation of shared financial systems, reviewed options for borrowing cash to initiate the purchase of software, hardware and consulting services, and came up with suggestions for on-going sources of funds for paying back borrowed cash. It is estimated that we will incur one-time costs of $14 million (including the oracle license) and on-going costs of $1 million to achieve Phase III of the project.