The objective of these projects is to implement the campus new Campus Wide budgeting processes and systems that meet Budget Office as well faculty and departmental requirements including position-based budgeting. The implementation phase is expected to run from mid-Nov 2009 through Oct 2010 in time for the 2011 budget cycle starting in October 2010.
In summary this project will put into place the processes and systems to:
- Support the efficient and effective integrated development of unit budgets and the consolidated UBC budget
- Support budgeting for multiple Funding/Revenue sources including research, GPO, endowment and Unit generated
- Facilitate streamlined reporting for all levels of the budget as required by both internal and external stakeholders
- Enable continuous (multi-year) budgeting and reporting
- Allow UBC and units and to track "live" financial performance during the year with tools designed to highlight variances and help leaders react to changing funding and expense requirements throughout the year
- Enable UBC and units to access supporting detail, such as salary data) both to build budgets and to manage financial performance
- Provide the shared functionality to minimize the need for "shadow budgeting systems" that provide unit specific calculations and data
- Eliminate the reliance on Excel for centrally calculated university wide budgets, including, capital and research.
| Benefits | Description | Stakeholder(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Improved information for quality decision making both at a faculty, central administration and board levels. | More accurate, comprehensive and timely information available to decision makers | Campus financial decision makers, central administration (executive) and Board of Directors |
| Reduce the time and effort required for highly transactional/clerical activities, thereby allowing the financial officers and budget officers a greater ability to focus on more analytic activities | Reduce work for both central and unit management and staff through streamlined process and better tools Reduce effort required to maintaining shadow systems | Campus groups currently involved in the budgeting process |
| Reduced risk of information loss | Shadow systems may not follow best practices and may be vulnerable to loss of information | Campus groups currently involved in the budgeting process |
| Improved reporting to the board and other stakeholders | Increases the ability of providing and timeliness and quality of the information being provided to the decision making. | External and internal |
Success Criteria
The key criteria/drivers for a successful budget solution are:
- Improved analysis tool for finance analysts and faculty power users: easier and faster extraction of data so time is spent on analysis and not gathering data
- Campus Wide Budgets: replacement of current budget process with a system that is more focused on the comprehensive budget process throughout campus
- Financial reporting improvements: significant improvement in the quality of information available for decision making in a timely manner both at the faculty and central administration levels.
