Vision Process

Academic enterprise

• Student Enrollments
  Are student enrollments increasing or decreasing? (This is not simply a matter of revenue; the financial systems will need to integrate with the student systems.) Where is growth and/or contraction occurring? Is your institution attracting more adult and part-time students? Is the percentage of students on financial aid increasing or decreasing? What are the trends in how students pay their bills? Are credit or debit cards an element of the envisioned environment? Is student revenue rising or falling as a percentage of total revenues?

• Research Funding
  Is research funding increasing or decreasing? How dependent on research funding will the institution be in five years? ten years? What is the mix of federal, state, and private funds for research? What are the regulatory, reporting, and audit requirement trends in these areas?

• Academic Growth or Retrenchment
  Where is academic growth or retrenchment occurring? Is your institution committed to a balance of the liberal arts, or is the shape of the academy "following the funds"? What are your institution's academic centers of excellence, and is there a long-term commitment to maintaining these historical strengths? What are some of the new emerging growth disciplines, and what are the financial characteristics of these disciplines? Are there plans to evaluate the cost effectiveness of program and course offerings and the potential related investments in instructional technology?

• Distance Learning and Extended Education
  Does your institution have a plan in this area? What student markets do you wish to reach and to emphasize? What are the financial/consumer behaviors of students in these markets? The financial system serving a "distant learner" will be organized differently from one organized for the traditional 18- to 21-year-old resident undergraduate.

Business and financial enterprise

• Revision of Existing Chart of Accounts
  Does your institution desire or need to retain its chart of accounts? How many "charts" do you need for external and internal reporting? The nature of the chart of accounts, and how flexible your institution can be in this area, will be a determining factor in the number and type of financial systems that will be options for your institution.

• High Tech Versus High Touch -- or Both
  Will your institution emphasize high tech, or high touch; that is, how important will human intervention be in the way your institution interacts with financial stakeholders such as students, faculty, vendors, and others? What kind of management system or model will you have?

• Business Philosophy and Practices
  How important is speed and flexibility to your institution's business success? Does your institution "go after" purchasing discounts aggressively? How does the age of campus receivables (federal contracts, student) affect campus financial performance? What place do electronic data interchange and electronic commerce have in your institution's future? Are there currently numerous "shadow systems" or duplicate financial books? How important is standardization and elimination of work duplication?

• Accountability and Control
  What is your institutional philosophy of internal control? What is the envisioned financial control system? Are multiple approval signatures an embedded element of institutional operating practices? How important is control over financial commitments and expenditures, and how current must that information be? What is the organizational unit of accountability for expenditure control? for revenue planning and control?

• Business Complexity
  How diverse is your institution's business enterprise, and will this enterprise become more, or less, diverse over time? How tightly integrated are enterprises like medical centers with the financial activity? What role do the auxiliary enterprises play and how specialized are their needs?

• Business Image
  How important is your institution's image as a business entity? How does the governing board view the institutional business enterprise? Do outside entities (vendors, contractors, research sponsors) like doing business with your institution? Does your leadership value your institution's business image?

Cultural and organizational environment

• Decision-making Style and Structure
  How are decisions made at your institution and what are the financial consequences? Are financial decisions and accountabilities delegated to the deans and department chairs or to central campus officers? How much reliance is placed on financial information to inform decisions? Where is the locus of budgetary control? Are operations being recentralized to control costs, or is your institution moving to models like responsibility center management?

• Technological Sophistication of the Customer Base
  Are the primary users of the envisioned financial system computer literate? Do financial planners and analysts, for example, use sophisticated computer-based analytical tools? What is the employee turnover rate likely to be among various system users? What is the institutional commitment to training for those who will use the financial system?

• Attitudes and Values Regarding Business Partnerships
  One strategic decision that nearly every college or university planning a new financial system will face is whether to purchase vendor solutions or build systems in-house or in partnership with other institutions and/or vendors. Attitudes, values, and skills across the institution will influence this decision strongly. Is joint or contractual development and/or operation of the financial system a desirable planning option for your institution? Do the skills to manage such relationships currently exist at your institution, in the financial and/or information technology organizations?

• Use of Management Information
  How do different institutional financial stakeholders use financial information? In what form (reports, online, raw data) is financial information used? What key information is not available? How important is the currency of financial information to different stakeholders? Is financial planning and analysis an activity widely practiced across the institution, or is it localized in the institutional budget office or the auxiliaries?

Information technology enterprise and architecture

• Institutionwide Computing Directions
  Financial systems that are developed today require data connectivity to virtually every office that either deals directly with the financial system, or is connected indirectly via one of many auxiliary or peripheral systems that transmit information to the financial system. How technically heterogeneous is the institutional computing environment? Is a campuswide network in place? Is it robust and considered important? Are there standards and strategies that assure the existence of a basic level of workstation capability and network connectivity among those who will use the financial system? What is the expected level of interdependence among institutional systems, such as the general ledger, budgeting system, purchasing and A/P systems, student systems, and departmental accounting systems? What is the institution's attitude about mainframe computing and client/server computing? Is there recognition of the need for life-cycle budgeting to support the network infrastructure as a utility? If the envisioned business architecture assumes widespread electronic commerce, does the infrastructure exist for authenticating users of the financial systems?

• Level of Technical Expertise
  Depending on the characteristics of the new financial system, the institution will need varying levels of technical support for the planning, development or purchase, implementation, and ongoing maintenance of the new financial system. Are current technical staff knowledgeable and skilled in newer technologies? The configuration of the new system may also dictate the location of such expertise, depending on whether it will be on a central mainframe or distributed on database servers throughout the institution. Do technical support staff reside primarily within the administrative computing department, within the central functional units (e.g., the accounting office, budget office), or at a dean's office or academic department level? Does the financial office have the technical and managerial wherewithal to manage large software development and implementation projects?