INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this document is to provide an overview of the project plan for developing and implementing the new Finance System reporting tool. This document will cover

• need for the project;
• project objectives;
• project leadership and the project oversight committee;
• project phases;
• mechanisms for project input and feedback;
• project timelines and milestones;
• project resource needs; and
• training philosophy for the project.

The University of Colorado made a significant investment, in both time and money, to deploy the Finance System upgrade earlier this year. To complement and enhance this investment, to respond to the current trend in enhanced fiscal management best-practices, and to facilitate the responsibilities in the newly adopted Fiscal Accountability Suite of Administrative Policy Statements, the university has committed to improving the financial reporting regularly available to individuals who serve in the university's various fiscal roles: officer, fiscal principal, fiscal manager, and fiscal staff.

The goal of the new reporting tool is to efficiently generate accurate and complete financial statements, support fiscal accountability, and provide reasonable fiscal certifications by achieving the following objectives:

• ensure that the right people have access to the right information so they can successfully fulfill their respective fiscal role and complete, as appropriate to their fiscal role, their fiscal certification;
• provide one centralized reporting system for all reports using Finance System data that is easy to access and use so that:
• employees in all fiscal roles can get the complete, comprehensive, and consistent fiscal information they need for every SpeedType within their respective Functional Area of Responsibility, Organizational Unit, or Responsibility Unit; and
• the opportunity to manipulate data and to present inaccurate, incomplete, or incorrect reports is reduced; and
• provide a reporting tool that is robust enough to meet the wide variety of needs found in a diverse and decentralized end-user population.

• Associate Vice President and University Controller - Mary Catherine Gaisbauer
• Assistant Vice President of Administrative Information Services - Jeff Ruffe

• Administrative Information Systems Manager - Ann Wold
• Director of Financial Systems - Brian Siebert
• Information Resource Management Manager - Carl Sorenson

• See team listing at https://www.cusys.edu/controller/reportingproject/campus-rep.html

• Staff in UMS Administrative Information Services and Office of University Controller

• Vice Chancellors of Finance Group

The project management strategy utilizes the project leadership groups mentioned above to provide communication, guidance, and implementation for the project. Each group has a unique role to play in the project, and each group is responsible for working and sharing information with the other leadership groups.

• On a daily basis, work with Project Management to administer decisions, taking into consideration information presented by the Working Group and Campus Project Management.
• Meet at least weekly with Project Management to review strategic planning and project status
• Each month, provide project status and confirm project direction with Campus Project Management and Project Oversight Committee
• Each month, gather input on design decisions from Campus Project Management.
• Make resource decisions and changes in project scope.

• On a daily basis, administer decisions made in consideration of information presented by the Working Group and in conjunction with the Project Sponsors.
• Meet at least weekly with Project Sponsors to review strategic planning and project status
• Convene weekly with Working Group to address the technical, tactical, and procedural aspects of project implementation.
• Make recommendations on resource decisions and changes in project scope to the Project Sponsors.

• Represent the project's constituent groups by gathering and providing feedback to Project Sponsors about the project scope.
• Meet monthly with Project Sponsors to receive confirmation about project direction and to review design specifics.

• Convene weekly with Project Management Team to address the technical, tactical, and procedural aspects of project implementation.
• Share decisions and concerns with Project Sponsors.

This project has multiple phases of implementation to allow for immediate, future and strategic solutions to the university's reporting needs.

The first phase of the project has been designed to facilitate the Financial Report Review Process required by the Administrative Policy Fiscal Roles and Responsibilities. Therefore, it includes the key financial statements needed by fiscal staff as follows:

• Balance Sheet (SNA) Detail
• Balance Sheet (SNA) Summary
• Detail of Income Statement with Budget (analogous to the current "Detail of Financial Transactions" report)
• Income Statement Summary with Budget (analogous to the current "Summary of Budget, Revenues, Expenditures, and Transfers" report)
• Income Statement Summary with Prior YearThis is the only new report. It is similar to the current "Summary of Budget, Revenues, Expenditures, and Transfers" report except rather than comparing "budget to actual" within the current fiscal year, compares "actual to actual" across fiscal years.
• Outstanding Encumbrances
• Journal Entry

The phase will be completed by January 1, 2006.

The second phase of the project has been designed to facilitate (1) compensating controls and (2) personnel effort reporting, and (3) I.R.S. Section 127 reporting. In the near future, the key reports needed by these processes will be identified. The phase will be completed by March 30, 2006.

In the third stage, we will review all existing reports in our current reporting tools, including the Finance System, PS Lite, the UMS (formerly the CU-Denver) website, and FishNet. The best of these existing tools will be converted. (The goal is to eliminate the duplicative items). The timing of this phase needs to be determined.

In the fourth stage, we will identify the need for reports that do not currently exist in our reporting tools but are necessary for significant portions or functions of the university for adequate financial management. In addition, this phase will include the roll-out of ad-hoc querying. The timing of this phase needs to be determined. During this phase, we will transition from project management to routine management of the reporting tool. Therefore, this phase will include designing methodology to ensure gathering feedback on reporting needs.