Transform Purdue: A look into the General Ledger / Finance project transformation

General Ledger/Finance project team (Purdue staff and consultant members): (Front row, from left) Tonya Yoder, Jamie Humbarger, Eva Nodine, Allison Harris, Whitney Beutel; (middle row, from left) Edie Doland, Andrew Bean, Theresa Jacobsen, Keith Harmon, Dave Thornton; (back row, from left) Michael Yang, Aaron Jackson, Daniel Robertson, Stacy Umlauf, Zach Ang, Tom Sparkman and Brian Kress. (Purdue University photo/John Underwood) Download image

The plan to transform Purdue continues through the Business Process Reengineering team. The multilayered approach to the transformation, geared to do business better across the University, is spearheaded by the ongoing projects -- Enterprise Asset Management, Human Capital Management, General Ledger (Finance), Reporting and Technology.

For employees to better understand each project within the transformation, Purdue Today will explore each one.

Here, Eva Nodine, General Ledger / Finance project director, answers questions about the group:

Who is on the Finance team?

Andrew Bean, Whitney Beutel, Edie Doland, Allison Harris, Jamie Humbarger, Aaron Jackson, Theresa Jacobson, Terri Mimms, Daniel Robertson, Stacy Umlauf, Tiffany Weatherford and Tonya Yoder. 

What are the overall goals/mission of your team?

Our goal is to reduce the complexity and inflexibility of our current financial structure across the University. A simple, standardized format will increase our data quality, provide consistent financial reporting and reduce paper and manual processes. 

What has the team been working on so far during the design phase?

We have been redefining our financial structure and looking toward standardization. The following improvements have been identified:

* The use of fund accounts will be reduced by over 97 percent.

* Cost Centers will be reduced by over 88 percent and create a one-to-one relationship between cost centers and organizational units.

* General Ledger accounts will be reduced by over 64 percent (from 2,700 to 1,000) while also ensuring that the right accounts to do business are maintained.

We look forward to the day we no longer have to memorize multiple 18-digit account string combinations. A single, intuitive account number will replace the multiple account string combinations providing a simplified, streamlined manner in which to do business better. 

Throughout this process, we are partnering with multiple groups -- directors of financial affairs, workshop attendees / subject matter experts and a Krannert grad team, which is assisting with General Ledger account reduction -- to review, analyze and streamline accounts.

This core financial structure will create consistency through definitions and governance, which ultimately improves quality of data, leading to better reporting.

What challenges have you encountered? 

How we restructure our financial foundation affects both the Enterprise Asset Management and Human Capital Management transformations. All three projects are overarching and will touch everyone on campus in some capacity. Therefore, it becomes critical for us to prioritize tasks, workshops and decisions based on the information and needs of the other projects in order for our project to move forward.

How many workshops have you held as part of the design phase? Which units have been involved, and what topics have been discussed?

We have completed 25 of the 53 workshops that make up the design phase. This phase is essential to the entire project as it is the means by which we obtain the required in-depth information to drive the financial transformation.

During our workshops, our goal is to recommend and create redesigned processes and policies that will change as a result of the overall transformation. We have been working through the following processes:

* Accounts payable
* Accounts receivable
* Asset accounting
* Controlling
* Funds management
* General ledger
* Grants management (as it relates to finance)
* Project systems
* Treasury

Design phase workshop documentation can be found on the General Ledger (Finance) webpage.

What is coming up for your group in the next few months?

Toward the end of design phase are the "play back" sessions.  This allows us to review the to-be processes with our stakeholders, sponsors and workshop attendees. This step also allows us to show a wider audience the end-to-end process, which is helpful for those who have only been involved in one of the series of workshops. We look forward to the next phase -- building! Explaining the process on paper is good, but we know our business community wants to experience the steps we are trying to visualize.

What do you want faculty and staff to know about your team and efforts?

The success of our transformation will result in transparent, consistent financial reporting. We are focused on that end result -- are we producing an informative, simplified structure that will help us plan strategically?

Redesigning our financial core structure isn’t just a team effort, but a community effort. We encourage faculty and staff to question us, provide feedback and help us reach our goals.

More on the transformation projects

* Review the first two articles in this series:
-- Efforts to Transform Purdue business: A BPR Overview (March 20, 2017)
-- Transform Purdue: A look into the Enterprise Asset Management project transformation (March 21, 2017)

* Explore our website for an overview of the transformation projects.

* Provide feedback by submitting a pain point, completing a survey or sending an email.

* View previous presentations and publications for more information.