Information Flows and Financial Management - Coursework Example

  Review of the Kuali Financial System of the of the Review of the Kuali Financial System Introduction The Kuali Foundation is a very useful cooperative venture used to develop financial information systems in the academic sector (www.kuali.org). Organised as a non-profit organization, the Kuali Foundation is responsible for sustaining and evolving a comprehensive suite of administrative software that meets the needs of all Carnegie Class institutions. The members using the Kuali Financial System are colleges, universities, commercial firms and interested organizations that share a common vision of open, modular, and distributed systems for their software requirements.

The goal of Kuali has been to integrate the proven functionality of legacy applications with the ease and universality of online services. Basically, Kuali is a suite of open source software based financial management applications applied to serve the particular needs of colleges and universities. The software is freely available, but its support requires participation in the community. This is not an unreasonable request, considering that it also allows for the process of learning how to implement a system and for working out the various socio-technical adjustments that could be to be made in transitioning to a Kuali based system in any university.

Overview of the System The Kuali financial system’s overall design is based on a higher education business model. When the last system was considered outdated and in need of a major overhaul back in 2006, research into the use of ERPs not only found that the cost was usually prohibitive but that it increased the workload considerably without resulting in any major relaxation of ease of use on the part of customers. A poll conducted by Robert B. Kvavik and Richard N. Katz for the EDUCAUSE Centre for Applied Research suggested that as much as 69 percent of the users, managers and administrators in the education sector felt so.

Thus it was decided to create a home grown system at the University of Illinois, due to its proven expertise in the financial domain (McNeely & Wheeler, 1). Thus the Kuali Financial System was born. The data structures, transaction interfaces, and back-office processes are built to accommodate the needs and most commonly used structures of higher education institutions. Moreover, there is sufficient flexibility in the design for each institution to tailor the system to its needs without requiring major modifications.

The use of web portals means that transaction interfaces can be tailored to specific types of users, while the workflow engine provides significant flexibility for routing and approvals. A college or university implementing Kuali can decide to do as much or as little re-engineering as it chooses. The good news is that changes won’t be forced on users as is usually done in ERP systems where support for previous versions can also be withdrawn prematurely. Implementation and Reevaluation The Kuali financial system workflow is built around the entering of documents that contain financial details that represent financial transactions that take place in the context of the organization’s activities (www.rsmart.com).

The second thing is that after the data is entered via an e-document and all the details have been completed and reviewed, the document can be put forward for routing and approvals by the concerned authorities. It is only after the approvals have been given does the data and particulars become part of the system. Unfortunately Kuali is not a general purpose application builder but users can develop their own sub systems up to a certain level and then integrate this with the system at a higher level.

For example, a subsidiary ledger for Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable can be developed to know the outstanding against each party, while the totals of each separate transaction can be seen by the posting in the Master Control Ledger for Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable. At present the last version available is of 2010 and there are deliberations being made by an Executive Steering Committee considering the impact of temporary increase in State sales tax (mosaic.arizona.edu). The decision was supposed to be taken May 19, 2011.

However tentative approval has been given to continue with needed changes. Horizontal Flow, Inward-Outward Flow, Vertical Information flow, and Downward Information Flow of Financial Data in the Kuali Financial System In the modern organization, the flow of information can be vertical, horizontal, upward, downward or parallel as well. An example of horizontal flow is when a transaction is entered via e-document and approval is given by two signers in the approval process. They have been made aware of the transaction, saying the payment of a check to a customer at the same time.

One may be designated higher than the other. An example of vertical flow or top down is when the budgetary amounts agreed by the Budgetary Committee are handed down to the relevant department heads and they are asked to remain within these limits in terms of expenditures. Inward-outward flow of information would be in the recording of the latest prices of raw materials or products sold by the salesmen in terms of units and dollars. The information would flow from the field outside to the sales manager and then consolidated into a financial or e-document recording the sales per day, week or month, as the case may be.

An Example of Horizontal Flow: Using Kuali’s HR System References Kathleen T. McNeely and Mary S. Wheeler. A Flexible Financial System, 2006. Accessed on 20 June 2011 at http://www.nacubo.org/Business_Officer_Magazine/Magazine_Archives/February_2006/A_Flexible_Financial_System.html. Overview of the Kuali Financial System. Accessed on 20 June 2011 at http://confluence.arizona.edu/confluence/display/KUALI/What+is+Kuali+Enterprise+Workflow. Implementation of the Kuali Financial System. Accessed on 20 June 2011 at http://www.rsmart.com/kuali/resources.

Re-evaluation of the Kuali Financial System. Accessed on 20 June 2011 at http://mosaic.arizona.edu/kuali_financial_system.