The University of Johannesburg (UJ) has revolutionised its budgeting and forecasting process using idu-Concept, reducing the institution's budget cycle from 13 weeks to five weeks, with an expectation that within a year this will be down to less than three weeks.
The university, which encompasses the amalgamation of two Vista University campuses, Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) and the Technikon Witwatersrand, has five campuses across central Gauteng, with more than 44 000 students and more than 8 000 permanent and temporary staff members.
Following its formation in 2004/5, UJ inherited an estimated 4 000 cost centres, 690 of which are budget cost centres, each with its own individual budget. The processing of data for all of these separate cost centres within the nine faculties of the university on a quarterly basis was an onerous task. It entailed first manually collating the data onto individual Excel spreadsheets for each cost centre, uploading these into Oracle, and then compiling a budget summary for presentation to the university's management.
“The process was extremely slow and time-consuming, and we needed a solution desperately. Ideally we wanted a system that provided us with a complete database that we would be able to access at any time, and in a single report get a feel of how the budget was faring,” says Ronel Jansen van Vuuren, director of cash management and financial reporting at UJ.
In May 2008 the university implemented financial budgeting and reporting software idu-Concept. The improved efficiencies and timesavings were evident soon after the three-week rollout of the solution. This was thanks, in part, to idu's user-friendly interface for non-financial managers, as well as real-time information being immediately available at any step in the budgeting cycle.
“When we uploaded the 2006, 2007 and 2008 actuals, it gave the users a good idea of how simple a budget process can actually be. Now in budget meetings the committee has all the spend factors visible in front of them, in real-time, and can see how much each cost centre is budgeting compared with previous years. This helps management to make decisions, and is particularly useful with forecasting,” says Jansen van Vuuren.
The powerful drill-down capabilities of idu-Concept's reporting module enables analysis of figures through various levels, down to individual cost centres, allowing managers to easily establish which areas within the university are responsible for major budget variances.
“The reporting capability is easily accessible and convenient - we update our actuals daily and cost centre managers are able to see their spending at any time.”
The drill-down facility is particularly useful to analyse the institution's payroll, as the human resources division is currently in a restructuring phase, and keeping track of available and unavailable posts would have been difficult to identify before the introduction of idu-Concept.
“Using idu-Concept, we're able to have a clear picture of exactly what employees are in the system and where there are vacant posts. The system provides valuable HR information for the budget controller at the click of a button.”
Idu Software consultant Michelle Meyer identified requirements not previously catered for during the installation. “Our development team enhanced the system to provide the University of Johannesburg with worthwhile information for improving their HR budgets.”
Meyer says future plans for the solution at UJ include greater use of the management reporting features, and maximising the drill-down capability to follow up on outstanding items and deliveries within the numerous departments and cost centres.
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