Dear Colleagues,

It is my great pleasure to announce the appointment of Jonathan Gailing to the newly created position of Director for Compliance & Analysis. Jonathan has 20+ years of business consulting and public accounting experience with a focus on auditing, internal controls assessment, and risk management (as it relates to business fraud). Jonathan holds both BA and MBA degrees and is also a Certified Fraud Examiner. Jonathan will report directly to me and will be deployed on a number of compliance-related projects throughout the CDV. His first area of focus will be the development of the policies and procedures for the Sponsored Programs Handbook (a joint effort between the Office of Sponsored Programs and SPA) under the direction of Joanne Goldstein.

Jonathan's office is located at 838 Broadway on the 4th floor.

Please take a moment to stop by and introduce yourselves to Jonathan. I know he's looking forward to meeting each of you.

Thank you,

Kerri Tricarico
Interim Controller

May 13, 2008

Click on a link below for a PDF version of the PowerPoint presentations from the fiscal year 2009 Budget meeting.

Year-end Closing Process & Schedule for the Year Ended August 31, 2008 presented by Cara Squicciarini (PDF 144kB)
FY2009 Annual Budget Kick-off Meeting presented by Jeya Paskaran (PDF 66kB)
Budget Submission with Hyperion presented by Marc Hoffmeister (PDF 559kB)
Brio Interactive Reporting presented by Andrew Walsh (PDF 244kB)

February 25, 2008

We are pleased to announce the commencement of the Financial System Upgrade Project.

This long-awaited and anticipated upgrade is the first in a series of steps towards improving and enhancing the University’s financial system capabilities. As members of the University’s financial management team, we are all stakeholders in this project. Therefore, as we work together in ensuring its success, we will maintain an open line through which we can keep each other informed of needs, of what we can do for the Project and for each other, and where we are exactly in the process.

While the upgrade will have the most impact on the central users of the financial system, we wanted all stakeholders to be aware of the significant components of the Project. Below, please find some details about the upgrade.

What the Project will do:

1. Upgrade the current financial system from PeopleSoft Version 7.5 to Version 9.0
   The current modules (General Ledger (GL), Accounts Payable (AP), and Purchasing (PO)) will be upgraded from v 7.5 to v 9.0. The new version has a "web-based application architecture," which means that our access to the financial system will be via Web browsers and will be more agile than it is now. Menus and screens we have been accustomed to using will change to reflect the functionality, look and feel of a standard web-page. The most important result of the upgrade will be our move to a version of the PeopleSoft financials suite of modules that are fully supported by Oracle.
2. Implement the Commitment Control (KK) Module
   The budget-related functionality we have been using in the GL Budget Ledgers will be moved to the Commitment Control Module. In addition to the basic budgeting tools, this module provides additional functionality such as tolerances, budget definitions for specific chartfields, and a robust calendar tool, making it much more flexible than the current process.
3. Implement the Project Costing Module
   The functionality that NYU has utilized in its v.7.5 GL relating to capital and grants has been moved to the Project Costing (PC) module in v.9.0. By implementing the Project Costing module, NYU will reduce the customizations required for the GL. The PC module will still require some customizations, but many of these can be eliminated later if the Grants Suite of modules (grants, contracts, accounts receivable, and billing) is implemented. Implementing PC will put NYU in a better technical position to subsequently implement the Grants Suite to support post-award activity.
   
4. Integration of Additional Business Units
   Currently, there is one business unit (BU) in v 7.5, “NYU”. Version 9.0 will expand the NYU BU to include two primary BU’s under the NYU umbrella: Washington Square and Medical Center. The Washington Square BU will also contain business units for the University’s global programs as they implement PeopleSoft. The Medical Center BU will contain the School of Medicine and Hospital business units. The Hospital business unit will be empty until they implement PeopleSoft.
5. Enhance Integration with E-Req
   Enhancing the financial system's integration with E-Req will allow us to both increase the frequency with which requisitions are budget checked as well as create a pre-encumbrance in KK when a requisition is approved. Once a PO is issued, the pre-encumbrance will be relieved and a PO encumbrance created. This will help to enhance budget vs. actuals reporting.
6. Reporting
   A significant component of the upgrade project will be the deployment of a newly designed reporting dashboard that is accessible through NYU Home. eReports will be retired and replaced with a two-dimensional reporting environment. The first dimension will contain a basic set of financial reports; the second dimension will contain a series of data “views” from which users can create ad-hoc reports. A data dictionary will reside on the dashboard.
   

What the Project will NOT do:

1. The v7.5 chartfields will not change as a result of the upgrade. Automated processes will
   assign the Business Unit and required Project Costing chartfields to transactions.
2. The Grants Suite of modules for grant administration are not being implemented.
3. InfoEd is currently implemented at the School of Medicine and an implementation is currently
   underway at Washington Square. The automated interface between InfoEd and FAME has
   been deferred until after the go-live date of the upgrade.
   

What is the timeline for the Project?

We are exploring "go live" dates with the expectation that FY08 will close in v7.5 and FY09 will begin in v9.0.

What else do we need to know at this time?

• A detailed training plan is under development and will be communicated.
  
• eReq, BIA, JEMS, Capital Workflow, AP Workflow, and Strata will continue to be used with minimal changes in the end-user experience.

Additional Information

For additional information and questions about the Financial System Upgrade Project, the Project team has set up a mailbox through which questions and comments can be posed to the upgrade team. The e-mail address is: FSUP@nyu.edu. Or visit the website www.nyu.edu/cdv/fsup.