At least two people have been doing that: John Cook, the fiscal information system (DaFIS) project manager, and Tony Flores, assistant vice chancellor of finance, accounting and financial services, who was brought on board in 1991 to bring campus financial operations into the 21st century.
The plan calls for a software system with three large servers that everybody involved with business operations--including non-financial managers like academic chairs--will be able to access through their desktop computer.
"This is a very ambitious plan," Flores says. "We're attempting to greatly increase the power of departments to make well-informed decisions by having data readily available. This is why I repeatedly emphasize that this is not just a replacement accounting system for the use of a central office. Rather, it is a powerful decision-support tool for use by anyone making financial decisions or conducting financial analysis."
The contrast between how UC Davis does business now--with the impact of financial transactions often delayed in the system for weeks--and the new networked system promises to induce culture shock.
"It's going to be a paradigm shift changing the way people interact with people," Cook predicts. Consider this.
"Sometimes people find themselves making expenditure decisions without all of the facts because there's no time," explains project participant Kathleen Moore Joiner, executive assistant to the vice chancellor for administration.
The new financial system promises to change all of that. UC Davis is developing a software system with American Management Systems based on a prototype developed at Indiana University. Indiana's system was chosen--after consulting more than 200 business office and computer employees at UC Davis--because of the similarity in size, complexity and administrative structures between that Midwest university and UC Davis, project manager Cook says.
UC Davis will spend about $7 million on the project, the largest portion of which is for hiring temporary technical specialists and programming staff. About $2.4 million will be used to buy the servers, other pieces of auxiliary equipment and licenses for software, Flores says.
On July 1, 1997, when everybody is connected to the new system via Network 21, modems or high-speed transmission lines from Bodega Bay and Tulare, the change for the majority of financial transactions will be overnight--literally. When someone enters a travel voucher into the system one day, the change could be seen in the ledger the next. Interoffice memo envelopes will be obsolete.
Rather than the old main frame, with access limited to centralized financial categories, the campus has decided to go with what is called a "client-server" system that emphasizes the decentralized use by individual computer users throughout UC Davis with the flexibility provided by a new account system and a powerful decision support system. People can adapt the system information for their individual department needs, says Eernisse.
One of three server computers will provide database information about the general ledger; a second will handle transactions, such as for financial accounts; and the third will offer decision support that will allow departments to ask for specific data or financial reports.
In the meantime, those in the accounting world are gearing up to retrain the troops over the next 18 months. Staff Development has been called in to work with Cook and the Accounting staff to design a program for an expected 400-500 initial system users throughout UC Davis.
Training will be very important, especially as we near completion time," Flores says.
Moore Joiner believes the number of people who understand university business rules will mushroom as people in the 350 departments learn to use the new system.
For instance, now when an administrative assistant mistakenly charges an entertainment cost to the general fund, someone in Accounting will correct the mistake manually or send it back with a question. Under the new Fiscal Information System, that same department employee might try to enter a charge into an account only to have the computer software bounce it back immediately as unacceptable. The employee quickly will learn such costs can only be charged to certain accounts.
"We're leaving the environment of a manual edit to one of an electronic edit that won't allow people to enter inappropriate entries. The importance of that is it reduces the redundant work by administrative and departmental units," Eernisse says.
Department business employees are going to find the intricacies of learning simplified greatly. For instance, the software will use a graphical system like Windows to enable people on Macintoshes or PCs to steer through the system.
"A lot of informationwill be available online to users at the double click of a mouse," says DaFIS project manager Cook.
Tony Flores thinks perhaps the biggest cultural change to people will be that they won't have to memorize the numerical accounting "language" that has been created throughout the UC system to assign account numbers. Currently, each account carries a number with 12 digits that people read to understand the account pertains to a certain campus, financial function, particular unit and source of money. The problem for Accounting has been that, as time has gone on, the numbers for some of the fields have run out.
With the new system, accounts will be assigned random seven-digit numbers that don't rely on the accounting "language." However, DaFIS will provide campus and departmental specific information through the use of attribute tables.
Flores says revamping the financial system at UC Davis means that the entire financial management effort throughout the campus will be more productive. The new computer system will eliminate hundreds of menial tasks. The same will occur in his own department.
"We're going to be doing a different kind of work, with more emphasis on financial analysis. While we will also maintain our fiduciary obligations so that the university remains in full compliance with the law," Flores says, "we will be serving the needs of the community in ways that are less control oriented and much more service oriented."
