Our Goals
The strategic goals and associated initiatives described below represent the Finance Division's collective priorities for 2023 - 2027.
Progress toward achieving these goals is fundamental to realizing our vision of a thriving community, enlightened insight, enhanced experience, and innovative spirit.
While some initiatives may be completed in a matter of months, others may be completed in phases that could span multiple fiscal years. Updates on our progress will be provided on this page, on the Strategic Initiatives page, and through the Finance Bulletin.
Employee Recruitment, Development and Engagement
We listen.
We cultivate.
We celebrate.
We grow.
Goal:
Recruit and foster the development of employees in an environment where all members feel welcome, valued and positioned to thrive. Create a culture of highly talented individuals who are engaged and committed to contributing to the success of the division and university.
Impact:
Thriving Community
Objectives
- Promote the Center of Excellence (COE) to share expertise in all areas of financial management for the campus community and position the university to best respond to emerging financial issues, challenges and opportunities
- Cultivate and support development and mentoring opportunities for staff with focus on enhancing professional competencies and capabilities
- Offer career path resources to broadly increase knowledge of development and promotion opportunities to enhance productivity and engagement
- Leverage a multi-skilled workforce to meet changing needs
- Identify and leverage the benefits of various work modes to implement a flexible work methodology that is fair, equitable, agile, and effective
- Focus on improving efforts that promote a culture committed to inclusive excellence leadership, innovation and sustained contributions that enhance cultural awareness, equitable practices, and a sense of belonging.
Key Initiatives/Projects
- Community, Culture and Engagement initiatives that enhance Inclusive Excellence across the Finance Division:
- Develop programs and opportunities that promote a persistent sense of belonging
- Assess division Community, Culture, and Engagement in a transparent manner
- Improve policies, processes, practices, and structures to instill Inclusive Excellence as a cultural norm
- Provide tools, resources, and trainings that can foster individual and collective excellence and nurture a culture where all members feel welcomed, valued and empowered to succeed
- Physically relocate Finance Division business offices to Bakery Square Office Three
- Identify high-performing individuals to participate in leadership and specialized expertise development programs and provide opportunities to leverage acquired skills
- Support continual learning through staff development plans, training and certification opportunities and informational programming
Learn more about our current Strategic Initiatives and Projects
Accomplishments in
Employee Recruitment, Development and Engagement
FY25
- Installed sound masking system and security films on doors and conference rooms to increase privacy, 바카라 온라인 추천 branding, and comply with security recommendations made by police.
- Following the feedback gathered in surveys, consluted with subject-matter experts prior to group Community, Culture, and Engagement activities in order to facilitate more nuanced conversations.
- The Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA) Talent Pool Program launched, with participants rotating through cohorts to complete the initiative. This program, developed in collaboration with the Center of Excellence, the Mellon College of Science, the School of Computer Science, Human Resources and others, trains new hires in research administration, building a skilled network of employees equipped to support ongoing research-related tasks, while advancing 바카라 온라인 추천’s mission in research administration.
- Created and published training vignettes and videos to accompany the PaymentWorks onboarding process and the various workflow processes in the new Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), a cloud-based software used to support budgeting and planning at the university, which provided support to the implementation and adoption of these two new tools.
Updated: January 2025
Next update: July 2025
Financial Sustainability and Reporting
We illuminate.
We analyze.
We empower.
We serve.
Goal:
Ensure financial sustainability for the institution and improve management reporting and analysis to stakeholders to increase transparency and provide enlightening insights for more informed and predictive decision-making.
Impact:
Enlightened Insight
Objectives
- In conjunction with the Chief Information Officer the Office of the Provost, develop a data sharing strategy to more efficiently harness higher quality data for analysis
- Report dynamic and forward-looking financial information to more proactively support processes and enable nimble business decisions
- Use rigorous analytical methods that blend elements of customer, business, and market intelligence and consider operations, risk, and financial stewardship ideals to integrate finance and business drivers in processes and decisions
- Obtain deeper insights into university financials and critical elements of business-lines to provide more comprehensive oversight and manage better deployment of capital in strategic initiatives
- Define a reporting strategy to enable more timely reviews of information and identification of issues requiring action
Key Initiatives/Projects
- Financial closeout of 바카라 온라인 추천 Australia (바카라 온라인 추천-A) operations with diligent risk mitigation and compliance in areas such as banking and audit.
- Partner with colleagues across administrative and academic units to support data governance, analytics and strategy efforts to maximize available data sets and to facilitate analysis of data.
- Collaborate with colleagues across administrative and academic units to develop leadership and managerial dashboards to support academic program and senior leadership decision making.
- Obtain deeper insights into the university's financials through standardized unit level data metrics to enhance oversight and efficient deployment of capital for strategic initiatives.
- Focus on improving diverse supplier usage for sub category goals by expanding tier two supplier data, leveraging diverse supplier mapping and aligning efforts with key campus partners
Learn more about our current Strategic Initiatives and Projects
Accomplishments in
Financial Sustainability and Reporting
FY25
- Prepared an analysis of investment options for excess working capital liquidity using a detailed unit-level review of net assets considering both spending needs and upcoming capital projects. This information gave the Board of Trustees Finance Committee the freedom to decide to leave liquidity allocations unchanged in their October 2024 meeting.
Updated: January 2025
Next update: July 2025
Policies, Processes and Compliance
We partner.
We guide.
We clarify.
We improve.
Goal:
Maintain well-developed policies that enhance compliance and are supported with consistent and streamlined business processes to decrease redundancies and efficiently serve university stakeholders.
Impact:
Enhanced Experience
Objectives
- Simplify manual processes to drive overall efficiency and effectiveness, and/or in preparation for transition to digitalization
- Collaborate with campus partners to analyze risk from a holistic viewpoint to further risk mitigation and enhance compliance
- Reshape established service delivery methods, process and support structures to more tightly integrate with identified objectives
- Evaluate, develop and maintain finance policies and procedures to provide guidance, clarity and ensure compliance
Key Initiatives/Projects
- Transition non-qualified scholarship processing to Student Accounts.
- Conduct analysis of university properties with regards to real estate tax exemption to determine appropriate actions as needed.
- Assess revisions to U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Uniform Guidance to determine risks and impacts to the university.
- Convert 바카라 온라인 추천 Qatar (바카라 온라인 추천-Q) student refunds from manual form process to an electronic process.
- Add process visualizations to the Finance Division website to increase transparency and understanding and redesign key web pages to be more process driven, user friendly and intuitive.
- Evaluate, develop and maintain financial policies and procedures to provide clear guidance, ensure compliance and align with university objectives.
- Simplify, standardize and streamline manual processes to enable process efficiency and/or automation opportunities to save time and allow for more value add activities.
- Enhance the financial review process to provide better insight into opportunities and challenges by providing training and documentation, standardizing fall strategic review presentations and providing website information for ease of use and increased accuracy and efficiency.
Learn more about our current Strategic Initiatives and Projects
Accomplishments in
Policies, Processes and Compliance
FY25
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All compliance frameworks developed with Enterprise Risk Management were successfully completed, integrated into Fusion Risk Management software, and approved. This initiative strengthens collaboration with ERM and Finance by identifying compliance areas, key processes, controls, and opportunities for improvement, ensuring compliance remains a priority within the Division and 바카라 온라인 추천’s broader compliance framework.
Updated: January 2025
Next update: July 2025
Systems and Technology
We question.
We tinker.
We simplify.
We build.
Goal:
Update and implement systems and identify tools to more effectively utilize technology, reduce manual effort and optimize processes.
Impact:
Innovative Spirit
Objectives
- Continue to automate repetitive transactions and other standardized activities to increase "touchless" finance activities and workflows
- Make user-friendly automation technology broadly accessible to staff to enable digital transformation in the Finance Division
- Support and partner with data governance efforts to maximize value and trust in data assets; increase data competence and literacy; cultivate data sharing that improves the ability to conduct data analysis; create practices for shared accountability and communication around data assets; and ensure data is secure and meets compliance and legal regulations across the university
- Implement technologies that enable operators and users to engage in financial processes, whether in or out of the office
- Expand the technological foundation of key business process with systems, applications, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and other FinTech that more efficiently and effectively support critical finance functions
Key Initiatives/Projects
- Future of Financial Planning (FFP) software selection and implementation, following extensive testing and change management to engage campus.
- Identify and implement automation technology (e.g., robotic process automation, machine learning, artificial intelligence) that is user friendly and compatible with both current and future systems to enable a digital transformation.
- Study, scope and provide a recommendation for a budget system and a treasury management system that will provide enhanced functionality, more robust real time analytics and process efficiencies.
Learn more about our current Strategic Initiatives and Projects
Accomplishments in
Systems and Technology
FY25
- The Controller’s Office, the Treasurer’s Office, and Business Applications Development and Support successfully automated accounts receivable, which automated file transfers and most Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions that were previously done manually. Automating these processes reduced human errors, fees, eliminated the need for manual payment receipt forms and card fee entries, and increasing automated reconciliation.
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The HR Workday setup for fixed-term employees has been completed, addressing the lack of separation processes at assignment end, which often led to overpayments. This change is expected to reduce payroll overpayments, minimizing associated payroll efforts and streamlining fund recovery for the university.
Updated: January 2025
Next update: July 2025