Feature Story

Integrated Business Information Systems
The group's main focus has been the elimination of the current Central Accounting System. This is basically the final installment of "finishing IBIS".  As of now, we have a production/testing environment for exercising these various processes to ensure accuracy. Following are the major components, with a brief description, that make up this effort:

Accounting Controls
The process in production is currently re-posting details on a nightly basis to a second set of supporting detail totals in the IBIS Financial System at the fund, budget/fund (account), and the account's object code levels. Reports are created at each level to provide daily verification that posted details support the University's income and expense totals reported at the account and fund levels, as well as to verify that posted debits equal posted credits.

Single Integrated Vendor System
This process has been implemented and is being used predominantly today.  Once totally implemented in IBIS, we will receive data feeds from our main Purchasing agents, updating either "order from", or "pay to" information. Once updated in IBIS, the data is passed to Central Accounting to keep both systems in sync while Central is still being executed.  On a yearly basis, we extract the vendor data and forward that data to an outside vendor to collect certain vendor characteristics that will be used by various offices for reporting.  The one area that is still being finalized is the temporary vendor process.

Accounts Payable Payment Request
The process is currently receiving data transfers from Central Purchasing, Food Services, Hershey, and ARL for payment request. We then process these data feeds and store the data in a file that is then accessed by Accounting Operations via an online function for approval of payment. This process is currently being used by Accounting Operations to ensure accuracy and ease of use. We are also working on data collection for pre-approved vouchers. These are vouchers that have been pre-approved for payment. These include DBAF (AUTHORIZATION TO DIRECT BILL - AIR & RAIL TRANSPORTATION), Flex Benefits, Student Refunds, Wage Tax, University Libraries, ERS (Employee Reimbursement), and SRFC (Special Request for Check). This data will then be passed to the actual payment process. Our plans are to implement the Payment Request process before July. If this happens, we will then have an interim process to push the data to Central Accounting.

Accounts Payable Payment Process
The input to the actual payment process comes from the approved payment request that was already described. Nearly all of the programs in the core payment process have been developed. One small scale test of the core payment process has been run in the production/test environment.  This test was successful and checks were produced. This test proved the overall design is working well.  Additional tests will be run in the coming weeks and months. These tests will include more complex data scenarios and higher volumes of data. Additional reporting, data warehouse extracts, and online browse functions are awaiting development. As these remaining programs are completed, they will be incorporated into the system testing in the production/test environment.

Closings and Reporting
Currently, we are working very closely with the Corporate Controller's Office to convert the accounting daily, monthly, annual, and closing reports from using Central Accounting input data to IBIS Financial data. In many instances, this involves defining new codes and replacing old logic with new or revised logic. We have started running parallel reports to verify accuracy. The reports are also being verified by the Corporate Controller's Office. Examples include Income Summary, Summary of All Departments, Letter of Credit, and Budget Reports.