Why Choose an ERP Solution Now?

Governed by the Board of Regents, each institution in the state university system was considered a state agency with the inherent right and obligation to use state accounting and payroll systems.

In 2001, the Florida Legislature rewrote the State Education Code. One of the biggest changes was that state universities were no longer considered state agencies and were identified as a public body corporate. As a direct result of this change in status, the state universities were advised by the State Comptroller that they would no longer be allowed to use the State financial systems (SAMAS / FLAIR), nor the Bureau of State Payrolls for production of pay warrants.

The State of Florida has indicated its desire to have the state universities move their financial processing in-house no later than July 1, 2004 and payroll processing by January 1, 2005. Current business systems operate on a legacy, statewide financial accounting system developed and maintained by the State of Florida. Systems for the management of Human Resources, Payroll, and Budgeting are provided through a consortia arrangement with the University of West Florida. However, at present a number of the primary management functions for the statewide accounting system, payroll calculations, benefits administration, and production of pay warrants and vendor warrants are controlled externally by various agencies of the State Government

UNF’s financial aid system, written and maintain by SSDS, was a statewide system until July 1, 2002. At that time, the State determined that it would no longer provide the support for this system. In order to provide time to transition to new systems, a state consortium of sister schools was created to maintain the SSDS system. Since it is the intent of the Consortium to provide a bridge while schools select and implement their own system, it’s prudent for UNF to move to another system while the SSDS system is still being supported.

UNF’s legacy student information system is also internally written and developed. Most of the in-house, controlled and developed systems are deployed on-line to allow decentralized customer processing at the departmental level.

On July 1, 2001, the governor appointed the University of North Florida’s Board of Trustees, a distinguished group of individuals responsible for cost-effective policy decisions appropriate to UNF’s mission and for the implementation and maintenance of quality education programs. As of January 7, 2003, UNF began to receive from the Florida Legislature additional autonomy and decision-making authority to better enable the university to meet its core missions of teaching, research and service.

In association with localized responsibility and control is the need for efficient, high-quality financial, human resource, and student systems to effectively manage the university. Recognizing this need, the UNF Board of Trustees outlined in the 2002/03 to 2006/07 Strategic Plan a goal to increase its revenues and to effectively and efficiently manage the fiscal resources it has available to it to build a quality, comprehensive, urban university. One of the objectives stated to accomplish this goal is the selection, purchase, and implementation of an ERP system.

Implementing an ERP system at the University of North Florida is viewed as an opportunity to bring about positive change in our people, processes and organizations through the implementation of an integrated system that will position the University to provide improved services to its constituencies, increase institutional efficiency and effectiveness, while being better equipped to achieve it's mission.