BudgeTrak, AP/PO and SPOT will give way next July to an accessible, integrated, Web application called FMS

General Article
December 19, 2002

[This is the first in a series of articles on the center's new Financial Management System, to be launched next July.]

By MATT BRIGGS

In 1983, CBS led the TV ratings with "Dallas," the Australian pop group Men At Work topped the U.S. record charts, Microsoft issued the second version of MS-DOS, and Apple introduced the Apple IIe with a one-megahertz processor.

That same year, Fred Hutchinson launched BudgeTrak as a fiscal-management tool to support 700 faculty and staff.

Today, the center has grown nearly fourfold with more than 2,500 faculty and staff who rely on computer technology in ways that would not have been possible 19 years ago. E-mail volume, for example, has grown to more than 30,000 external messages a day, and some outdated systems, such as BudgeTrak, have become inadequate.

To meet the requirements of a complex enterprise, the center requires an accessible and integrated financial-management system using a contemporary tool to anticipate the financial and grant-administration needs of future research - and that tool will go "live" next July.

Financial Management System, known as FMS, will meet these needs by bringing the center's systems into a single Internet application. In the works for more than a year, FMS will replace three outdated systems: AP/PO, for requisitioning, accounts payable and purchasing; SPOT, for general ledger and grants, and BudgeTrak, for financial reporting.

Staff in Grants and Contracts, Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable and anyone who works with or reports financial data will get training in winter and spring 2003. FMS will provide these benefits:

• Accessibility. Anyone authorized to access center financial systems will be able to retrieve information using Internet Explorer on any PC or Mac. The familiar interface will not take most users long to learn. As the system grows, the center will be able to upgrade the system seamlessly. Users will continue to work comfortably as e-commerce and electronic-research administration are added.
• Integration. Rather than three applications launched in vastly different technological eras, FMS will provide a single, unified one. The application will pull data from a single source, reducing double entry of data. Upgrades and additions to the system will result in improved efficiency.
• Scalability. FMS will be able to grow to meet future demands. The majority of the current financial systems were developed or customized in-house, and the center provides all of the support for these systems. The new system, using PeopleSoft software, will provide a common programming platform, making upgrades and maintenance of FMS easier to manage. FMS will accommodate the continuously evolving nature of center research.

FMS team leaders include Dominic Lepore, project manager, has nine years experience in project management and has implemented similar, large-scale projects. He leads a team of internal staff and external experts with longtime financial, technical and project experience.

Herb Bone, controller, is the business sponsor of FMS, and Pete Paznokas, manager of Software Development Services, is the IT management sponsor.

Check Center News in January for the next installment in this series, which will provide information on financial reporting and how it will change in FMS.

If you would like more information about FMS, e-mail fms@fhcrc.org, call 206-667-4FMS (4367), or visit www.fhcrc.org/admin/fms/.

[Matt Briggs is technical account coordinator for Information Technology.]

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