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UW Finance Transformation

Campus Message: Excerpt

March 1, 2017

The University of Washington is committed to sound financial management, whether related to forecasting, budgeting, administering research, or stewarding gifts and endowments.  We are moving forward with the next phase of the UW Finance Transformation (UWFT) program and have made the decision to replace our legacy financial systems with Workday Finance.

We need to implement a robust system that will serve the needs of current and future students, faculty and staff. It must do the following:

  • Deliver accurate data quickly;
  • Provide the same data to everyone, facilitating transparency in decision-making at all levels;
  • Identify overruns, deficits, and other risks big and small;
  • Support long-term planning through better forecasting
  • Help us leverage the hard work and dedication of our staff to improve effectiveness;  
  • Reduce the workload associated with business functions and interactions that are necessary but secondary to our core mission.

Over the next 18 months, we will focus on defining the specific requirements and on prototyping the new finance system. During this “Readiness Phase” we are committed to:

  • Systematically applying the lessons-learned during the Workday HRP implementation, and
  • Engaging faculty, chairs, deans, principal investigators, campus administrators, business officers, clinicians and front-line users in the detailed design.  

We look forward to your active participation and support in this important effort to modernize the University’s financial systems, and will update you regularly on our collective progress.

Regards,

Gerald J. Baldasty, Provost and Executive Vice President, Professor, Department of Communication

Jeffrey F. Scott, Executive Vice President, Finance & Administration