Colorado State University is one of the first schools in the nation to go live with the Kuali financial system, a first-of-its-kind "community source" system designed by and for higher education by a nationwide team of partners.

The transition to the new system-which involved the training of more than 400 campus users-took place in July 2009 and has gone smoothly, say campus officials, who hail Kuali as a primary example of how institutions can contain costs in higher education through innovation and collaboration.

The CSU system launch was made possible through the work of The Kuali Foundation, a non-profit, 501(c)(3) corporation that coordinates the development of free/open source administrative software under the Educational Community License. In October 2006, the Foundation announced the first release of the open source Kuali Financial System (KFS), funded in part by a $2.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Colorado State agreed to take the lead on pioneering use of the new system.

The code that drives the new financial system is a product of the Kuali Community, a consortium of higher-education institutions that are working together to develop open-source systems that directly address the needs of public colleges and universities. The Community Source concept requires institutional members to pay a nominal annual fee ($25,000) to the partnership and provide programmers to develop, maintain, sustain and enhance the system.

At CSU, the campus implementation team worked closely with both Kuali and campus users throughout the process to tailor the system to CSU's needs.

A team of about 100 people worked for two years to prepare for implementation of the new system at CSU, working double-time to bring the project in on time and at a cost far lower than anyone had originally anticipated, said Vice President for Information Technology and Interim Dean of Libraries Patrick Burns.

The Colorado State University Board of Governors recognized the need for an updated, integrated financial system at Colorado State University in 2006 and authorized the University to move forward. At that time, the cost to purchase an existing, off-the-shelf financial system was projected to start at around $5 million-$7 million or more, without the full functionality CSU needed.

Instead, the total cost for Colorado State's new system and its implementation came to less than $2 million, thanks to the University's willingness to partner in the development and launch Kuali, Burns said.

"We were able to implement the state-of-the-art infrastructure for a fraction of the cost of our peers through a partnership with the Kuali Foundation-->

As a Carnegie doctoral-granting research university, CSU is obligated to keep meticulous financial records that are subject to review by state and federal agencies. "Kuali is the wave of the future," said Allison Dineen, CSU vice president of finance. "Basically, we keep 50 sets of books. Now we can keep them all on one database."

For the campus, the benefit of the new system is clear. It is web based, allowing all authorized users easy, online access. Documents in the system can be routed electronically for approvals - and then electronically stored, saving paper and staff time. Purchasing is integrated in. It also supports multi-year budgeting - important for research contracts. All in all, it will make management of CSU's finances easier, better and more secure, Burns said. 

"This will allow us to manage our finances, where as the old system only recorded our financial transactions," Burns said. "It's software designed by higher education for higher education. And we get a round peg to fit a round hole for a price that is far less costly."

" Controlling costs in higher education isn't just about cutting budgets," CSU President Tony Frank said. "We also need to be increasingly innovative and entrepreneurial in our approach to doing business. This is a great example of what we can achieve by taking such an approach. I think the CSU and Kuali staff who worked so hard on this initial launch should be very proud that their work will be a model for other universities around the world."

Highlights of the New Kuali Financial System

• KFS was developed by an external community of higher education partners, by and for higher education, and as such provides excellent functionality.
• KFS was endorsed and implemented at CSU by hundreds of people across campus who engaged in and contributed to the success of the implementation.
• KFS is a fully integrated, advanced system combining the functions of transactional recording, accounting, budgeting, on-line purchasing, and credit card processing.
• KFS offers integrated modern workflow for on-line routing and approval of electronic documents, thereby increasing operational efficiency and accountability.
• KFS is extensible,e with the flexibility to add electronic documents in other areas (e.g. work orders, travel docs).
• KFS provides the ability to attach supporting documents to transactions, which allows the system to store such copies electronically instead of in multiple, distributed file cabinets.
• KFS utilizes the advanced Service Oriented Architecture model, providing the ability to integrate easily and transparently across other applications (e.g. research, human resources).
• Robust reporting tools have been implemented, and are being enhanced to provide much- improved management and analysis tools for the campus.
• KFS is accessed through the use of contemporary technology via a web browser.

Budget

• CSU's total cost for implementing its new financial system came to about $1.9 million.
• The Community Source concept requires institutional members to pay a nominal annual fee ($25,000) to the partnership and provide programmers to develop, maintain, sustain and enhance the system.
• Under the Community Source model, CSU contributed two java programmers to the Kuali Community's KFS teams. In April, the java programmers returned to CSU for the University's implementation effort.
• No backfill of campus staff occurred - functional and technical staff implemented the system while simultaneously fulfilling their daily operational responsibilities.