KFS General

A modular financial accounting system that will be developed using the Community Source development model. KFS will be a conversion of the Indiana University's Financial Information System (FIS) to the web with enhancements identified by the development partners. KFS will be available under the Educational Community License and can be adopted by colleges and universities without licensing fees.
     
How is the project governance structured?      

In summary, the Kuali Financial System Development project organziation:

Kuali Board, chaired by Brad Wheeler, IU, comprises of a voting member from each Institution, NACUBO and rSmart (nonvoting) and extended board members from each partner.
Project Manager, Jim Thomas, IU oversees developers from each institution and rSmart
Functional Council, chaired by Kathleen McNeely, IU, and comprises of members from each Institution, NACUBO and rSmart and functional subcommittees for each module.

How much will the Kuali Financial System development project cost? How is it being funded?      

$7.4 m total project cost
72+ person-year effort
Core partners contributing $500,000 - $2,000,000 in cash or tendered personnel resources, depending on size and Carnegie Class
$2.5m grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Can other institutions adapt and customize it? Aren't too many things hardwired into the program?      

Kuali is based on the overall design of the IU software, not on the software itself. If we started with a blank piece of paper, the project could not be completed at this price tag. We're moving the proven design from an old technology base to a new one. Of course, everybody has wish lists. So an impressive Functional Council is working on the requirements, from both public and private institutions, with a separate set of representative specialists who scrutinize each module. Our architects and senior developers from all the institutions have been meeting intensively to work out the Kuali nervous system, abstracting the business rules and deciding what should go in which layer. A strength of the project is having input from the seven founding institutions.

What are Business Rules?      

Business rules are the part of the application that validate transactions, for example, is this account valid; is this object code valid; is this object code allowable with this account. Routing rules, who needs to approve this document, where it goes next are handled by Workflow.

What modules are included in the Kuali Financial System?      

KFS' modular design includes a base system of Chart of Accounts, General Ledger, Transactions, Reporting, and Workflow. Additional modules that can be implemented as a school identifies a need include: Accounts Receivable, Budgeting, Capital Assets Management, Endowment, Enhanced Decision Support/Reporting, Labor Distribution, Purchasing/Accounts Payable, Pre- and Post-Award Research Administration.
The baseline modules became available for download October 13, 2006.

What is FIS?      

FIS is an acronym for Financial Information System. FIS is Indiana's accounting system. FIS has workflow and when a user creates a document in FIS, the document is validated (business rules), routed (workflow) and passed into the General Ledger that night for use in reporting the following day. Account balances are updated immediately.

If we decide to go with an open source database such as MySQL, how does your system work?     

The release version will run with MySQL and will be tested to work in this environment.

Can I have access to your database tables, schema, and data relationships to access the customization we need to do?     

ER diagrams for the released modules can be found here: ER Diagrams.