Better Control of Research Funding:
Budget & Grants Management

Client:
Prestigious research university


Business Challenge:
To gain visibility into the status of hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants


Technology Challenge:
To create a single web-enabled system that integrates:
• Oracle applications
• Proprietary applications
• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft IIS, ASP, and Excel

Solution:
The Creative Data solution unites expense and budget data from accounting, personnel data from HR, encumbrance and equipment data from purchasing, project and sponsor data from the central research office, and expense projections from principal investigators themselves. The resulting online system gives faculty and administrators a single, up-to-date picture of expenditures, budgets, and available funds for each project, investigator, department, etc. For the first time, the university can give its professors, sponsors, and accountants both current and historical visibility into the status of research funds.


Benefits:
• Provides a common way for research programs to manage their money
• Masks the disconnect between accounting fiscal periods and project duration
• Maps between accounting codes and the expense categories that make
• sense to researchers
• Gives users up-to-date information on staffing, including appointment data
• Cuts the costs, delays, and potential errors of data reentry
• Allows users to determine and chart historical trends
• Enables principal investigators to avoid under- or overspending


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