Current Initiatives
Focus Areas
Finance & Accounting currently has the following focus areas for initiatives to support and advance the mission of the CFO and University of Florida:
Stakeholder alignment and partnerships: Continue to increase the cohesiveness and alignment of the core offices by consistently collaborating.
Talent management and development: Design and implement programs to foster learning, inclusivity and professional development within Finance & Accounting.
Financial data and business intelligence: Collaborate with our campus partners and stakeholders to increase transparency and usability of financial data or reports.
Outreach and transparency: Continue to expand visibility, clarity and outreach of the Controller’s Office for decisions, projects, communications, and goals.
Innovative training solutions: Provide timely, accurate and high-quality resources, training content, quick tips, and videos based on requests and identified needs.
Transformative process improvement: Analyze and monitor operations, systems and technology to continuously improve the quality and efficiency of service.
Current Initiatives
Initiation/Discovery
These initiatives are currently in the discovery phase, where we are working with stakeholders to clarify the purpose, value, and expectations.
Journal Entry Automation: Currently exploring with UFIT and peer universities options for journal entry workflow and automation to increase accuracy and decrease processing time for users.
Design/Development
These initiatives are in the design and development phase, to finalize the proposed solutions.
Travel & PCard Management System: Exploring options to create an end-to-end travel system to streamline and improve the University traveler experience.
F&A Mentorship Program: Develop a Finance & Accounting mentorship program for new hires for their first year of employment, and for existing employees seeking professional development.
Financial Expense Dashboards: Finalizing the design of financial expense dashboards in Enterprise Analytics to provide a high level overview of department expenditures.
Financial Accountable Officer Toolbox: Leverage partner best practices to publish a “Toolbox” of queries, reports, etc., providing new Accountable Officers with high quality information quickly.
Fiscal Job Shadowing: Expand the Fiscal Job Shadowing program, currently in place for the CFO Division, to additional people to enable knowledge-sharing between CFO employees and department staff.
Implementation
These initiatives are in the process of implementation, where the plan is put into action.
Communication Logos: Develop logos to categorize F&A communications (call to action, training, dates/deadlines, best practices, Controller), so customers can easily identify communications received.
Deposit Process Improvement: Finalizing the future state of the departmental deposit process to implement changes to streamline and reduce administrative burden.
Monitoring/Launched
These initiatives have been officially launched, published or gone live and are being monitored for success.
Pre and Post Tests for Fiscal Training: Design questions to evaluate the knowledge of training participants before and after a fiscal training course to help us improve. Questions are designed to ensure that we are effectively teaching the key concepts from the course, and data will be used to adjust course content and improve our classes.
Research Participant Payments: As of June 11, 2021 the Research Participant Payments (formerly Human Subject Payments) team transitioned to the Cost Analysis office in Elmore Hall to streamline the payment card distribution process in a new location (with easy parking!).
Data Critical Thinking Resources: Published a new website called “Data Quick Tips and Best Practices” containing resources aligned with the new Critical Thinking about Financial Data course, a project initiated by the Controller’s Office in partnership with UF HR Training & Organizational Development, UF IT, UF Research and GBAS. Currently monitoring and refining additional resources based on feedback.
Finance Data Reports: Published a Finance Data Reports website with descriptions and direct links to each report to provide increased visibility and usability of financial reports. Currently adding additional reports and expanding descriptions as requested.
Finance Fridays: A monthly speaker program for the CFO Division, delivered by subject matter experts, to help employees develop a thorough understanding of our dynamic operations. After successful monitoring of the program, expand to other campus departments.
Single Point of Training, Professional Development and Communications: Created the Center for Excellence to serve as a designated training and communications coordinator for the Finance & Accounting division.
Last Reviewed
03/31/2023: Reviewed content
Contacts
University Controller’s Office: (352) 392-1321