Budget and Planning Advisory

Finance Transformation, Models, Data, and Tools

With the recent years’ constraints to state funding of higher education, enrollment drops,  and shifts to more competitive sources of revenues to sustain operations, many institutions are being forced away from a focus on “recurring” vs “temporary” core funds budgeting controls to a more strategic, all-funds approach to driving revenue growth while focusing on strategic use of limited resources toward institutional priorities.

Despite public and legislative perceptions, these embedded financial models are extremely tough to change in constrained circumstances.  Core beliefs about funding and accountability; a lack of data infrastructure/integration across administrative systems; risk aversion; and inflexible, general-ledger-based budgeting systems require a holistic, staged approach to change that can take years to realize.

It's not always enough to implement a new budget tool, which is what I found as Strategic Program Manager for a financial transformation at UC Berkeley that required 4 years and 4 simultaneous major projects to accomplish our goals:

Redesign Financial Planning Processes (elimination of journal-based new accounting scenarios for all-funds intra-fund transfers; strategic trade-offs orientation; enhanced narratives and common formats)

Financial/HR Infrastructure Enhancements (chart of accounts rationalization and hierarchies,  legacy systems evaluation and transition plans, data clean-up)

All-Funds Financial Planning Tools and Reports Implementation (revenue/transfers planning, automated calculations, position-based compensation planning, driver-based expense planning, strategic initiative/project planning; strategic, multi-year financial models)

Workforce Readiness Programs (organizational assessments, common financial planning and analysis role definition/expectations; stakeholder-led financial literacy programs, and governance design)

Learn more about my Berkeley project experience at:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Mfkqgl9eJsMclnRmO7-0KzbtNo-u45Qi/view?usp=sharing

How I can help:

Through my work with TruEd Consulting, I support Anaplan implementations with business process redesign strategy,  chart of accounts optimization assessments, workforce enablement and organizational change management strategies, as well as serving as an expert in compensation planning, incentive-based budget infrastructure models and implementation; and  fund accounting.

To work with me in this area, you can reach out to me directly or through Wayland Ng at TruEd Consulting (wng@truedconsulting.com).