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Stellenbosch University (SU) is the first tertiary institution in South Africa to adopt the Oracle Cloud Financials Application to replace our current financial system.

This new cloud-based system will enable SU to modernise our finance function by streamlining processes, increasing our productivity and improving our business decisions with access to real-time financial data and multi-dimensional analytics and reporting. 

SU's decision to follow an 'adopt' approach versus an 'adapt' approach means that some of our financial business processes and transactions will change from the way we currently do them.

The Business Optimisation workstream, led by Annemi Murray and her team, are conducting End-to-End (E2E) workshops. The team has completed the review of the Procure-to-Pay, Assets, Cash & Treasury Management and Expenses business processes and are currently working through the Accounts Receivable (AR) business process. The objective of the E2E workshops is to identify how SU's current business processes will need to change in order to adopt the streamlined Oracle Cloud Financials' processes. Functional representatives from Finance, IT and Faculties are playing an essential role in these workshops. 

The next SUNFin Implementation Project milestone is the delivery of Iteration 1 by our implementation partner, Visions. Iteration 1 is a prototype (an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process) of the new Oracle Cloud Financials system. This first Iteration of the SUNFin system is based on SU's configuration decisions made during the CPA workshops earlier in the year and is populated with SU data. The objective of the Iteration 1 review workshops is for Visions to walk the project team through this first release of the system and the core financial processes so that SU can validate configuration decisions. The Iteration 1 review workshops are currently in progress and will be completed by mid-November.

The SUNFin team will use the remainder of November to validate Iteration 1 and plan for the work required for Iteration 2. Iteration 2 is scheduled for delivery during the first quarter of 2020. 

During the preparation for Iteration 1, the SUNFin team identified several data cleansing initiatives which will be prioritised and addressed in preparation for Iteration 2. As part of this initiative the SUNFin team will implement new validation rules in the current financial system that will help prevent further data issues.

For more information on the SUNFin Implementation Project, please visit www.sun.ac.za/sunfin.

Please email your questions, comments, concerns or suggestions regarding the SUNFin project to sunfin@sun.ac.za.