Most of us have been touched by the Elevate project since its inception almost four years ago. Last year, we reported about the first month end and fiscal year end closures since the Finance and Grants systems went live and the challenges and learning opportunities the upgrade brought to these critical accounting systems.

The downward trend in time to close continues as new efficiencies are put in place for month end and fiscal year end closings.

The Finance Team collaborated with Database Administrators (DBA’s) to identify SQL statements that were running longer than expected and identified opportunities to fine-tune the Automic batch processes running during closings. Three Grants processes were modified, including Facilities and Administration, Revenue Recognition and Cost Collection along with a few enhancements to processing allocations. Additional process improvements and performance enhancements were also implemented. Once the identified improvements were put in place, the expected efficiencies were immediately realized.

The result? Financial and Grants system users are now able to access needed data much more quickly, enabling them to perform their business more effectively.

Image 1: Automic graph showing downward trend of time to close financial systems