Division of Finance Monthly Update |
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With the fall semester well underway, the Division of Finance continues to make progress on key initiatives. Below are updates on several important areas.
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Financial Planning and Policy Updates
The draft FY25 financial statements are currently being reviewed by Grant Thornton, and we expect completion of the FY25 audited financial statements for Board approval at their early December Board meeting. Currently, we do not expect any issues or concerns.
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Meanwhile, the Budget Office continues their monthly FY26 budget review meetings with campus leadership ensuring a thorough understanding of their organizational finances. As we are nearing the end of October and mid-year is rapidly approaching, the Budget Office is preparing to conduct a comprehensive Mid-Year Budget Review beginning in early December This budget update will inform FY27 Budget Development (see the FY27 Budget Development calendar here).
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Highlighting ADAPT ’25 initiatives, we are finalizing a Fiscal Stewardship policy, an updated Procurement Policy is under development, and a revised Travel and Business Expense policy is up next.
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Travel Program Enhancements
Through its partnership with Collegiate Travel Planners (“CTP”), the university’s travel agency for non-athletics business travel, Seton Hall is now enrolled in United Airlines’ Blueprint Savings Program which provides access to airfare discounts ranging from 2-8 percent through the CTP ‘Lightning’ portal. We are continuing discussions with CTP management in efforts to improve group travel issues being encountered.
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Unimarket Rollout and Performance
The roll-out and expanded use of Unimarket continues, as evidenced below:
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- $42.7M in Purchase Orders released (~4,100 POs)
- Almost 1700 suppliers connected (increasing daily)
- Average cycle time of 3.2 days
- Total number of users: 647
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Total number of buyers: 352
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This rapid engagement is considered “best-in-class” by Unimarket but comes with an avalanche of actions to be taken by Procurement and Accounts Payable Offices. In Procurement: onboarding and managing suppliers and converting fully approved purchase requisitions to authorized purchase orders. In Accounts Payable: validating and processing pre-Unimarket vendor invoices as well as invoices associated with Unimarket- generated POs.
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We appreciate the continued help and support from many university colleagues with supplier registration as well as with alerting us when payments need to be made/are overdue. We look forward to achieving ‘steady state’ operations within the next several months.
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Ed Bishof
Vice President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer
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Finance Open Forums
Please join the Division of Finance to receive updates on various accounting, budget and business processes and policies, including progress on the ADAPT ’25 initiative. The Open Forums will include a discussion on our travel management firm (CTP), as well as an update on Unimarket, including additional functionality being developed for upcoming testing and roll-out.
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Helpful Hints
Unimarket FAQs are available on the Procurement website as well as on the Unimarket platform. Several FAQs include short “How-To” videos, and the list will continue to expand.
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Important Notice re “Retrofit” Orders
Moving forward, Unimarket urges that the use of “Retrofit” purchase orders remain available for only a small set of prequalified purchasing scenarios, such as utility bill payments, emergency repairs/purchases and other emergent situations. Please continue working with the Procurement Office, and reviewing on-line training tools, to ensure procurement ‘best-practice’ is applied.
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