The University of Texas at Dallas

Budget and Resource Planning

Office of Business Affairs

In an effort to improve operating efficiency, the Budget Office is going virtually paperless.

“We are going electronic to streamline the budgeting process and provide more efficient and effective tools for departments,” said Marty Baylor, associate vice president for business affairs – budget and resource planning. 

All budget documents will be accessed on the Internet. Departments will update budget information online and submit data via email for approval. Departments also will be able to download budget data and reports into Excel, Baylor said.

The change affects any university employee who prepares, reviews, or approves budget documents.

“The vendor has created a model in Enterprise Reporting in conjunction with the Budget Office and Information Resources staff.  They will continue to support us through the roll-out. Super users will be located in the Budget Office and will create and modify templates and reports,” Baylor said.

Enterprise Reporting involves using computers to regularly produce unified reports that provide information to UT Dallas decision-makers.

Currently, the budget preparation process is paper-driven. Departments are required to record changes on paper and submit them to the Budget Office. The Budget Office then enters the data into the Budget Information System (BIS) and generates the budget documents.

Training Schedule

Electronic budgeting training, which started in the Budget Office on March 4 and will expand to other departments beginning March 23, consists of giving employees a hands-on look at how they will process budget documents using the new system.

“The next step is to work with each department to establish appropriate security and roll out the new process in early April,” Baylor said.

Benefits:

• To the Budget Office – Data captured from the online reports will be uploaded into BIS (Budget Information System) and we will avoid manual data entry of the information. This will provide time to review and analyze the information to ensure a higher level of accuracy.
• To Business Affairs – This will promote Vice President of Business Affairs Calvin Jamison’s Lean Initiative while helping us to show that we are continuing to find ways to improve our services.
• To the University – Streamlining processes and granting easier access to data will allow the university community to work more efficiently and spend less time on administrative responsibilities and more time providing a higher level of service to our students. This supports Imperative Eight (8) of University President David Daniel’s Strategic Plan.