July 28, 2011 - Kuali Financial System at Cornell
Keywords: Kuali Financial System, Kuali Foundation
Management software rarely gets the Hollywood treatment. But earlier this month, Cornell University held a premiere for its new financial management system, complete with a two-story projection screen.
"We did it! We have the best financial system ever," Joanne DeStefano, Cornell’s chief financial officer, declared to an audience comprising a who’s who (… no, seriously) of system testers, subject matter experts, and administrators.
An account representative from the veterinary college, using an iPad hooked up to the big screen, filed the first document in the new system. Boom: red-and-white confetti rained from the rafters.
Pep rallies are not standard practice when Cornell switches back-office software systems, DeStefano later explained. But this was an exceptional case: Cornell was becoming one of the first institutions — and perhaps the most high-profile — to fully adopt the Kuali Financial System, an open-source application that advocates say offers the sophistication of commercial financial management software at a fraction of the cost.
