Financial Clusters

The University can gain efficiencies and consistency by clustering some of the higher-risk financial activities at the campus/college/administrative unit level. Clustering makes good business sense and helps to create a “single enterprise” culture. Some of the benefits of clustering include:

• allows the University to balance efficiency, service delivery, accountability, and risk
• promotes consistency of processes and procedures
• increases data integrity
• pools staff resources, which allows
  • specialized skills and expertise to be available to all campuses/colleges/admin units
  • consistent coverage during leaves and absences
• allows for a higher level of data analysis and reporting

The UMD Cluster Model will utilize a primary cluster at the business office and a secondary cluster at the collegiate/major administrative unit. Areas to be clustered include payment voucher processing, purchasing oversight, journal processing, annual budget oversight, data analysis/reporting, and bill processing. Many other activities will remain at the department (or local) level, including purchasing, vendor/customer relations, travel authorization and expense reporting, journal reconciliation, and EGMS proposal prep.