Shared Financial System (SFS)

Consolidation for cost-effectiveness

In the mid 1990s, institutions across the University of Wisconsin System increasingly saw a rise in maintenance, upgrading and replacement costs of their financial software systems. Because of these findings, best business practices were explored, with a goal of identifying the most efficient and cost-effective strategy.

The Shared Financial System was developed and implemented campus by campus from 1999 to 2005. It provides a single, integrated financial system that offers institution flexibility and is shared by all financial users in the University of Wisconsin System. More specifically the new system enables UW institutions to manage more efficiently the business of the university, including purchasing, general ledger, payables, billing, and grants management among other processes.

Oracle’s PeopleSoft Shared Financial Systems was chosen because of their significant commitment across the UW System as well as their efficient and cost-effective approach to configuring and managing the system.

SFS is operated by the UW System Administration’s Office of Financial Administration in partnership with the UW-Madison’s Division of Information Technology (DoIT) and has a governance structure that represents the interests of all UW System institutions.