Presented by Vani Prasad, Vice President IT Modernization and Transformation, HTC Global Services at the Kuali Days UK conference, 30 October 2013.

1. KUALI FINANCIAL
SYSTEM (KFS)
Kuali Foundation Applications
& You!
Vani Prasad
Vani.prasad@htcinc.com

2. WHAT IS KUALI FINANCIAL SYSTEM (KFS)
• The Kuali Financial System (KFS) is a community-source software
application system developed by and for higher education
institutions to serve their financial software needs
• The KFS is a higher-education, community-source software project
that is part of the larger Kuali Community. KFS is a core product
developed around the Student, Research, Endowment and
Financial sectors of the University environment
• Follows the key elements of the Kuali mission:
o Designed for specific needs (for higher education, by higher education)
o Dramatically lower hard costs for administrative systems

3. WHAT IS KUALI FINANCIAL SYSTEM (KFS)
• KFS was the original Kuali project starting in 2005
• KFS founding partners are Indiana University, The University of
Arizona, the University of Hawaii, Michigan State University, San
Joaquin Delta Community College, Cornell University, NACUBO and
the rSmart Group
• KFS is now a mature product that can be scaled for complex, multicampus, research-intensive institutions as well as smaller
private, liberal arts, or community colleges
• Currently implemented at well over 20 Universities, with many more
in the works

4. WHAT IS KUALI FINANCIAL SYSTEM (KFS)
• The major software modules that constitute the KFS are:
o Chart of Accounts (COA)
o Vendor
o Purchasing and Accounts Payable (PURAP)
o Pre-Disbursement Processor (PDP)
o Capital Asset Management (CAM)
o Accounts Receivable (AR)
o Contracts and Grants (C&G)
o Effort Certification
o Labor Distribution
o Endowment (KEM).

5. WHAT IS KUALI FINANCIAL SYSTEM (KFS)
• Current Version is Release 5.0.2 (as of May 2013)
• Many implementations are at Ver 4.x and will go thru upgrade path
• KFS has matured from its Release 1.0 of Oct 2006.
• KFS product releases include partner contributions (a key
element!), software patches, new functions, expanded workflows and
so on.
• KFS has completed year-end audit runs with full compliance
• KFS has interest outside North America too….such as Canada, New
Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom, etc.

6. KUALI OLE AND KFS
• Kuali OLE (Open Library Environment) development started in
2010, so the learnings and experiences from KFS are applied into
OLE
o Mature Kuali Rice Infrastructure and Middleware
o Kuali-Rice is like the ‘chassis’ of the ‘car’
o Better use of project communication and collaboration tools
o Improved open-source software productivity and testing tools
o Some features of KFS are part of OLE, such as ‘Fines’
o Software Development team is co-located
o Adopt tighter Agile processes for improved
collaboration, product scoping and project monitoring

7. KUALI OLE AND KFS
• Closing remarks – things to consider in OLE or KFS implementations
o Learn about the product (OLE or KFS) to understand the Fit,
Form and Function of each Module (Feature)
o Look at data sources and data outputs, including reporting –
may require an external datamart
o A lot of existing business processes may get simplified
(dramatically!)
o Decisions may have made about processes and transaction
postings that need to be done in real-time vs batch mode
o The products (OLE and KFS) come with good abilities to
configure to suit unique needs and workflows of the Institution