Saving 15 hours a week on post-award grant finance management at Widener University

Administrators are actually excited to run customized reports

Challenge

At Widener University, the Office of Sponsored Research and Foundation Relations loves to hear about student and faculty research. The whole campus gets excited about new developments and discoveries. But compiling reports on sponsored research and tracking grant spending was far too time-consuming.

Stacy Gallo managed financial projects with Microsoft Excel and Foundation Grants, the university’s accounting software. To generate accurate data, she spent countless hours duplicating spreadsheets to remove errors and produce custom reports by hand. She would create two reports in Excel and compare them side by side, looking for line item differences between the two spreadsheets to pinpoint errors.

This process was frustrating and inefficient, as documents often contained typos. The systems weren’t user-friendly, and it was a struggle to manipulate data and customize reports. There also wasn’t a simple way to share financials or other requested data with faculty. They needed easy, secure access to accurate information, and the research office needed quick, intuitive report-building.

The systems weren’t user-friendly, so it was a struggle to manipulate data and customize reports.

Solution

The Office of Sponsored Research and Foundation Relations knew the current system wasn’t sustainable. They wanted a way to automate the process, catch errors, save time and share reports with faculty and staff, specifically for post-award grant finance management. That’s when they discovered Fund Manager

Cayuse was implemented in a few months, and administrators adapted very quickly. The custom reporting feature makes it much easier to produce reports, and faculty can see at a glance how research funding is being spent. Everything is digital and secure, and administrators are actually excited to run customized reports.

Results

Today, the Office of Sponsored Research and Foundation Relations uses Cayuse for all post-award management to make sure grant paperwork is in order and all financials are accurate. The software makes it easier to access essential data, with no need for duplicate work.

In fact, thanks to Fund Manager, the office saves an average of 15 hours per week in reporting time. There is no more duplicating Excel spreadsheets, and customizing reports is easy. It’s a win for the department, faculty and institution as a whole. Widener University is happy to be removing duplication, increasing reporting visibility and saving precious time with Fund Manager.

Thanks to Fund Manager, the Office of Sponsored Research and Foundation Relations saves an average of 15 hours per week in reporting time.

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