The Financial Systems Modernization project is an initiative to replace the legacy technologies behind FAMIS, and to modernize the financial systems and processes used by members of the A&M System.
Objectives
- Discover options available to the A&M System to modernize our existing financial tools with a user-friendly, integrated system
- Improve and simplify processes following industry-accepted best practices
- Reduce risk and realize efficiencies
Background
Our home-grown financial system has served the A&M System for many years. The current system runs on a legacy computing platform that is reliable but has limitations that include being difficult for new users and expensive to maintain. Our desire is to move to a modern, user-friendly, integrated system.
In 2016, a Finance Discovery Working Group was formed to work with a project team to initiate and develop the discovery process and provide member insight into the needs of a potential replacement financial system.
Challenges we are working to solve
The current system runs on a stable and reliable mainframe infrastructure. The primary challenges with this legacy system include:
- It is expensive to acquire, maintain, and support mainframe hardware and software
- It is difficult to adapt to changing business needs
- It is dependent on many manual, paper-based processes
- Existing business processes are, at times, no longer considered best practices
- It is highly dependent on employees with unique specialized knowledge, many of whom are nearing retirement age