Financial activities at the University are accomplished in three general areas:

• Business process owners, who are responsible for central financial activities
• Financial clusters, which are responsible for high-risk financial activities within each campus, college, or administrative unit
• Department (local or distributed) financial areas

Some of the benefits of financial 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

Read clustered functions descriptions.

Read Separation of Duties Grid (1-08) for cluster functions combined with noncluster functions.

For a visual depiction of financial responsibilities, view the Integrated Services Framework (pdf).

The initial financial cluster models followed the basic outline set forth by the Transforming the U task force for administrative structure and as used by the new colleges. The clusters report to the Chancellor's Office, Dean’s Office, or Vice President’s Office and have a dotted-line relationship to the central business process owners.

Clustered Functions

Key functions located in the cluster include the following.

• Cluster Director provides overall leadership and management to the financial operations clustered within a college, campus or administrative unit. 
  
  
• Procurement Specialist provides oversight and maintenance of the procurement process, will receive assets and resolve all match exceptions. 
  
  
• Voucher Preparers complete transactions that allow for the paying of internal or external suppliers of merchandise or services.
  
  
• Bill Preparers process bills to external organizations, adjust bills and monitor aged receiving reports.
  
  
• Journal Preparers process journal entries including intra-and inter-fund transfers, mandatory transfers, balance sheet transactions and correcting entries.
  
  
• Enterprise or Data Analysts define, analyze, measure, interpret, and present key institutional data for management, strategic and executive level decision making.
  
  
• Position Management is not required to be in the financial cluster; however, as the U of M anticipates position budgeting,  there needs to be a dotted-line relationship between Position Management and the financial cluster.