MIT Sloan Evolution of Financial Planning & Reporting

James DiBartolomeo - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Patricia Charest - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mary Wheeler - Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The MIT Sloan Office of Finance has transformed from a reactive and transactionally focused group into an innovative, strategic, decision-making partner for school leadership. This presentation will explore our evolution, with a specific focus on the Workday Adaptive Reporting tool that we implemented to streamline our financial processes, improve our reporting accuracy and, most importantly, provide business units with the tools they need to better understand and manage their financials. Workday Adaptive provides a platform for us to customize and improve the forecasting process, allowing us to make better projections and better-informed decisions about operations.

We will be showcasing our focus on active dashboarding using a few of our current dashboards. These tools aid us in our ability to forecast, track budget variances, provide operational oversight, and manage our workforce position plan.

Major Benefits include:

• All unit financial information in one place
• Active Dashboards – guided workflow
• Access to both high-level and detailed reporting
• Access to vacant and filled position detail
• Scenario planning for individuals
• An efficient and effective platform enabling more value-added conversations between the Office of Finance and individual units

Learning Objectives

1. Demonstrate the use of Workday Adaptive Planning dashboards at MIT Sloan.
2. Describe the benefits of a “one stop shop” financial reporting dashboard for business units and our journey in getting users to adopt new tools.
3. Share ideas on how to streamline the forecasting process and reporting.

CPE Available

• 1.5 Credits: Finance