Success Stories - Digital transformation and empowering technologies ensuring student success at University of Sindh Jamshoro
With implementation of customized Edinfini Platform EdTech products altered to the needs of students, staff, and faculty, University of Sindh has been able to achieve remarkable outcomes and effectively manage their operations – all of which are key to better serving students.
The University of Sindh is a public research university located in the dynamic urban settings of Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan and it is one of the oldest universities in Pakistan founded in 1947. University of Sindh serves a broad spectrum of students, both local as well as international, from a variety of cultural and racial backgrounds. With a wide network of campuses across the province, University of Sindh serves more than 40,000 students.
From 1947 to 1951 the University functioned solely as an examining body. However, after its relocation in Hyderabad in 1951, it started functioning as a teaching university in pursuit of fulfillment of its charter and mission to disseminate knowledge; the first teaching department, namely, Department of Education, raised to the status of Faculty of Education later, was started in view of the great dearth of trained teachers in the country. The departments of basic Science disciplines as well as other departments on humanities side were added during 1950s.
The development of the present Campus at Jamshoro, about 15 kilometer from Hyderabad on the right bank of River Indus now designated as Allama I.I. Kazi Campus, was started in late fifties. Most of the teaching departments under the Faculty of Science were shifted to the new campus in 1961, with departments under Arts & Humanities following suite in 1970.
The academic march forward continued with the gradual addition of other teaching departments and now there are 43 full-fledged teaching institutes/centres/departments functioning under various academic Faculties. Institute of Biotechnology & Genetic Engineering and Centre for Environmental Sciences are the latest addition.
There are presently 4 Law Colleges and 74 Degree and Post Graduate Colleges affiliated to the University.
This is a story about the measurable outcomes and meaningful opportunities as a result of powerful collaborative efforts to make data-informed strategic choices related to student engagement.
Edinfini was taken onboard by the University of Sindh Jamshoro for Assistance in Design & Deployment of Finance Business Processes. It was a one-year project which commenced from November 18, 2020 and ended on November 17, 2021. Prior to upgrading to full-featured suite of Edinfini EdTech Products, the University of Sindh maintained their record keeping manually, tracked its inventory in a physical register and its financial data in desktop spreadsheets, and the University used single entry method of bookkeeping. The said practices resulted in a large number of resources invested in day-to-day operations and student affairs with increasing difficulties of extracting data or produce customized reports on financial position, student enrollment status, staff payroll and compensation and many other areas of university functions.
With implementation of Edinfini’s suite of EdTech products, the University was able to completely transform their critical functions. The powerfully integrated and fully automated Edinfini solutions streamlined the entire spectrum of management functions at the University. The suite of solutions enabled unprecedented insights and reporting in University functions, finances and operations. With implementation of Edinfini Suite of products, there is no more need for creating large physical data storage rooms as all critical data points can be now conveniently be obtained over the cloud infrastructure.
The development of the present Campus at Jamshoro, about 15 kilometer from Hyderabad on the right bank of River Indus now designated as Allama I.I. Kazi Campus, was started in late fifties. Most of the teaching departments under the Faculty of Science were shifted to the new campus in 1961, with departments under Arts & Humanities following suite in 1970.
The academic march forward continued with the gradual addition of other teaching departments and now there are 43 full-fledged teaching institutes/centres/departments functioning under various academic Faculties. Institute of Biotechnology & Genetic Engineering and Centre for Environmental Sciences are the latest addition.
There are presently 4 Law Colleges and 74 Degree and Post Graduate Colleges affiliated to the University.
This is a story about the measurable outcomes and meaningful opportunities as a result of powerful collaborative efforts to make data-informed strategic choices related to student engagement.
Edinfini was taken onboard by the University of Sindh Jamshoro for Assistance in Design & Deployment of Finance Business Processes. It was a one-year project which commenced from November 18, 2020 and ended on November 17, 2021. Prior to upgrading to full-featured suite of Edinfini EdTech Products, the University of Sindh maintained their record keeping manually, tracked its inventory in a physical register and its financial data in desktop spreadsheets, and the University used single entry method of bookkeeping. The said practices resulted in a large number of resources invested in day-to-day operations and student affairs with increasing difficulties of extracting data or produce customized reports on financial position, student enrollment status, staff payroll and compensation and many other areas of university functions.
With implementation of Edinfini’s suite of EdTech products, the University was able to completely transform their critical functions. The powerfully integrated and fully automated Edinfini solutions streamlined the entire spectrum of management functions at the University. The suite of solutions enabled unprecedented insights and reporting in University functions, finances and operations. With implementation of Edinfini Suite of products, there is no more need for creating large physical data storage rooms as all critical data points can be now conveniently be obtained over the cloud infrastructure.
Implementation of Double Entry Accounting System via Edinfini Core Finance
University of Sindh, being one of the oldest and largest universities of Pakistan is a highly complex organization ecosystem and resultantly very difficult to manage and operate. Before implementation of Edinfini Core Finance, the Financial records of the University were being managed using the archaic system of single entry accounting. This was highly inadequate for the financial reporting purposes of the University and was in full cognizance of the University management and the HEC. Furthermore, they were also recorded manually. This not only took a lot of time, there was also a risk of loss of data and it was a time-taking exercise to extract desired data when needed.
With Edinfini’s fully automated tool, the entire finance function was revolutionized. From recording transaction to creating forecasts and generating customized reports, every task was done instantly and accurately. The real-time data was just a matter of a click for the users.
Key features of this module included recording of transactions according to the double entry accounting methodology, recording of receipts (external and internal), creating debit and credit notes, tracking accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) and managing the general ledger. It also creates and stores crucial financial documents and reports like balance sheets, payment receipts, bills and invoices for the University as a whole as well for various campuses and departments.
Enhancing Transparency and Accountability with Cloud based Workflows
Transparency and accountability are the primary drivers of smooth business functioning. A lot can go wrong with complex business data and operations if not handled with scrutiny
Edinfini propelled transparency and accountability of day-today operations with the use of it’s fully automated cloud based workflow. The system required multiple approvals at various stages of the transaction to ensure nothing goes unchecked or with errors. The systematic workflow required the involvement of higher authorities and decision makers of the University which gave them assurance of the fairness and transparency of the processes along with more reliability.
Besides the transparency, our fully integrated and automated cloud based solutions significantly enhanced efficiency and productivity of the operation and minimized margin of errors.
Digital Transformation of the Payroll Process with Edinfini Core HR Management and Payroll
It is an axiomatic principle for Universities world-wide that their faculty and staff members are a critical success factor for the organization. With over 3000 staff and faculty members, the University of Sindh boasts one of the largest faculties in Pakistan. However, with the overall finance, HR and payroll functions of the University being run manually, this was a huge pain point for the University management. Edinfini team was brought in to assist in digital transformation of the payroll processes managed by the finance department, which were previously done manually using single entry book-keeping system.
With the deployment of Edinfini Core HR Management and Payroll solution, the finance department was able to completely digitally transform their payroll processing function. This exercise involved developing the profiles of all staff and faculty members of the University and defining the payroll structures of over 3000 staff members. The solution also involved considerations of attendance and complex government payroll items for all of these staff members. With successful deployment of the solution, the management has achieved digitization of their staff payroll records, transparency in their payroll processing and reporting, security of information and significant reduction in time and costs of payroll processing.
Automation and Digitization of Banking and Reconciliation Processes with Edinfini Banking
Being managed via a single entry manual book-keeping system, reconciliation of the University’s manual records with bank records was a massive pain point for the University. To this end, Edinfini implementation team deployed our Banking Solution which enables the users of this module to record banking transactions easily in the Core Finance system and also to perform bank reconciliations quickly and effectively. The users can add multiple bank accounts in the Banking Module and can also use uploading feature of bank reconciliation to reconcile the transactions automatically.
Any irreconcilable item will be highlighted to the user which will be easy for the user to identify and close the difference. Before the implementation of Edinfini Banking Solution, bank reconciliation was a tedious and difficult task due to the complexity and multiple banks accounts of the University. The manual bank reconciliation raised the chances of human errors besides taking a great deal of time. Edinifni’s automated bank reconciliation functionality provided the campus staff huge efficiencies and massive cost savings as now a single employee can manage multi bank accounts and bank reconciliations from one platform with flexibility and reduced margin of errors.
Streamlining University Financial Planning and HEC Reporting with Edinfini Budgeting
Edinfini Budgeting has enabled the University to do effective and efficient planning on how much to spend in a year. The budgeting module is designed in accordance with the line items with HEC prescribed codes and generates reports such as budget expenditure incurred and balance remaining of each expenditure and budget comparison reports.
Budgeting and planning prior to Edinfini Budgeting implementation was quite challenging as it was hectic task to gather all the required data. Moreover, the reliability of the data was another concern of the university management.
Edinfini Budgeting, with it’s powerful automation made budgeting and planning simple by automatically updating multiple categories of accounts, such as receipts and expenditures.
It saved the staff a significant amount of time because they don’t have to manually update every transaction and create a budget for the following year. It was instant and accurate because the staff did not have to manually update every transaction and create a budget.
The automation of features improved accuracy by decreasing human error, which frequently happened when budgets were prepared manually. Such precise data improved the reliability of budgets, and they could draw up records of previous transactions with a few clicks which helped them limit their spending and projections, allowing the institute to make smarter decisions.
End to End Integration of University Fee Module and Edinfini Core Finance
The University relies on various types of fees from students and other revenues for its operations to run smoothly. While the University had a challan generation system currently operated by its IT Department, this system did not provide any reporting functionalities to the senior management of the University resulting in significant reporting gaps. To address this pain point, the implementation team of Edinfini was asked to integrate this system of fee challan with the Edinfini Core Finance system so that adequate reporting for revenue stream segments and receivables can be designed for the management.
With this objective, the Edinfini Core Finance studied the existing fee challan generation system of the University and designed commensurate reporting Fee module in the Core Finance Module for senior management reporting needs.
Optimizing University Logistics Resources with Fleet Reporting
Edinfini Fleet Reporting solutions enabled the University to accomplish a series of specific tasks in the management of any or all aspects relating to a fleet of vehicles operated by the University. Fleet Reporting functionality enabled the University to maintain detailed profiling of fleet units operated by the University including details of their drivers, maintenance and running costs. This new reporting functionality has completely transformed the level of insight the management had in their fleet resources and has enabled the management to keep track of costs and efficiently manage resources increasing transparency and accountability.
Enabling Strategic Decision Making with Business Insights and Analytics
Insight and analytics play an indispensable role in the strategic decision making of any university. Without this critical decision input, the key decision makers are left in the dark when making strategic transformational decisions about their organization. These critical decision inputs can range from core management functions to programs, courses or faculty related matters. Prior to the implementation of Edinfini’s suite of EdTech tools, the University of Sindh relied on manual methods of data gathering and reporting to drive their key decision making.
Edinfini’s suite of business intelligence and reporting tools enabled a complete digital transformation of how the management obtained insights in their university operations, including primarily their finance and payroll functions. The management is now able to view real time data and reports with regard to various University functions via user friendly and aesthetically appealing BI Dashboards and custom reports.
Transforming University Insights with Campus, Program and Department Reporting
A large sized university is comprised of various campuses, programs, departments and excellence centers. University of Sindh, being one of the oldest and largest universities of Pakistan is a highly complex organization ecosystem and resultantly very difficult to manage and operate. To successfully operate such a complex organization, the senior management has to rely on a broad set of reports and insights to equitably allocate resources for a sustained program success. This was a major challenge for the University management as the management had to rely on manual methods of data collection and reporting to drive their strategic decision making.
The implementation of Edinfini’s suite of EdTech tools addressed this major challenge of the University by deploying real time reporting tools enabling the management to access Campus, Program and Department level reporting with interactive reports based on real time data.
“Edinfini, with it’s powerfully integrated and fully automated tools has dramatically transformed and streamlined our operations, having positive impact on overall student and faculty servicing, resulting in higher retention. It’s a pleasure having worked with Edinfini’s team of thorough professionals focused on student success.”
Syed Zain-ul-Abedin Shah
Director Finance
University of Sindh
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