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The finance centers are highly skilled service units organized to manage common financial transactions for a group of divisions or departments. Each finance center offers a core set of services including support for payroll, procurement, business expense reimbursement, accounting and financial reporting. The finance center staff is made up of financial analysts and finance specialists who support the divisions and departments to more effectively complete financial transactions.

The finance centers are organized into five separate centers to support the major divisions of the College. Depending on the needs in these areas, each finance center, in addition to its core services, may add services to support special requirements.

• The Administrative Finance Center supports: Advancement (Public Affairs, Development, and Alumni Relations), Campus Planning and Facilities (Facilities Operations & Management, Environmental Health & Safety, Office of Planning and Design, Office of Project Management, the Dartmouth Real Estate Office, and the Woodlands Office), Computing Services, Human Resources, Finance and Administration, and the President’s Division (including Dartmouth College Athletics).
• The Arts and Sciences Finance Center serves the departments within the Dean of the Faculty division.
• The Geisel School of Medicine Finance Center serves the departments within the Geisel School of Medicine.
• The Provost and Dean of the College Finance Center serves the finance needs of the departments within the Provost and Dean of the College divisions.
• The Tuck/Thayer Finance Center supports those two professional schools.

Background

Since January 2010, over 100 people from across the Dartmouth campus have been involved in an effort to improve our financial transaction processes and to reduce costs as part of the Strategic Budget Reduction and Investment (SBRI) effort. This cross institutional team has been reviewing the most common finance processes, including payroll, procurement, business expense reimbursements, financial reporting, and account reconciliation. The team considered the gaps, complications and redundancies in our current processes, evaluated what other institutions have done to improve business operations, and obtained guidance from external experts. The design alternative that the team recommended, and that we have implemented, includes redesign of certain processes, improvements in the use of technology, clarification of procedures, simplification of forms, and reorganization of small groups of staff into “finance centers.”

An update on the finance center effort was sent out from Steven Kadish, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Michael Wagner, Vice President for Finance, to the Dartmouth campus in August 2011.