Recent News Releases

2008 – Customized Research Institute Grant Management ‘Suite’

Contact: David Richardson
Public-Sector Solutions
800.800.0768

Taking the burden out of Grant Management  

Like most research institutes, Northern California Cancer Center must deal with the daily headaches associated with grant management. Their accounting system, though supposedly designed for such needs, fell woefully short. So like most institutions with tight budgets, they rolled up their sleeves and started writing their own applications in Microsoft Access to support their financial system. As the years went the burden of maintaining those systems became more and more difficult to manage. But NCCC was faced with two problems; while they wanted to replace their financial system, they did not want to abandon the applications they had spent so much time designing themselves. What to do? and who to turn to?

After speaking with fellow members of the Assoc. of Independent Research Institutes, one answer came up again and again. Public-Sector Solution (P-SS) and the USL Financials Fund Accounting Software. NCCC contacted P-SS and after a demonstration of their applications and their requirements to P-SS, NCCC entered into negotiations for the replacement of their financial system, the development of additional enhancements, with P-SS’s agreeing to integrate the in-house applications within USL Financials, and take over all on-going maintenance.

The NCCC’s suite of software was broad in scope, covering a Grant/Contract Application system, Grant Forecasting and Reporting, Level of Effort Reporting, and Timesheet Entry/Management. But because the systems were developed over years by different developers, they lacked uniformity, and were not fully integrated. But P-SS saw the potential to leverage the NCCC custom development into a RI ‘market’ Suite and agreed to not only maintain the applications, but to enhance them, and also agreed to create a USL Financials RI ‘Grant Management Suite’ and to pay NCCC a royalty on all sales of this module. For NCCC this provided the opportunity for an additional source of revenue.

The task began by using USL Financials Project and Grant Accounting (PA) module as a foundation. Designed to handle the grant and project accounting needs of institutions of all sizes, the PA module provided a flexible but strong foundation. Next enhancements were added to include IDC Allocations, Revenue Recognition, Sponsor Billing, Project and Grant Level security, and more. The NCCC applications next, with the addition of electronic submittal of grant applications, budgeting extensions, and complete integration with USL Financials to provide a single point of entry for all data.

Today NCCC is implementing a fully integrated solution that will encompass all aspects of Grant Lifecycle, and provide a more efficient, powerful, and user-friendly environment using USL Financials, and the P-SS enriched NCCC applications.

Contact Public-Sector Solutions today to see if you also may benefit by using our customized Research Institute “Grant Management Suite” and find out how you too can enjoy the PSS customer experience.

2007- Web Application Add-on module for USL Financials existing client

Contact: Bill Brown
Public-Sector Solutions
800.800.0768

Web-subscription Renewal Project. 

The Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC) serves the broader interests of the economy of Virginia by supporting, maintaining, and expanding the Commonwealth's domestic and international travel market, thereby generating increased visitor expenditures, tax revenues, and employment. The VTC alone generates more than 1.1 million consumer inquiries annually through advertising, websites, and marketing programs. VTC fulfills inquiries directly through the websites and by distributing the "Virginia Is for Lovers Travel Guide" and other publications designed for specific niche travel markets to potential visitors. The website (www.Virginia.org) currently contains over 25,000 pages of information and serves as an online travel guide to 2,500,000 users each year.

More specific to this project, the Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC) rents brochure slots to campgrounds, hotels, shopping plazas, amusement parks and other attractions, federal and state agencies, and other customers who want to advertise in Virginia welcome centers or rest areas. In addition to brochure slot rental, VTC rents light panels, magazine racks, floor displays, and various other items that may be used for advertising.

The Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC) contracted with Public-Sector Solutions, Inc. (P-SS) to provide a web-based subscription renewal system, to be used by customers who pay seasonal or annual rent for these brochure slots, light panels, magazine racks, etc., for rent in Virginia welcome centers and rest areas.

In addition, this web-based system allows the various location administrators to update their inventory online, indicating how many brochures they have on hand at a given time. When brochure levels reach a reorder point, the customers are notified via email and asked to restock brochures in the specific locations.

Finally, the web-based system is tightly integrated with the USL Financials Accounts Receivable module. Invoices and cash receipts from the web-based system are imported into the USL AR for reporting and financial purposes. All invoices and cash receipts are handled on a cash basis. Once payments have been processed for the invoices, revenue and cash accounting distributions will be available to the USL Financials General Ledger for reporting purposes.

Contact Public-Sector Solutions today to see if, like the VTC, your organization also may benefit from a customized web-based solution as an integrated extension of your USL Financials Accounting Suite, and to find out how you too can enjoy the PSS customer experience.