IEEE President’s Note: Investing in IEEE’s Financial Future
My personal mission as an IEEE volunteer has been to work to make the institute the premier organization for technical professionals to engage with. My objectives focus on implementing practical measures to inspire individuals to call IEEE their lifelong professional home. As IEEE president and a longtime volunteer, I am committed to strengthening IEEE through improvements to its business process framework and to continuing my efforts to clarify financial reporting and promote fiscal responsibility.
We, the IEEE Board of Directors, are the fiduciaries responsible for steering the organization toward a sustainable future by adopting sound, ethical, and legal governance and financial management policies, as well as ensuring IEEE has adequate resources to advance its mission and vision.
As a strong believer in and a steward of this mission and vision, it is both my great honor and great duty to help guide the organization, supporting the work of IEEE around the world, and directing our policies, strategies, and governance to advance IEEE's mission and impact.
To that end, IEEE acted on the request from our volunteers for an improved financial and contract system to simplify, streamline, and save time that also allows for improved business insights, workflow, and decision-making. In collaboration with our volunteer leaders and professional staff, IEEE invested in the tools and processes to create a better volunteer experience. This effort is the NextGen Financial System.
IMPROVED PROCESSES
The development of this new financial support system began in 2020. IEEE's current systems were approaching the end of their operational life. Additionally, IEEE's financial operations had grown in scale and complexity, and the current systems could not provide the level of timeliness, detail, and flexibility that volunteers expected. The systems required volunteers and staff to create manual workarounds to provide the data they needed to gain the necessary insight into IEEE's business activities. This was not ideal.
NextGen Financials Cloud
This improved financial process saves time while providing greater visibility in real time. This streamlined approach for financial reporting makes day-to-day activities easier for volunteers, with dashboards to review your financials and with more details. It's the one source that you can go to, rather than dealing with emails, phone calls, and waiting on others.
NextGen Banking
This replaces Concentration Banking/CBRS and provides a streamlined approach with a one-stop resource for your global banking needs. Its integrated self-service options provide greater flexibility and ease-of-use.
NextGen Expense Reimbursement
This efficient expense-reporting process offers a fast, easy, efficient, and automated reimbursement experience for IEEE volunteers. It is the new name for IEEE's volunteer expense reimbursement tool, Concur.
NextGen Contracts
IEEE has moved from a manual contract-review process to an automated process. Users can view a dashboard that shows the status of the contract, versus looking for an email or notes from a phone conversation. Everything is at your fingertips, with contract life-cycle visibility and the ability for real-time collaboration.
In May we rolled out NextGen Financials. This cloud-based management system supports comprehensive project-based financials and provides support for automating contracts and purchase orders as well as tracking and reporting costs and expenses. It enables both volunteer leaders and staff to better manage their budgets and track spending across the organization, where everything from expense reporting to end-to-end contract management is online and cost accounting is clear.
The system is available for those who are authorized to process financials and contracts, including IEEE Technical Activities society and council leadership; geographic unit treasurers at the region, council, section, and chapter levels; conference organizers; and IEEE Standards Association officers.
IEEE understands this is a change for our volunteers and it will take time to adapt to the new platform. Training and educational resources have been made available throughout the transition period. For more information, please visit the NextGen website.
As a strong investment in IEEE's future, NextGen upgrades our financial systems and advances the way we manage our business activities. By streamlining and simplifying existing processes with NextGen, we have become more nimble as an organization.
With greater visibility and governance over IEEE processes, we can make quicker, more informed decisions. And we are better positioned to manage day-to-day activities with a greater focus on the mission of IEEE.
Thank you for your continued support. Please share your thoughts with me at president@ieee.org.