Maryland Department of Business & Economic Development
The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development runs an in-house shadow system to facilitate better financials monitoring and reporting than the state system was able to provide. In October, 2004, this agency of the state of Maryland needed a financial system to track the loans and other incentives provided to businesses into the state. The application also had to work with the Maryland State Computer System called FAMUS.
California Department of Mental Health
The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development runs an in-house “shadow system” to facilitate better financials monitoring and reporting than the state system was able to provide. In October, 2004, this agency of the state of Maryland needed a financial system to track the loans and other incentives provided to businesses into the state. The application also had to work with the Maryland State Computer System called FAMUS.
The California Department of Health Care Services issued an Invitation for Bid (IFB) in an effort to solicit proposals for a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software solution to meet their local assistance accounting needs. The project effort, known as the Accounting System Automation Project (ASAP), resulted in the implementation of a comprehensive accounting and reporting environment to track Short Doyle/Medi-Cal (SD/MC) II in XML claims, Early Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) claims, and payments issues to the many county Mental Health Programs (MHPs).
The State recommended that DHCS expedite the acquisition and installation of a new Commercial-off-the Shelf (COTS) claims accounting system to replace their homegrown, defective, and outdated claims processing and tracking systems. DHCS had worked in cooperation with oversight agencies in planning a course of action to mitigate existing problems and initiate corrective action to improve tracking inefficiencies. The Accounting System Automation Project (ASAP) was one major step in this process.
The DHCS receives more than 15 million expenditure claims from Mental Health Providers (MHP) annually. These claims require Federal Financial Participation (FFP) dollars from the federal government, as well as California state money when part of the EPSDT program. Once FFP has been received, the USL Financials Accounting Payable module generates claim schedules for payment by the State Controller’s Office (SCO). In addition, DHCS receives void claim reversals and replacement claims. Claim Reversals generate invoices in Accounts Receivable, which are used to bill the counties for the amounts overpaid.
USL Financials, Inc. provided a COTS solution in 2009, which included their core USL Financials accounting system. In addition, the following custom additions were made:
Claim Summary Loader– a C# (C-Sharp) program created to read XML claim files from the Department of Healthcare Services (DHCS). This data includes HIPAA information, as well as claim ID, aid codes, FMAP rates, FFP amounts, and SGF amounts. The data is stored in the database for later processing.
Claim Payment Generator– a C# program that reads the USL Financials database, and creates an XML response file to the original Claim Summary information. This file is sent back to the Department of Healthcare Services to provide feedback on the particular warrant # and warrant date for each given paid claim.
CalSTARS Interface– a Visual Basic program that sends ASCII information to the state accounting system.
SCO Import– a Visual Basic program that reads ASCII information from the State Controller’s Office (SCO), indicating the warrant # and warrant date used to pay particular claims.
The California Department of Health Care Services has been using the USL Financials system since 2009, and their personnel are very pleased with the results. They no longer have to rely on a defective homegrown solution, but now have a proven state-of-the-art public sector solution.
Southern Nevada Health District
Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD) is the public health agency in the fastest growing county in the United States. Las Vegas is the county seat for Clark County and this organization provides all the public health services. USL Financials was licensed in July of 2002 and went live January 1st with General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Budgeting, Purchase Order, Check Reconciliation, Project/Grant Accounting and Financial Reporting. Of particular importance to this agency is the need to track the many projects that are funded by many grants. Many of the grants have different requirements for reporting and use of funds, and the USL Financials Grant Accounting module performs all the necessary functions and provides the audit trail necessary. In addition, USL Financials created several interfaces to a variety of web-based software used by SNHD including the ability to import cash receipt transactions.
Madison County, Illinois
Madison County is the third largest county in Illinois and began implementation of USL Financials from USL Financials in December of 2001. The key element in this implementation was the ability to generate audited financial statements and control budgets. In addition, in 2007, a Purchase Order Approval Process was added to the standard USL Financials Purchase Order module at the request of Madison County, to meet internal requirements for PO approval.
Fox Chase Cancer Center
Fox Chase Cancer Center is the largest cancer research organization in the world. Managing over $1 billion in grant funds with several hundred active users, it implemented USL Financials from USL Financials in October, 2001. After an eight month implementation and training effort, the organization went live July 1, 2002. The critical success factors for this client was to provide grant funding organizations the proper reporting and budgeting functions. Fox Chase makes use of the built-in, user-defined, virtually unlimited account and component attributes functionality. In addition, Fox Chase has created extensive custom reports using the Excel Financials GL report writer, which uses Microsoft Excel as both the user interface and the reporting mechanism. Finally, USL Financials has built-in integration with SciQuest on demand e-procurement software. This allows Fox Chase users to make purchases via SciQuest, and have those purchases automatically imported into the USL Financials Purchase Order module without the need for manual user interaction.
Cancer Prevention Institute of California
The Cancer Prevention Institute of California (CPIC) was founded in 1974 as the Northern California Cancer Program, in response to President Richard M. Nixon’s avowed “war on cancer.” CPIC is California’s leading independent, population-based research organization dedicated to its mission of preventing cancer and reducing its burden where it cannot yet be prevented. USL Financials was implemented at CPIC in 2010. This included the integration of modules such as Level of Effort, web-based Timesheets, Vacation Accrual, Grants and Contracts, and Grants Worksheets. These modules integrate with the USL Financials Grant and Project Accounting module to provide a complete grant accounting suite. Features include the ability to calculate and distribute complicated allocations and revenue recognition, generate custom invoices to funding agencies, provide extensive and secure web reporting at both a summary and detailed level, and provide advanced procurement workflow with various approval levels.