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Commitment Management System (CMS)

The Commitment Management System (CMS) is a financial planning and forecasting tool for school and department staff. CMS electronically pulls up-to-date budget, expenditure and commitment data from multiple Stanford financial systems. Using CMS, you can forecast and manage available funds by tracking actual expenditures, accounting for anticipated expenditures and running "what-if" scenarios.

Watch the following video to learn about the efficiencies realized by staff in schools and departments after incorporating CMS into their work processes. These experienced CMS users rely on CMS for all their financial analysis and planning.

Integrating data from Oracle, PeopleSoft and the budget tool (currently Tidemark), CMS provides easy access to actual and forecasted financial views. Department, academic and financial staff can use these views to collaboratively plan financial outcomes to best meet goals and grant commitments, and to confidently predict "end- of- fiscal- period" outcomes.

Visit the Newsroom for recent announcements and to subscribe to receive future CMS updates and enhancements. 

Before you can use CMS, two things must happen:

  1. You must complete the following required trainings for new users:
    • FIN-PROG-0020: Financial Stewardship Expectations, 10 minutes online.
    • FIN-0180: Introduction to the Commitment Management System (CMS), 40 minutes online.
    • FIN-0181: Acquiring Core CMS (Commitment Management System) Skills, 3 hour lab session.
  2. You must be granted CMS authority using Authority Manager.

The following table explains the training required for new users of the Commitment Management System.

Courses Description
FIN-PROG-0020: Financial Stewardship Expectations This online certification course describes your obligations as a financial steward of university resources. It is required for all of Stanford's staff, especially those needing access to financial systems or related functions.
FIN-0180: Introduction to the Commitment Management System (CMS) This online course highlights the capabilities of CMS and demonstrates basic navigation. It includes insights from experienced CMS users on how they rely on CMS for forecasting and reporting in their departments. This course takes 40 minutes to complete and is a prerequisite to the instructor-led “Acquiring Core CMS Skills,” session where you will gain hands-on CMS experience. 
FIN-0181: Acquiring Core CMS (Commitment Management System) Skills Through this hands-on lab you will acquire the skills needed to complete core CMS tasks. During the lab you will practice these tasks using simulated data.
Category How-to Instructions

Oracle Financials

Managing Accounts
Managing Goods and Services
Managing People
  • Manage a Soft Commitment for People
    • Create Recurring Soft Commitment
    • Edit or Delete Soft Commitment
  • Forecast in CMS (modified hard commitments)
    • Change to Employee Distribution of Effort
    • Leave
    • Other Compensation
    • Change in Salary / FTE Percentage
    • Mass Salary Increase
Running Reports
Favorite Setups
Managing Alerts
 

CMS reports enable analysis, discussion and decisions about future spending. You can include multiple PTAs in a report by setting up favorite account groups in CMS. Save CMS reports in PDF or Excel for further analysis, if needed. Refer to How to: Run Reports in CMS for more information.

Report Title Report Description Sample
710: Account Balances The Account Balances report displays uncommitted balances for a single account or a group of PTAs. This report is intended for users who want to view a summary level of uncommitted dollars as compared to the budget by PTA. View
720: PTA Overview The PTA Overview report displays budget, actual commitments, forecasted commitments and uncommitted balance for a PTA. The report can also consolidate multiple PTAs, providing a quick method for analyzing a group of PTAs. The report offers multiple viewing options, including expenditure type, expenditure category groupings or direct and indirect costs for viewing at a higher level. View
730: PTA Commitment Detail – People The People Commitment Detail report displays employee and student commitment amounts (monthly and total), as well as forecasted effort percentages by PTA. It also shows how far in the future a person is financially committed. This is a useful report to verify if any student or employee commitments need to be adjusted to accurately reflect any future changes to their effort. View
740: PTA Commitment Detail – Goods and Services The Goods and Services Commitment Detail report displays purchasing commitments and expenditures by purchase order. It also displays any soft goods or service commitments created by CMS users. This report can help to identify purchasing commitments that may need to be decommitted (removed from CMS only) or suppressed (removed from OBI, CMS and FFIT reports). View
750: Person Commitment Detail The Person Commitment Detail report displays employee and student commitment amounts (monthly and total), as well as forecasted effort percentages by individual. It also shows how far in the future a person is financially committed. This is a useful report to verify if any student or employee commitments need to be adjusted to accurately reflect any planned future changes. View
760: Month by Month FTE Commitments by Person The Month by Month FTE Commitments by Person report displays employee or student future effort across all PTAs to which they are committed. It will show if a person's effort is forecasted to be fully allocated. Total effort can be reviewed to determine if it is appropriately allocated to the various PTAs. Future effort information is shown for all PTAs to which the person is charged as long as you have authority over one of the PTAs to which they are charged or have authority over their HR Organization. View
770: Month by Month FTE Commitments by PTA The Month by Month FTE Commitments by PTA report displays all employee and student forecasted effort allocation by PTA. Effort can be reviewed to determine if the appropriate people are being allocated at the correct effort level to the PTA. View
780: Month by Month Salary/Student Aid Commitments by Person The Month by Month Salary/Student Aid Commitments by Person report displays total monthly forecasted amounts across all PTAs for employees or students charged to a particular PTA. Forecasted amounts are shown for all PTAs to which the person is charged as long as you have authority over one of the PTAs to which they are charged or have authority over their HR Organization. View
790: Month by Month Salary/Student Aid Commitments by PTA The Month by Month Salary/Student Aid Commitments by PTA report displays the forecasted monthly amounts for all employees and students charged to a PTA. The report can also consolidate multiple PTAs, which provides a quick method of analyzing a group of PTAs. View
800: Month by Month Burn Rate by PTA The Month by Month Burn Rate by PTA report displays monthly actuals and commitments as well as total budget and uncommitted balance. The report can also consolidate PTAs when running the report for multiple PTAs. It is a helpful tool for monitoring the actual and projected expenditures for a single PTA or a group of PTAs at a higher level. The report also offers multiple viewing options including People and Goods and Services detail, expenditure types or expenditure category groupings for viewing the information at a higher level. The report is available in Excel format only. View
810: Multiple PTA Listing The Multiple PTA Listing report displays budget, actuals, commitments and uncommitted balances for PTAs at a very high level and consolidated format. This report is useful for viewing direct and indirect costs associated with a PTA and for viewing information for several PTAs on one page. View
820: PTA Notes The PTA Notes report displays any comments entered for any PTAs, soft budgets, custom periods, soft commitments, employees, students or alerts. View

 

Last Updated: Sep 30, 2022

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