Appendix 2: Tertiary education institutions' financial management, student management, and payroll systems

Our auditors routinely consider financial management, student management, and payroll systems and controls during audits. They examine entity-level controls such as risk management, and activity-level controls such as routine security over networks. We also consider risks to IT systems, such as IT disaster recovery planning and information security.

During the 2011 audits, our Audit New Zealand Information Systems Audit and Assurance team looked at what providers and systems TEIs use for managing their:

• financial information;
• student information; and
• payroll.

We have included this information as an Appendix because we consider that it might be useful to the sector. Given the relative homogeneity of requirements of these systems, there could be potential for greater collaboration between TEIs that would lower costs and provide greater resources for managing risk within these systems.

Figure 15 provides an example of the different types of financial management information systems that TEIs use. TechOne predominates (10 out of 25 TEIs), and eight other systems are used.

Figure 15
Types of financial management information systems

Figure 16 shows the different types of student management systems that TEIs use. There is less variation than there is with financial management information systems, with 11 TEIs using Artena.

Figure 16
Types of student management systems

TEIs use several different types of payroll systems (see Figure 17). PayGlobal is the most common system, with seven TEIs using it. Eight other payroll systems are used by the other TEIs.

Figure 17
Types of payroll systems