Grants and Student readiness
HCM and Finance are the easy part. Grants Management and Student are where research-university programs stall. I help you land the two hardest modules: the FDM and the F&A base, the effort seam, the system-of-record cutover, and the financial aid plan.
Enterprise platforms are proven. What decides a research-university outcome is whether the grant worktags were designed before the build, whether the F&A base excludes what it should, whether effort reconciles to payroll before certification, and whether financial aid is ready or just scheduled. The public post-mortems are rarely about the software. They are about grants and student modules that went live before they were ready.
I sit on your side of that build. Independent, client-side, with no stake in a go-live date that keeps a vendor's plan intact. The work is to make grants and student their own workstreams, prove the seams to Finance, HCM, and Payroll with real data, and hold the go-live gate on evidence.
The shift I createTen areas, worked before go-live.
Each one is a place where grants or student quietly go wrong, and where a little discipline before go-live saves an audit finding or a slipped term.
Workstream ownership
Grants and student as their own workstreams with their own data conversion and go/no-go.
The grant object
Award-line type set in sponsored programs; billing, F&A, and revenue on the line, not the header.
The FDM
Grant and gift worktags designed in Phase 0, auto-pulling fund, function, and class.
Indirect cost / F&A
MTDC base exclusions coded and tested against real award data before go-live.
The effort seam
Effort reconciled to payroll, salary cap validated, the 90-day cost-transfer aging report live.
Grant revenue
Gifts and grants separated; revenue recognition tested; the grant subledger ties to the GL.
Student sequencing
Foundation, records, financials, then aid, sequenced to the academic calendar.
System-of-record cutover
The active-versus-historical cutline, coexistence period, and years of dual-maintenance.
Student financials
Revenue categories governed jointly; the sponsored-tuition path tested; AR ties to the GL.
Shared person & reporting
Person-data governance and one set of census dates so IPEDS ties across Student, HCM, and Finance.
The full field guide, and a toolkit for the build.
The grants and student field guide
All eleven sections in depth, with real, anonymized examples, the four ERP seams, and the one move that matters most in each area.
Read the guideThe readiness toolkit
A readiness checklist across all 10 areas, plus a pitfall-by-area quick reference. Built to keep beside the design and the go/no-go.
Download the toolkit (PDF)The four seams
How grants and student wire into Finance, HCM, and Payroll, what flows, where it breaks, and the move, inside the guide.
See the seams →Put independent eyes on your grants and student build.
If you are standing up Workday Grants or Student, a candid review of the FDM, the effort seam, and the aid plan before go-live is the cheapest insurance you will buy.