The current Financial Management system software at the University is DOS based and dates back to the early 1990s. Though it has served the University well for the past 15 years, it can no longer support the growing operation, is not windows-based, and cannot produce analytical reports needed for planning in today's environment. Additionally, the data management system module for managing reports and expenditures for grants, gifts and donations involves two stand-alone ACCESS database systems which are not integrated with the primary financial database. Thus, without having an updated and integrated windows based data management system, considerable work and manpower is unnecessarily expended in manually compiling reports with a significant amount of time on redundant data entry and retrieval for reporting, analysis and planning purposes. Additionally, the software provider for the current Financial Management system informed the University that they are getting out of the software business on 31 August 2006 , and suggested that the University look for alternative software. Various available software packages on the local market with multiple language and currency features have been researched. A customized Financial Management system which is multi-currency, multi-lingual, provides for electronic document attachments and transfer approvals, manages fixed assets and inventory, as well as budgeting and grant management, is able to produce reports compatible with the requirements of the Ministry of Education, and is able to be integrated with the data of the Academic, Personnel and Development Offices is available with the needed hardware and software customization for $42,000 from Bisan, a local Palestinian software company.
