Case Study: Ohio Northern University achieves decentralized, stakeholder-driven budgeting and real-time reporting with Prophix Software

A Lesson in Budgeting at Ohio Northern University

Ohio Northern University, a private comprehensive university in Ada, Ohio, struggled with a centralized, spreadsheet-driven budgeting process and limited reporting from its Ellucian Banner ERP. Without a consistent submission format, the Finance team spent hundreds of hours assembling meaningful information for leadership and the Board and wanted to decentralize budgeting and improve reporting and forecasting.

The university implemented Prophix for budgeting, reporting and long-range forecasting, introducing templates, an ODBC link to Banner and automated workflows. As a result, 95 directors, deans and VPs now input budgets directly, Ohio Northern can budget 395 fund–department combinations, and teams run variance analyses, net tuition and enrollment forecasts, and personnel planning more efficiently—shifting time from preparation to strategic analysis and improving visibility across the institution.

Ohio Northern University

Mark Russell

Controller