Members of the university community play a critical role in safeguarding Stanford’s resources. At Stanford, financial stewardship means ensuring that university resources are used appropriately, in support of the mission, and comply with policies, laws, and sponsor or donor intent.
A key part of ensuring sound accounting and financial management practices includes internal transfers of money or expenses from one account to another. This activity is facilitated through the Oracle Financials iJournals system, which will have a new authority and access model starting February 2024.
What’s changing?
Currently, all new employees automatically receive access to the iJournals system, regardless of their role or responsibilities. Effective February 5, 2024, Financial Management Services’ (FMS) will implement a new authority and access model for the system, which will require new “iJournals Public” users to be granted access and require both new and current iJournals Public users to complete training requirements (see details in the table below). This change establishes a process for providing foundational knowledge on standards expense and revenue journal activities, including best practices and considerations, before an employee gains access to iJournals.
The change aligns with FMS' standard practice around access to financial systems (such as iProcurement, Expense Requests, and PCard), which is to reserve system access to individuals for whom specific financial activities are a responsibility of their role by granting appropriate privileges in Authority Manager and by completing required training.
What action is required?
| New employees | Current employees | |
| "iJournals Public" user | All new employees who need iJournals Public access will need to do the following to gain initial access: 1) Contact the appropriate school/unit authority grantor to gain the new SU iJournals Public privilege. 2) Complete FIN-0210: Introduction to iJournals (and its prerequisites, if not already completed). |
Current employees who have iJournals Public access will be required to complete FIN-0210: Introduction to iJournals (if they never previously completed the in-person or online version of the course) and its prerequisites to retain access. In early February, FMS will reach out to current iJournals users to take the course by midnight on May 10. FMS will auto-grant the new SU iJournals Public privilege to current users who complete the course by this date. If the requirement is not met by this deadline, system access will be removed. |
| "iJournals Specialist" or "iJournals Central" user | New users who need the iJournals Specialist or iJournals Central privilege will continue to be granted it by FMS. These users will be required to complete the updated online course FIN-0210: Introduction to iJournals (and its prerequisites, if not already completed). |
A smaller subset of employees who have current iJournals Specialist or iJournals Central privileges will also be invited to take the course to refresh their knowledge of foundational journal concepts, but they will only be required to take the FIN-0210: Introduction to iJournals course (if never previously completed) if their financial systems privileges are suspended due to expiration of their annual certification of FIN-PROG-0020: Financial Stewardship Expectations. |
Note: Approvers do not need to complete FIN-0210: Introduction to iJournals as part of gaining access to review and approve iJournal transactions. The information needed to review the journal is included in the Oracle workflow notification they have access to as an approver. Approvers only need to complete FIN-0210 if they want to retain access to initiate iJournals transactions.
About the training curriculum
FMS recently updated and launched several online courses to equip financial staff with the knowledge to support excellence in their stewardship of the university’s resources. These courses help foster a shared understanding amongst the university community of key concepts that ensure careful and thoughtful treatment of the variety of financial transactions that support the university mission.
- FIN-PROG-0020: Financial Stewardship Expectations is the prerequisite training for any faculty, staff, or students who need access to Oracle Financials systems. Note: This course has an annual recertification requirement; employees can view their certification status by clicking on the “Certification Status” link in STARS, which will display the current status of all certification programs previously taken. The course takes approximately 10 minutes to complete.
- FIN-0102: Using Stanford Chart of Accounts is the prerequisite training for individuals responsible for preparing and approving transactions in Oracle Financials or reviewing and reconciling financial transactions using Oracle Business Intelligence (OBI) financial reporting solutions. The course takes approximately 30 minutes to complete.
- FIN-0210: Introduction to iJournals describes the purpose of iJournals, differentiates between iJournals transaction types, gives an overview of the journal entry process, and identifies deadlines for journal submission and approval. The recently updated course takes approximately 30 minutes to complete.
Related resources
FMS is committed to supporting excellence in financial stewardship at the university and provides the following resources to financial staff who work with journals.
- Bookmark the Cost Transfer Approval Checklist.
- Explore the Managing Funds section on Fingate.
- Subscribe to and review past issues of the Excellence in Financial Stewardship newsletter.
- Follow the Slack channel #Stanford-FMS-News for the latest on this and related topics.
To get assistance
If you need help with financial training, please submit a support request.
For assistance with the iJournals system, contact Systems and Reporting Operations (S&RO) at @email.
