Scheduled Maintenance: CPB Unavailable Nightly from 11 p.m.-9 a.m. (PT).
To support ongoing system updates, CPB will be under maintenance each night from 11 p.m.-9 a.m. (PT). Please plan to access CPB after 9 a.m. daily to ensure all nightly processes are complete.
Cardinal Planning & Budgeting (CPB) is our next-generation university budget management system that integrates salary and non-salary expense budgeting with all the various funding sources in a live, multi-user, database-driven system that automatically interfaces with other administrative systems within the Stanford environment.
Visit the CPB news page for project updates, including the CPB open lab schedule. For system status and known issues, log into CPB and hover over the System Status and Known Issues widget (icon of a computer screen with a vital sign) located on the top, right-hand side of the global application toolbar.
About
The Cardinal Planning & Budgeting system provides accurate and timely information supporting budget planning and decision-making. All budget components are planned, budgeted, and reviewed in a single environment, eliminating the need to aggregate disparate budget unit actuals and budget documents.
Below are three key benefits of CPB:
- Actuals will be brought into CPB nightly, just like in Oracle Business Intelligence (OBI), for up-to-date data.
- CPB will integrate directly with OBI, meaning there will be instant, drill-through capabilities to the transactional data needed.
- Through the Smart View add-in, you can access and manipulate data from CPB within Microsoft Excel.
Reminder: Global calculations are scheduled to run between midnight and 7 a.m.
Additionally, CPB includes Endowment Planning specifically used to forecast endowment income for future years based on forecasted changes to endowment principal entered by users for new gifts, reinvestments, sale of shares, etc.
In the future, CPB will introduce new, non-sponsored forecasting functionality, allowing units to manage finances throughout the year instead of relying on local shadow systems and spreadsheets.
How CPB Supports Budget Units and the University
The CPB system will support budget units and the University Budget Office (UBO) through each of the four phases of Stanford's annual budget cycle:
- Budget Proposal (Future Phase)
- Budget Plan (March 2025)
- Booked Budget (May 2025)
- Year-End Variance Analysis (Available October 2024)
New Sponsored and Non-Sponsored Pooled PTAs
The CPB system also features sponsored-level detail, and the UBO will offer two opportunities for budget officers to request new sponsored/non-sponsored pooled PTAs with the Office of Sponsored Research and Fund Accounting before each budget cycle - in January and March. When new pooled PTAs are needed: Download the request template, upload it to your UBO resources folder for your budget unit, rename the file to include your unit name as the suffix, and email UBO the updated file. For more guidance on requesting pooled PTAs, refer to Topic Overview: Request a New Account (PTA).
Access
Cardinal Planning & Budgeting authority is granted to budget officers, who then grant authority to individual users via Authority Manager (Subsystem: Financial System, and Business Function: Planning and Budgeting), based on their budgeting responsibilities. Staff who need access to CPB should email their supervisors or budget officers directly.
Note: A similar level of authority should also be granted for OBI Financial Reporting to enable drill-through capability and access basic data seamlessly across CPB and OBI.
- To log into the CPB system, visit https://SUcpb.stanford.edu/, and select Stanford SSO.
- Enter SUNet ID and password, if prompted.
- For support with the CPB system, please submit a support request.
Authority Roles
CPB authority roles are granted through Authority Manager and are divided into five levels of visibility, with Level 1 providing the broadest access and Level 5 providing the most restricted access. If a user is granted a role with Level 1 visibility for an organization, then they do not need additional authority roles granted at lower levels of visibility, which are more restrictive. Most users will have a role with Level 2 visibility for their organization.
The table below outlines current authority roles within the Financial System - Budget Management. When there are multiple roles at a level, the Budget Officer should grant the role that matches the person's job. Note: Some roles in levels 2-5 can be further limited down to specific Award(s), Project(s)/Task(s), Award Type(s) and Principal Owner(s). For more information on how to use Authority Manager, visit the University IT Authority Manager website.
Additionally, for more information on authority roles related to planning modules (e.g., Pooling, Transfers, and Endowment), see CPB Authority Roles documentation.
| Level of Visibility | Authority Roles (Choose One) | Process Access |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Typically for Dean's/VP Office Users:
| Read-Write access for:
|
| 2 | Typically for Department Level Users:
| Read-Write access for:
|
| 3 | Typically for Read-Only Users:
| Read-Only access for:
|
| 4 | Typically for Limited Access Users without Salary View:
| Read-Write access for:
|
| 5 | Typically for Read-Only Users without Salary View:
| Read-Only access for:
|
Learning
CPB live training sessions and open labs are offered throughout the year and align with the phases of the annual budget cycle. Training is open to budget officers and their designated analysts. Weekly open labs are available 1-2 p.m. via Zoom (drop in, no registration required) for individual support with the CPB system; view the CPB open lab schedule.
For asynchronous resources (user guides and videos), refer to this page’s How To section.
In-Application Training Hub for CPB
The In-Application Training Hub — available directly with the CPB system interface — includes process guides, tips, announcements, and links to resources (see Resources section below). These guides and tips provide helpful instructions for navigating CPB, ensuring users can complete tasks accurately and efficiently.
Historical Tidemark Trainings
To view historical Tidemark trainings, visit the UBO page and STARS courses below:
- Budget Plan Training (STARS UBO-2000)
- Booked Budget Training (STARS UBO-1000)
- Tidemark Reporting Training (STARS UBO-0430)
- Tidemark Pooled Budgeting Training (STARS UBO-1100)
How tos
Demonstrations and step-by-step user guides are available for CPB system processes.
Resources
In addition to training and courses, the following resources are available to assist CPB users:
- Calendars
- Financial Close Calendar: High-level budget cycle deadlines; month-end and year-end close dates.
- Fingate Calendar: Budgeting-related dates include: high-level budget cycle deadlines, CPB open labs, budget officer meetings, and others.
- Budget process resources:
Includes Budget Officers list, budget presentations, Budget Plan and Booked Budget deadlines, and planning assumptions. - Stanford University Budget Plans
- CPB object code hierarchy: Downloadable Excel file | Video demonstration | User guide
Reporting
There are many reports available to budget officers and analysts to aid in the budget management process. Depending upon the budget management task, you may use one or a combination of the reports available in CPB and Oracle Business Intelligence (OBI).
OBI Financial Reporting
OBI Financial Reporting supports additional analysis of actual expenditures and comparison to budget amounts using the following reporting dashboards:
- Consolidated Expenditure Reporting (CER) provides information about expenditure details, trend, variance, balance and budget, iJournals and commitments. The Expenditure Balance Summary report in the Expenditure Balance tab has a pivot table that displays summarized expenses for the period specified; shows summarized expenses to budget for FTD or PTD; and calculates the balance and percentage of budget consumed.
- Revenue and Fund Management (RFM) provides information about beginning fund balance, activity (e.g., receipts, transfers, expenses) and fund balance; as well as variance of budget vs. actual and iBudgets transaction details. The Projected Budget Variance report in the Projected Budget Variance tab shows the projected difference between budget and actual, while incorporating commitments and anticipated remaining endowment payout.
The table below provides a comparison of data found on OBI and CPB reports. For information about getting access to OBI and available training and resources, refer to OBI Financial Reporting.
| Business Need | OBI Financial Reporting | Cardinal Planning & Budgeting (CPB) |
|---|---|---|
| Daily update of data for financial analysis | OBI data is updated daily with transactions posted on the prior business day. Month-end close (MEC) data for a GL Period is available on Day 7 of MEC in the Financial Close Calendar, and data for the next GL Period is available on the following day. | CPB data is updated daily with transactions posted on the prior business day. |
| Endowment payout | OBI displays endowment payout the day after payout is posted. Refer to Month-End Close Deadlines for payout posting dates. | CPB updates its endowment payout data nightly with actual data from Oracle when available and otherwise with forecasted data. Early in month (1st to 15th): Endowment payout is a forecast that uses actuals for number of shares but a forecast for share price. Mid-to-late month (16th to 20th): Endowment payout is still a forecast but uses actuals for both number of shares and share price. Typically, the forecast will align with the actual payout posted on the 21st, though exceptions may occur. End of month (21st to month-end): Endowment payout is no longer forecasted but instead uses actuals. |
| PTA mapping | The current mapping of PAs/PTAs to pooled PAs/pooled PTAs can be viewed in OBI Expenditure and Revenue drill reports on the next business day, following changes in the mapping rules. | The mapping of PAs/PTAs to pooled PAs/pooled PTAs can be immediately viewed in the CPB PTA Mapping application and viewed in CPB reporting on the next business day, following changes in the mapping rules. |
| Analysis of 9/1 budget + iBudgets adjustments | The Budget Amount in OBI includes the 9/1 Budget for the current fiscal year plus any iBudgets adjustments. | CPB does not capture iBudgets adjustments for initial go-live. CPB is the only source for reporting on budgets that are under construction. The 9/1 budget from CPB is available in OBI once the Booked Budget process has been completed. |
| Ability to drill down to transaction details | OBI supports drills from actual expenditure amounts by PTAE to transaction details such as Earnings by Employee, Expense Requests, Procurement and iJournals. | CPB includes actual amounts by PTA and Object Code or Expenditure Type as the lowest level of detail. CPB has OBI drill-through capabilities to view expenditure and revenue transaction details. |