Penn's Property Management System - Penn Printout, Oct 1992

The University of Pennsylvania's Online Computing Magazine

October 1992 - Volume 9:2

Tag Team: Penn's new Property Management System

By Teresa Leo and Angie Giunta

If you open your office door one day to someone wearing a backpack and toting a 9 1/2 inch computer that looks like a sci-fi stun gun, don't think you've come face-to-face with a fugitive from the set of Ghostbusters III. It's just a member of the University Comptroller's Property Management Group coming to tag your department's property.

The "tagger" represents the culmination of a long process precipitated by an Office of Naval Research (ONR) review of the University's procurement and property management system that put $10,000,000 of research funding in jeopardy. Penn has to comply with the policies of the ONR and a host of other government regulatory agencies to receive federal research funding. The ONR identified some serious weaknesses in the existing property management system that had the potential to severely impair the University's ability to purchase equipment under federal grants and contracts. The ONR nevertheless granted Penn conditional approval to purchase equipment with the understanding that substantial improvements would be made to the system to provide complete and accurate records of University equipment.

To improve the property management system, the administration formed a tactical team with representatives from the Comptroller's Office, the Office of Research Administration (ORA), the Senior Vice President's Office, University Management Information Services (UMIS), and the Schools. The new system, which was completed in June 1992, has been reviewed by the ONR and has earned the University unconditional approval for purchasing equipment under federal grants and contracts.

Lessons learned

The old system consisted of a database with a limited number of fields for information about property. A number of additional weaknesses made it difficult to identify and track individual items accurately, and led to the ONR's determination that property records were inadequate: Physical inventories were difficult and exact identification uncertain because equipment was not physically marked; paid invoices and purchase orders-the main sources of information-did not specify who was responsible for the property or where the delivered property would be located; there was no method to identify individuals responsible for property within specific departments; and finally, changes in the location of equipment went undetected because no procedure existed for notifying central property management personnel of such changes.

A place for everything

Under the new Property Management System, a new equipment requisition form provides more detailed information and identifies the person (the "property custodian") responsible for the equipment and its location. Bar-coded identification tags placed on most property items improve the accuracy of information recorded in the system and facilitate physical inventories. The system has security built in, with level of access (to department or to School/center information) determined at the time someone requests system access. Because updating capability is determined by an individual's access level, confidentiality of records is maintained. Finally, one person in each department has been designated as the property administrator for that department. He or she acts as liaison between the department and the Property Management Group (PMG) within the Comptroller's Office on all issues, policies, and procedures relating to property management.

The new Property Management System, together with clearly documented policies and procedures, corrects the shortcomings of the old system and offers a host of additional benefits:

Departmental users of the system can participate directly in record-keeping activities about property in their departments. This local access improves the accuracy of information recorded in the system and reduces the need for separate departmental tracking systems.
Departmental users can track property by the custodian's name, thereby improving the tracking of property if the custodian leaves the University.
Departmental users can flag property items as surplus, thereby facilitating the distribution of such items throughout the University.
Departmental users can generate customized reports about property in their departments or centers. Not only can a property administrator request a report of all items in a particular department, but he or she can tailor the report request to include only items with a particular set of specifications, such as acquisition cost or acquisition date ranges, custodian, or asset category code. These reports may also be generated by such categories as building, account number, or purchase order number.
The University can more easily provide insurance carriers with information for replacement when equipment is damaged or stolen.
The University can calculate depreciation of its assets more accurately and recover their cost over a shorter period of time.

When government property is audited, these system features help to ensure that property is being managed appropriately. Each department's use of the system, then, will provide accurate data that helps protect research grants and government funding.

How it works

When the inventory clerk ("tagger") arrives at your department, you are actually seeing the end of the property management process. The process begins when your departmental business administrator sends an equipment requisition form to the Purchasing Department, which prepares and forwards a purchase order to the vendor. The Purchasing Department also sends a copy of the requisition and purchase order to the Property Management Group (PMG) within the Comptroller's Office. The PMG obtains a monthly report of all paid purchase orders for your department. At this point, PMG accounting clerks, using the requisitions and purchase orders, jump into action and enter all paid equipment items for that month into the Property Management System. The system automatically assigns each property item a unique, nine-digit identification number. These items are now eligible for tagging by the inventory clerks.

With their hand-held scanners and reports of items to be tagged, the inventory clerks come to your department to apply a bar code tag with a unique number to each equipment item. The scanner cross- references the bar code tag number with the nine-digit item identification number, and then updates the tagged item in the Property Management System. Individuals with access privileges either in your department or in the PMG can now retrieve the department's property items in the system using either the item identification number or the tag number. The inventory clerk will return to your department at inventory time to locate these tagged items.

Ensuring success

The effectiveness of the system depends on accurate and timely data. From the equipment requisition to the purchase order to the tagging/inventory process to the movement of equipment and, ultimately, to the disposition of an item, the Property Management System relies on

The succes of property management at the University is dependent upon all its employees

everyone in a department maintaining contact with the departmental property administrator. Property administrators, in turn, need to take an active role in maintaining complete and accurate inventory information for their departments by using the system. One School actively committed to using the system is the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), a major recipient of research funding. Patrick Burke, Director of Fiscal Operations for SEAS, sums up the objective of the new system: "The success of property management at the University is dependent upon all its employees, and therefore we all play an important role in preserving research funding and supporting Penn's academic and educational mission."

TERESA LEO is a Technical Writer for DCCS/UMIS Publications; ANGIE GIUNTA is the Property Accountant for the Property Management Group within the Comptroller's Office.