Rutgers catching up on 12K unpaid bills after tech glitches

Rutgers is struggling to pay a backlog of 12,650 bills after problems with a new computer system.

NEW BRUNSWICK -- Rutgers University officials say they have made "significant progress" in paying a backlog of 12,650 unpaid bills as the school continues to try to resolve serious glitches in its new financial accounting computer system.

The new system, called Cornerstone, was supposed to be the last major step in Rutgers' massive merger with the former University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

But the rollout of the campus-wide computer system has been plagued with problems since it began in October, school officials said. Thousands of vendors, including caterers, utility companies and guest speakers, have gone unpaid.

A Rutgers spokeswoman said it is too early to say whether the university will get a refund from the software companies involved in the troubled multi-year project.

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"The university is holding the (software) companies accountable for resolving the glitches and any resulting impacts. We are not discussing 'compensation' until or unless it becomes appropriate," said Karen Smith, a Rutgers spokeswoman.  

Rutgers is paying Oracle, the California-based software giant, $2.1 million a year to license the new financial accounting software, Smith said. SciQuest, a North Carolina-based software company, is getting a $706,581 annual licensing fee for the procurement software used in the new system.

Deloitte, the lead consultant on the Cornerstone project, has billed Rutgers about $6.7 million over the last year and a half for helping oversee the rollout, Smith said.

An Oracle spokesman said the software company is working with Rutgers to fix the problems in the system. 

"Rutgers is a valued customer and we continue to work diligently to resolve any outstanding issues or concerns," said Michael Diamond, an Oracle spokesman.

Steve Lundin, SciQuest's chief marketing officer, also said the software company is working with Rutgers.

"We are actively supporting their initiatives," Lundin said.

Deloitte, the consulting company, also said it is helping solve the problems.

"We provide a wide range of services to Rutgers and we are working collaboratively with the university and other vendors to make the Cornerstone initiative a success," said Courtney Smith, a Deloitte spokeswoman.

Cornerstone was designed to end Rutgers and UMDNJ's separate, paper-based expense management systems. Those systems, which have remained in place since the 2013 merger, would be replaced by a single, cloud-based system to manage all of the finance, human resources, payroll, procurement and expense management needs in the university's $4 billion budget.

The new system's motto is "Transforming the way we work at Rutgers," according to campus materials explaining the changes.

"We knew the task would be monumental and demanding. As with any large system-wide change, there have been some challenges. Specifically, there have been delays in paying third-party vendors," said Smith, Rutgers' spokeswoman.

While most of the campus has been on winter break, Rutgers officials worked on reprocessing 12,650 unpaid invoices. The majority of the bills were paid and the rest are in the process of being paid, school officials said.

But more bills keep coming in at the 65,000-student university, making it difficult for Rutgers to catch up.

"Rutgers continues to receive several thousand invoices from external vendors each week. Staff members are working diligently to reduce additional backlogs. During this transition, the university has developed an emergency payment process to expedite vendor payments as appropriate," Smith said.

Reports that power was shut off to some Rutgers offices and buildings because of unpaid bills appear to be unfounded, Smith said.

Rutgers' problems with Cornerstone appear to be unrelated to previous problems with a hacker attacking university websites. The school was the victim of several attacks in 2014 and 2015 that crippled the university's websites and internet access.

Those attacks were Distributed Denial of Service - or DDoS  attacks - that flooded the school's servers with requests and paralyzed Rutgers' computer networks.

Rutgers responded by spending nearly $3 million on cyber security firms and other consultants to upgrade the school's systems.

Despite the problems with the implementation, Rutgers officials said they are confident Cornerstone will be a success.

"Using platforms that are more intuitive, more robust and more streamlined will become the foundation of how we conduct business at the university," Smith said.